Cornell University Library 
 ML 390.B83 
 
 The world of music :the great composers 
 
 3 1924 021 748 128 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MUSIC UBRAftV 
 
THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
A Cornell University 
 f) Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021748128 
 
THE 
 
 WORLD OF MUSIC 
 
 BY 
 
 ANNA, COMTESSE DE BR^MONT 
 
 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 ' In music dies poor human^ speech. ' 
 
 BRENTANO'S 
 
 LONDON, CHICAGO, PARIS, WASHINGTON 
 
 1892 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In endeavouring to compile these volumes, 
 sacred to the memory of the dead, who, though 
 fallen asleep, are living to-day in all the 
 grandeur of their genius, I have approached 
 a somewhat difficult task. I do so in all 
 humbleness, feeling how little I am able to 
 convey in words that which they have trans- 
 mitte'd to posterity in their undying music. 
 Still, in my poor endeavours, I may, per- 
 chance, bring some good to my fellow-mortals, 
 by inducing them to contemplate the trials 
 and struggles which these great musicians, 
 singers, and composers have endured on their 
 weary journey, buoyed up by the soul-inspiring 
 strains of melody, battling against poverty 
 and scepticism, yet loyally steadfast to their 
 art. Perhaps, too, these pages may fall into 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 the hands of the loiterer through life, and 
 may arouse in him a hidden, inborn desire 
 to throw frivolity to the winds and to secure 
 a better and more lasting comfort. 
 
 What is it that has often soothed the 
 pillow of the dying? The strain of some- 
 soft melody. What is it that has roused the 
 spirit of a forlorn hope to intensity when 
 charging upon death? The inspiring music 
 of a national air. What is it that checks the 
 wicked spirit of unholy men, jeering at re- 
 ligion and mocking God ?^ The solemn tones 
 of the organ compelling^ solemnity as it 
 vibrates through the vaultecfj^of. 
 
 Then, too, the reading of these pages may 
 induce many an idle artist to strive in emula- 
 tion to rival those who have gone, before ; for, 
 though a hard taskmistress,. Music is a rich 
 rewarder to all steadfast, conscientious, and 
 loving worshippers. 
 
 I am principally indebted in these volumes 
 for information to the works of Philipp Spitta, 
 Mr. Sutherland Edwards, and to the charming 
 memoir of Ole Bull, written by his wife, 
 Mrs. Sara C. Bull ; and I have not refrained 
 
PREFACE vii 
 
 in the latter case from quoting in her own 
 sweet, pathetic words one of the most touch- 
 ing tributes paid to the dying master's last 
 moments. 
 
 Anna de Br£mont 
 
 (?z/« Dunphy). 
 
 Cavendish Mansions, 
 Portland Place, London. - 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 AUBER: 1782-1871 
 BACH: 1685-1750 
 ^BEETHOVEN: 1770- 1827 
 
 S,CHOPIN: 1809-1849 
 GLUCK: 1714-1787 
 HANDEL: 1685-1759 
 HAYDN: 1732-1809 . 
 
 S MENDELSSOHN : 1809-1847 
 MEYERBEER: 1791-1864 
 MOZART: 1756-1791 
 ROSSINI : 1792-1868 . 
 SCHUBERT: 1797-1828 
 
 ■^SCHUMANN: 1810-1856 
 
 >( WAGNER: 1813-1883 . 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 12 
 
 
 . 42 
 
 
 • 67 
 
 
 • 87 
 
 . 
 
 ■ 98 
 
 
 . 112 
 
 
 . 128 
 
 
 146 
 
 
 • IS7 
 
 
 . 190 
 
 
 . 201 
 
 
 . 218 
 
 
 ■ 232 
 
A U B E R 
 
 1782-1871 
 
 THERE is great sweetness, mingled with 
 dignity and reserve, in the face of Auber 
 as seen in the portraits of the great French 
 composer. The brow is broad and high. The 
 eyes are deeply set, and seem to shine with 
 kindliness through theii* half-closed lids. The 
 nose, straight and prominent, proclaims the 
 master to have been a man of resolution, al- 
 though the sensitive curves of the nostril denote 
 an emotional delicacy or timidity, a' trait which 
 is said to have amounted almost to a weak- 
 ness in his youth, and the influence of which 
 he never lost throughout the course of his long 
 and eventful life. The chin, broad and strongly 
 marked, bespeaks the convivial spirit and gener- 
 ous friend. But it is in the mouth we find the 
 creator of melody. The lips seem attuned 
 with silent song. A smile lurks in the corners 
 with their witty curves. There is esprit in 
 every mobile line. Altogether it is a charm- 
 A 
 
2 THE GREAT COMPOSERS ' 
 
 ingly pleasing and at the same time powerful 
 face. 
 
 Daniel Francis Esprit Auber was at once 
 the greatest and the most characteristic of the 
 French composers. His music has all the 
 brightness and sweetness of his native land in 
 its loveliest aspect, and again is full of the 
 martial fire of that eminently warlike nation. 
 The indescribable verve and chic of the French 
 people are caught and imprisoned in his match- 
 less melodies with an art that defies the inspira- 
 tion of the poet and the brush of the most 
 gifted painter. 
 
 The music of a nation is the voice of its 
 instinct and taste, the language of its heart 
 and soul. Art attracts all these, as a tree 
 attracts the birds of the air. All seek shelter 
 amid the fragrant shadow of her leaves. The 
 poet soars from branch to branch, sunning 
 himself on the topmost bough, or piercing 
 with his golden beak the secrets of her mossy 
 trunk. But music is a bird so spirituel, that 
 its form is ever unseen as it flits around that 
 wondrous tree. We can only hear its magic 
 tones singing of love, of hope, of passion, and 
 despair, of the homely joys of the fireside, 
 of the stirring events of patriotism, and the 
 divine aspirations of earth-bound hearts. 
 
AUBER 3 
 
 Therefore, greater than the poet, the writer, 
 and the painter, is music. For, does it not 
 plume its resplendent wings at the very throne 
 of God Himself? What more fitting language 
 could be chosen to express the spirit of a nation? 
 Consequently, the man who is born with the 
 gift to understand that secret voice can be the 
 only true exponent of the soul of his people. 
 Such a one was Auber. 
 
 In the year 1782 the master was born one 
 bleak morning in January, while his mother 
 was on a visit to the quaint little town of Caen. 
 The Aubers were of old Norman stock, but a 
 couple of generations born in Paris entitled 
 the great composer to consider himself one ot 
 her sons — a distinction he loved with all the 
 ardour of a true Parisian. The P^re Auber was 
 passionately fond of music, and was himself 
 an amateur of no mean pretension. Conse- 
 quently, it can be readily imagined how happy 
 the good father felt to discover in his young 
 son signs of dawning musical talent, which, no 
 doubt, to the paternal eyes assumed the pro- 
 portions of budding genius. We can picture 
 the refined and artistic home of the young 
 Auber, before the vicissitudes of the king, whom 
 his father served, brought trouble and disaster 
 to that happy circle, — the evenings of song 
 
4 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 and music, when Pere Auber taught the tiny 
 hand of the baby composer to wield the bow 
 and finger his beloved violin, when the gentle 
 mother drew from the chords of her harp a 
 wealth of melody, which awoke within the baby 
 soul of her boy the first holy emotions of music. 
 Can we not see the bright eyes sparkling with 
 tears of joy, the chubby hands clapped with 
 glee, until worn out with emotion the little 
 fellow drops asleep, and is borne off to bed by 
 the kind bonne ? Ah ! it was the influence of 
 such simple happy hours as these that imbued 
 the music of Auber with much of its pure and 
 joyous character. 
 
 The master's youth was passed in what might 
 be termed the dolcefar niente of musical study. 
 He loved to employ his time in writing pretty 
 ballads for the delectation of the charming 
 ladies of his mother's circle. And one of his 
 songs, ' Bonjour,' had a brilliant if brief suc- 
 cess. Finally, tired and disgusted with his 
 failures, for his brain was not ripe enough to 
 bring forth the fruit of his soul, he grew im- 
 patient with his musical fate, and resolved to 
 devote himself to commerce. The good father, 
 in despair, but still hopeful of the future of his 
 son in the world of music, humoured the caprice 
 of the youth, and procured him an engagement 
 
AUBER 5 
 
 in a commercial house in London. And sub- 
 sequent events proved that the Pere Auber was 
 , as wise as he was tolerant of his son's vagaries ; 
 for, soon wearying of the clerk's desk, the 
 master speedily returned to the crotchets and 
 quavers of his beloved song-writing. Inspired, 
 as he often declared, by the dazzling beauty 
 and exquisite delicacy of the fair English 
 women about him, he wrote enthusiastically, 
 and soon became a feature, if not a celebrity, 
 of London salons. It is pleasant to contem- 
 plate the debonair young Frenchman, with a 
 joyous spirit that rose above the damp and fog 
 of the chilly English climate, carrying the 
 sweetness of his song and buoyancy of humour 
 into the ofttimes depressing atmosphere of a 
 typical London drawing-room. 
 
 There is a story that one night Auber not 
 only lost his way, but lost his violin as well, in 
 a dense fog. Undaunted, he trudged along, 
 keeping up his courage by improvising a song 
 or two. At length he found himself near the 
 Thames. The faintly reflected glow of a 
 spluttering lamp, as the fog lightened, led him 
 to the welcome shelter of an inn. 
 
 On entering, the first thing that met his gaze 
 was the familiar sight of the green shagreen case 
 of his violin lying on the grimy counter of the bar. 
 
6 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 ' Mon Dieu ! ' he cried, as he seized the case, 
 ' I have found you at last ! ' 
 
 'Wot's that daft little Frenchman a-doing 
 with that fiddle?' growled one of a party of 
 boatmen drinking at the bar. ' Take h'it away 
 from 'im.' 
 
 ' It 's mine ! ' protested young Auber, as he 
 clutched his prized violin. 
 
 ' Drap it ! ' roared the fellow with an oath, 
 as he struck out at the master. 
 
 But young Auber defended himself by 
 adroitly avoiding the blows of the burly boat- 
 man, and shielding with his body the precious 
 violin. At last one of the party of boatmen 
 calmly observed — 
 
 ' If h'it 's 'isen, let 's see if 'ee can play it' 
 
 Now, in those days, fiddle-playing was looked 
 upon by the ignorant as almost a black art. 
 And the hostility of the rough crowd, assembled 
 there in the dimly-lighted dingy bar-room, 
 soon changed to a feeling of awe as they 
 watched the young Frenchman, perched upon 
 the counter, tuning his instrument. But when 
 he struck the bow across the strings, and drew 
 forth strains sweet and tender, awe melted into 
 admiration. 
 
 ' H'it 's 'isen ! ' cried the burly boatman who 
 had found the violin. 
 
AUBER 7 
 
 When the master was at last permitted to 
 depart, he was worn out with playing for his 
 insatiable audience. The fog had lifted, and 
 by the light of the early dawn the admiring 
 boatmen led him out of the strange quarter 
 into which he had strayed, and did not leave 
 him until they had seen him safely under his 
 own roof 
 
 On his return to Paris, we find Auber again 
 engrossed in the pleasant pursuit of his musical 
 studies, dangling around drawing-rooms, at 
 once the delight and the disappointment of 
 the indulgent Pere Auber, until at length what 
 might be called the irony of fate decided his 
 true career. He had composed a concerto, but 
 through a singular and inexplicable timidity 
 dreaded to acknowledge the composition, and 
 prevailed on his friend and confrere, Lamarre, 
 to claim the authorship. Success crowned this 
 disclaimed effort, which was followed by an- 
 other and still another, until the generous 
 Lamarre finally disclosed the truth of the 
 authorship, and young Auber found himself in 
 a measure tasting the sweets of fame. Soon 
 we find the Pere Auber, elated with the success 
 of his beloved son, interviewing Cherubini on 
 the subject, and seeking the approval of the 
 great composer. 
 
8 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 ' My son ! ' exclaims the fond father, ' is he 
 not a genius ? See what he has already accom- 
 plished, and at his age, is it not wonderful ? ' 
 
 ' Not a bit of a wonder,' abruptly replies the 
 austere master, who had tasted all the bitter- 
 ness of disappointment, and believed only in 
 the sternest application to study. ' He knows 
 nothing of music ; tell him to sponge out all 
 those little successes, and begin to study the 
 A B C of his art.' 
 
 • Will you teach him ? ' anxiously inquires 
 the Thre Auber, a wise man, though an over- 
 indulgent father. 
 
 ' I will ! ' was the laconic reply. 
 
 And thus the life-work of the greatest of 
 French composers began. There can be no 
 doubt of the influence of the classic school of 
 Cherubini on the inspiration of Auber, whose 
 sparkling style, brilliant as a diamond, gained 
 an added lustre in the pearl-like setting of the 
 master's chaste and elegant method. Auber 
 began no serious work until he was thirty-eight 
 years old — an age which found Mozart and 
 Rossini famous and resting on their laurels. 
 But, as a recent writer wittily observes, he had 
 the good sense to live to be eighty-nine, and 
 thereby made up for the time which he had 
 lost at the beginning of his life. Still, at the 
 
AUBER 9 
 
 ripe age of. thirty-eight, Fortune continued to 
 play the wanton with him, and rewarded his 
 first opera, Le S^jour Militaire, not with the 
 fondly hoped-for success, but failure. Then he 
 abandoned any further attempt for a period of 
 six years. But the divine fire of inspiration 
 could not be quenched by the mists of failure, 
 and broke out anew, resulting in his second 
 opera, Le Testament ; ou les Billets-Doux. Again 
 the provoking jade Fortune deceived him, and 
 brought him a second failure. But the fire of 
 inspiration was not to be put out this time, for 
 Auber had begun to believe in himself. He 
 boldly attacked the fickle dame, and wrung 
 from her a well-deserved success in the third 
 opera. La Bergere Chdtelaine. At this point of 
 his career he met the man whose genius, com- 
 bined with his own, was to bring them mutual 
 fame and fortune, — Scribe, one of the most 
 fertile of playwrights, and undoubtedly the 
 greatest librettist of the nineteenth century. 
 We can imagine the labour of love which these 
 two great minds performed together. The 
 delight of the writer to hear his words breathed 
 forth in such divine strains, and the rapture of 
 the composer on finding a mind whose lan- 
 guage could interpret the wordless thought of 
 his inspired melody. The fame of this artistic 
 
10 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 union culminated in Auber's masterpiece, La 
 Muette de Portici, better known- to the English- 
 speaking people by the name of its greatest 
 hero, Masaniello. Of this splendid opera, 
 Wagner, that stern critic, whose judgment is 
 undoubtedly as great as his transcendent 
 genius, says, with a conviction thoroughly 
 free from any undue partiality in the French 
 master's favour — ' The bold effects of instru- 
 mentation, particularly in the treatment of the 
 strings, the drastic grouping of the choral 
 masses, which here for the first time take an 
 important part in the action, are no less than 
 original harmonies and happy strokes of dramatic 
 characterisation. ' 
 
 This masterpiece was so imbued with the 
 feeling of the time in which it was written — 
 namely, the spirit of Revolution, which was 
 fast arising to sweep over France, and crush 
 the existing powers then reigning, as well as 
 destroy all vestiges of the old regime, that it is 
 said the performance of Masaniello was the 
 ilint that set alight the riotous fires of revolu- 
 tion in Brussels, whereby the Dutch were 
 driven out of the country. When we realise 
 the almost marvellous power of music in setting 
 the hearts of men aflame throughout every 
 epoch in the history of the world, we can 
 
AUBER II 
 
 understand the effect of this splendid opera on 
 the spirit of a nation ripe and ready for war. 
 
 Strange to say, the death of Auber was due 
 to the influence of those self-same passions he 
 had so wonderful a power in arousing. It was 
 the awful days and nights of the Paris Com- 
 mune that cut off, in the midst of scenes of 
 terror and bloodshed, the life of the charming 
 debonair old master. And sadder still is 
 the thought of the fate of all that remained of 
 the dead composer. It is related that when 
 his body was lying in the church awaiting 
 burial, the mob seized it, cast it among their 
 murdered victims, then, in their frenzy, set 
 fire to the ghastly pile. And thus was lost, 
 in the smoke of that tragedy of war, all that 
 was earthly of the glorious intellect that had 
 given to the world the soul-stirring music of 
 Masaniello. 
 
BACH 
 
 1685-1750 
 
 AS the Pyramid adds to the wonders of the 
 East, so does Bach to the glories of music 
 — a great monument looming up for all time. 
 When the splendid works of a thousand musi- 
 cians have crumbled, like the lost temples of 
 Egypt, beneath the relentless sweep of ages, and 
 lie buried in the sands of oblivion, the name of 
 the divine master of Prelude, the creator of the 
 beautiful mysteries of the Fugue, the genius of 
 Counterpoint, shall live in those marvellous 
 productions with a fame as enduring as the 
 invincible walls of the mighty Pyramids. 
 Colossal in their structure, heaven-born in their 
 grandeur, pure as the stars of night in their 
 spiritual simplicity, they proclaim the master to 
 have been a true church-composer inspired by 
 the most sacred feelings of religion, a man born 
 of God. 
 
 ' There is only one Bach ! ' exclaimed a 
 famous warrior-king, and all the world of to-day 
 echoes the eulogy of Frederick the Great. 
 
BACH 13 
 
 Schumann, the sweetest singer of his time, and 
 no doubt the most competent judge of the 
 sublime works of the great inaster, laid at the 
 feet of Bach this tribute worthy to be inscribed 
 on the memorial of the greatest of mankind — 
 
 ' To him music owes almost as great a debt as 
 Religion owes to its Founder.' 
 
 Living ever within the shadow of the 
 sanctuary, his life-work as Mattre de Chapelle 
 was bound by the sacred limits of the chancel. 
 The a^ltar was his stage, and the holy drama of 
 the Christian faith his inspiration, which he 
 poured forth in the grand, sonorous paean of the 
 organ, and voiced in the majestic measures of 
 the chorale. He saw ever before him, with the 
 eyes of the soul, the glory of eternity. Its 
 wondrous light illumined with the glow of hope 
 and fire of love the works which have made 
 him the greatest and truest exponent of the 
 music of the church. To his towering genius 
 and intellect was wedded a heart as guileless as 
 a little child, and a nature as simple as a 
 peasant. Full of the tenderest family instincts, 
 his home was his shrine, wherein he secluded 
 himself, free from the ostentation, the hollow 
 pleasures, and sordid ambition of a worldly 
 life. 
 
14 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 Germany has no brighter leaf in the glittering 
 laurel wreath of her great sons than that which 
 bears thenameof Johann Sebastian Bach. The 
 family of which he was a descendant was purely 
 German, and could be traced to its home in 
 Thuringia before the time of the Reformation. 
 The earliest representative, we find, was Hans 
 Bach of Grafenrode, a sturdy peasant who 
 worked in the mines of Ilmenau. Throughout 
 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the 
 name of Bach frequently appears in the annals 
 of Grafenrode. In the village of Rockhausen, 
 not far from Arnstadt, dwelt, in the latter part of 
 the sixteenth century. Wolf Bach, also a peasant, 
 but blessed with considerable wealth. During 
 the seventeenth century numerous members 
 of the Bach family were to be found in the 
 villa'ge of Molsdorf not far from Rockhausen. 
 Above twenty members are recorded in the lapse 
 of seventy years, the men bearing the names of 
 Johann, Andreas, Georg, Ernst, Heinrich, Chris- 
 tian, Jakob, and Paul, many of which were 
 constantly repeated in the line from which 
 Sebastian Bach was descended. Johann Bach, 
 who was musician to General Wrangel, was a 
 native of this plage, and the first musician of 
 the Molsdorf line. He is quaintly described as 
 •an ingenious musician.' Johann Christoph, 
 
BACH 15 
 
 though a simple farmer, had a great reputation 
 in his -time as organist and composer in 
 Thuringia. Near Gotha we iind the home of 
 the direct ancestry of Sebastian Bach. Through 
 a labyrinthal pedigree, crossed and recrossed by 
 innumerable Bachs, we come to Hans Bach of 
 Wechmar, and his son, Veit Bach, the first of 
 that great family of musicians whose strength, 
 sweetness, and skill combined to yield to 
 posterity the glorious gift of their last descend- 
 ant. Like the wonderful plant that blooms but 
 once a century, the hidden genius of a hundred 
 Bachs blossomed forth in that one resplendent 
 flower. 
 
 Veit Bach was a miller,an(Jas his distinguished 
 descendant says of him, ' He had his greatest 
 pleasure in a small cithara, which he would take 
 into the mill with him arid play on it while the 
 mill worked.' We can easily picture this homely 
 music-loving man forgetting in the sweet 
 strains of his lute the troublous times through 
 which he had passed. Forced to fly from his 
 Jiome in Hungary, through religious persecu- 
 tion, he was driven from one place to another 
 by the enemies of Lutheranism, until he found 
 safety in his native village in Thuringia. We 
 can fancy the placid, sunny life of Veit amid 
 the whirring music of the mill, the melody of 
 
i6 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 the dripping waters, the song of the flail as it 
 swung to and fro, wielded by the vigorous 
 hands of some lusty peasant. No doubt the 
 steady rhythm of the wheel mingling with the 
 sweet notes of his cithara made a sort of rude 
 tempo to his" rustic music, and thus taught him 
 time. Can we not see the good peasant-folk, 
 neighbours, and strangers, dropping in to the 
 old mill for pleasure as well as business, to 
 enjoy an hour or so of music when the bargain 
 had been made for the wares of the musical 
 miller? And thus was laid the foundation of 
 that mighty family of musicians. 
 
 The art which Veit had so laboriously taught 
 himself, albeit for pleasure, attained the dignity 
 of a profession in his son, Hans Bach, the great- 
 grandfather of Sebastian Bach. Hans developed 
 a taste for music very young, and the good 
 father decided on letting him become a Spiel- 
 mann, placing him under the tutorship of the 
 Stadtpfeifer, or town musician, who was also a 
 Bach, doubtless a nephew or near relation of 
 Veit, and called Caspar. The youthful Hans 
 was soon ensconced in the family of Caspar in 
 the tower of the Guildhall of Gotha, the official 
 residence of Caspar. After serving his years 
 of apprenticeship in this merry household 
 where, owing to the near vicinity of the market- 
 
BACH 17 
 
 stalls, occupying the whole of the ground-floor 
 below the tower, a homely German hospitality 
 reigned — for the worthy farmers loved a little 
 music over their pipes from Caspar and his 
 pupils, — and where the pleasant duty of playing 
 the chorale at stated hours, according to a 
 quaint old custom, woke up the sleepy market- 
 place, Hans returned to his native village, 
 taking his place as professional musician 
 together with the trade of carpet-weaver, and 
 bringing to his fireside a wife, Anna Schmied, 
 daughter of an innkeeper. To his skill as a 
 ' fiddler ' Hans united a merry, jovial disposition, 
 and soon became extremely popular. His 
 services were in constant demand to assist at 
 the town-music of all the neighbouring villages. 
 That he was a wit and a wag may be learned 
 from a portrait of him, a wood-cut, in which he 
 is represented playing the violin with a bell 
 on his left shoulder. A verse supported by a 
 scutcheon crowned with a fool's cap, declares 
 him to have played 'in a way of his own,' and 
 ' to wear a fine beard by which he was known.' 
 From this merry musician down we find 
 numerous Bachs, all doing honour to the family 
 profession, some farmers and tradesmen, others 
 holding responsible positions, but all serving 
 God, as devout Christians, and their beloved 
 
 B 
 
i8 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 Germany through the many wars racking her 
 peace and prosperity, until we come at last to 
 the great master himself. 
 
 Johann Sebastian Bach was born in March 
 1685. The exact day is not known, although 
 some of his biographers state the 21st of that 
 month. However, the greatest of the German 
 composers saw the light for the first time in the 
 little village of Eisenach, at a period when 
 Germany was still steeped in the lethargy of 
 dejection, when the 'winter of discontent,' 
 chilling her hopes and national energy, still 
 hung over her, although the mists of frost and 
 snow and ice were already preparing to depart 
 beneath the approaching rays of the sun of 
 prosperity. Like the first star of spring, the 
 first flower of the frozen earth. Bach appeared, 
 herald of the new and glorious season which 
 was to pour into the lap of Germany such 
 immortal blossoms as a Beethoven, a Handel, 
 a Schumann, and a Schubert. 
 
 Before we enter into a few of the details of 
 the master's career, let us indulge in a little 
 psychological study of the ancestral influences 
 which moulded the genius of the founder of the 
 great German school of music. For centuries 
 the family had lived in an atmosphere of music, 
 earnest students of that divine art, amid the 
 
BACH 19 
 
 peaceful and picturesque scenes of the valley of 
 Thuringia. Shut in from the outer world by its 
 mountains, they passed their simple lives in the 
 innocent enjoyments to be found in those rustic 
 surroundings. Frugal in their tastes, healthy 
 in their inclinations, rugged in body, they loved 
 nature with an aiifection calm and deep, as de- 
 void of passion as the air of those pleasant 
 valleys was free from the taint of the great 
 cities lying far beyond their mountain-barriers. 
 The solitude of the fragrant woods, the sweet 
 loneliness of the valley, the profound calm of 
 the night, the grandeur of the storm tossing 
 and surging through the mighty oaks, or dash- 
 ing its way in torrents down the mountain-side, 
 filled their souls with a poetic sense which 
 found vent in music. For music alone could 
 express their truly German appreciation of 
 nature's beauties. Their metaphysical spirits 
 sought within themselves the key-note to en- 
 tone the sublime scenes before them. Their 
 surroundings narrowed the outlook of their 
 lives, but deepened and concentrated the feel- 
 ings within them, until they became a spring 
 from whence flowed the truest and most ideal 
 form' of music. The most primitive rustic of 
 them all, would draw around him the good 
 Frau and little ones, in the cool of the 
 
20 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 summer evening, or glow of the winter night, 
 and call forth from his rude instrument sweet 
 strains expressing love and peace ; or stirring 
 notes depicting war and strife ; or again tink- 
 ling, dance-inspiring themes, until the feet of 
 his listeners re-echoed the rhythm. They had 
 not books, novels, or newspapers, neither had 
 they the theatre nor the opera. But they had 
 the violin, the cithara, and the viol, all sufficient 
 to them for the unknown amusements of the 
 outer world. 
 
 As generations passed, each increased the 
 store of musical skill handed down by their 
 predecessors. This wealth of musical legacy, 
 tempered by a chaste and noble style, induced 
 by the pious lives of all those austere Protes- 
 tant men and women, brought to Sebastian 
 Bach a heritage of music which gave to the 
 world his transcendent genius. 
 
 At the age of ten years we find the young 
 Sebastian left an orphan, and entrusted to the 
 care of his elder brother Christoph. The boy 
 had been taught the violin by his father, 
 Ambrosius, who soon discovered the little 
 fellow's remarkable gift. The elder brother 
 undertook the course of musical training so 
 abruptly discontinued by the death of his 
 parents. But this brother is said to have been 
 
BACH 21 
 
 a hard and aUstere taskmaster, and young Bach 
 found the path of learning severely free from 
 the kindly care and tender consideration of the 
 lost father. Christoph, filled with the pride of 
 seniority, endeavoured to quell the boy's ambi- 
 tion, which sought untiringly for more and 
 more difficult pieces to master, by withholding 
 from him some of his most cherished collections 
 of manuscript. One, a work of organ music, 
 excited the boy's desire to such a degree that 
 he resolved to steal it from its place in the 
 cupboard where Christoph had secreted it, 
 thinking the boy would not discover it. But 
 the eyes of young Bach, sharpened by zeal, 
 detected the coveted scroll behind the wire 
 network of the cupboard. And in the stillness 
 of the night, when all were sleeping, the little 
 fellow steals on tiptoe from his chamber in the 
 garret of, the old house, groping cautiously 
 down^the narrow stairway, through the silen-t 
 room, until at last his tiny fingers find their 
 way through the network of the closet, and he 
 extracts the coveted roll of manuscript. With 
 his treasure clasped to his breast the little 
 fellow retraces his steps, now trembling with 
 apprehension and dread lest that sleeping 
 brother should suddenly appear like a ghost 
 in the darkness. But the chamber under the 
 
22 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 eaves is at last gained in safety, and the boy 
 spreads his treasure on the floor, where, by the 
 light of the moon, streaming in the latticed 
 window high above his head, he sets to work to 
 copy the MS. The moon wanes and the dawn 
 is approaching before his little fingers stop, worn 
 out with their work, and he again steals adown 
 the stairway to the bookcase, restores the 
 treasure, and then scampers noiselessly back 
 to bed. And thus every night for months this 
 childish drama is enacted, until the boy has 
 copied the entire work ; but alas ! that the 
 work of all those patient nights should have 
 been ruthlessly and heartlessly confiscated by 
 that hard, unsympathetic brother. It is an old 
 story, told by every biographer of Bach, in 
 almost every language of the present day ; but 
 it is always pathetic, always teaching its lesson, 
 that the parents and guardians of children may 
 well take to heart, — the lesson that inculcates 
 tender consideration in lieu of unreasoning 
 severity with the innocent vagaries of child- 
 hood. 
 
 The boyhood of Bach was sad and full of 
 vicissitudes. After the death of his brother 
 Christoph he was again thrown on the world. 
 His beautiful soprano voice attracted the 
 attention of the master of the St. Michael's 
 
BACH 23 
 
 Gymnasium at Luneburg. And he was soon 
 installed as chorister in the local choir, and a 
 place given him in the school, where he was 
 trained in music and instructed in the general 
 rudiments of a common education. Again 
 misfortune overtook the poor lad in the loss of 
 his voice. Then ensued a period of three long 
 years of solitude and semi-starvation. Although 
 a pupil at the school, he had no means of sup- 
 port, and lived as best he could ; but it has 
 never been discovered how he earned money 
 for his board and lodging. Still those dreary 
 times had their solace in the boy's wonderful 
 love of music and delight in nature. The long 
 tramp of five German miles from Luneburg to 
 the town of Hamburg, where he went to hear 
 the great Reinken play the organ of the Church 
 of St. Katherine, was full of pleasure. Life was 
 young within him, and he was filled with the 
 intense capacity for enjoyment that sent his 
 steps bounding along over the grassy fields, 
 drove him into a merry chase after a flying 
 squirrel, or tempted him into climbing a tree to 
 take a peep at some feathered family in their 
 nest. It sharpened the young appetite until 
 the crusts of bread, eaten during a rest while 
 stretched under the shade of an oak, tasted as 
 sweet as the feast of a prince. And when the 
 
24 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 town was reached another joy greeted the dusty 
 worn-out boy as he crept into a hiding-place 
 near the organ, from whence he could both see 
 and hear the great master at his post by the 
 instrument, totally unconscious of his secret 
 listener ; for Reinken was very jealous of his 
 art, and would permit no one to hear him 
 practise the methods which gave him pro- 
 ficiency in his playing. And so the master 
 played hour after hour, ravishing the ears of 
 ■the boy with rich melody. When darkness 
 had settled down on church and town, the poor 
 lad would set out on his long tramp back to 
 Luneburg, weary of limb, but happy of heart, 
 his soul refreshed and strengthened by that 
 stolen feast of music. However, the hour of 
 catastrophe at last came. One summer day 
 young Bach more than usually worn out by his 
 journey from Luneburg, footsore and hungry, 
 crept into his hiding-place in the organ loft. 
 The sweet strains evoked by the nimble fingers 
 of Reinken soothed him, making him forget the 
 long German miles, the hot, dusty road, the 
 hunger gnawing his empty stomach, until lulled 
 into a sleep he lost his balance and fell from 
 the narrow ledge of the organ on which he 
 crouched. In surprise and rage the master 
 seized the luckless boy and gave him such a 
 
BACH 25 
 
 vigorous cuffing that he fell almost fainting at 
 his feet. Then touched by the boy's pallid 
 face he roughly asked him what he was doing 
 there. 
 
 ' I am hungry,' answered young Bach, turning 
 his eyes towards the instrument. 
 
 ' For what ? ' brusquely cried the m'aster. 
 
 ' For more music' 
 
 But the master, angry and frightened at the 
 boy's persistence, drove him off, and that was 
 the end of young Bach's stolen concerts, 
 although years after, when he had returned 
 to Liineburg a famous performer on that noble 
 instrument, and the master was an old man 
 of ninety-nine years, he embraced, with tears 
 in his eyes, the man whom as a lad he had 
 beaten and driven away, hailing him as his 
 successor, worthy to wear his mantle as the 
 master of improvisation. Such is the irony of 
 Fate. 
 
 Now and then, on those tramps in quest of 
 music, Bach would meet with a helping friend, 
 ofttimes a comrade as poor as himself, but for 
 the time better equipped with refreshments ; or 
 a good-natured peasant would invite him to 
 take a seat in the cart, regaling him with food 
 and gossip. Again Luck would suddenly smile 
 on him, as it did one day when he was return- 
 
26 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 ing from Hamburg without a meal of any kind. 
 Passing a wayside inn he paused before it, 
 looking wistfully and longingly at its hospitable 
 doors ; which, alas ! could not open for him, 
 since he had not the wherewithal to buy a 
 morsel of the cooking viands, the fragrance of 
 which was so temptingly borne to him. He 
 would not beg, poor, proud German lad ; but 
 some kind heart within was touched by his 
 appealing face, for when he turned to go a 
 couple of herring- heads fell at his 'feet. He 
 gladly picked them up, and pocketing them 
 pursued his road homewards. The joy of the 
 starving boy may easily be imagined when he 
 found in each head a Danish ducat. No doubt 
 the welcome gift cheered him with the thought 
 of all the unseen, unknown benefits perhaps 
 awaiting him in the future, as well as affording 
 him two or three journeys to Hamburg. 
 
 At length the dismal record of school-days 
 came to an end, and the boy's life began to put 
 forth blossoms. He was soon appointed to a 
 place as violinist in the court chapel of the 
 Duke of Saxe- Weimar, a position he no doubt 
 owed to the influence of his numerous relations 
 in Saxony. Life at Weimar began very 
 pleasantly and auspiciously for the young artist. 
 The security of a position of independence, 
 
BACH 27 
 
 however humble^ gave him fresh interest in 
 his musical studies. His training heretofore 
 had been on the organ and clavier playing. 
 Now he found near him opportunities of making 
 acquaintance with other branches of his art, 
 particularly with the Italian works which were 
 in great favour at the court. Johann Paul' 
 Westhoff, the private musician of the Duke, 
 evinced much interest in the youthful Bach, 
 and no doubt aided him to a considerable 
 degree by his experience in music as well as 
 the world, for Westhoff was a man of much 
 culture and kindliness of heart. Another in- 
 fluence in the art-life of the youth was the 
 renowned organist, Johann EfHer, who kept 
 him in touch with church music, and assisted 
 to mature his innate gift for sacred music. 
 These and other minor interests served to 
 make Bach pass a few very happy months. 
 During the stay at Weimar he paid a visit 
 to Arnstadt, an old town filled with memories 
 of numerous Bachs, whose generations had 
 lived and died there, all pursuing their beloved 
 avocation of music. Naturally the young 
 Sebastian's heart yearned to see the old place, 
 and he seized the first chance of paying it a 
 visit. Now, a new organ had been recently 
 built in Arnstadt, and all that was needed to 
 
28 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 make the Consistory happy was an organist of 
 skill and renown sufficient to do justice to the 
 post and the instrument, the pride of the town. 
 So we find young Bach almost stumbling into 
 the arms of his first real opportunity. He 
 offered to play only for the love of the art 
 which made him the master of the noble 
 instrument. The Consistory came to enjoy 
 the pleasure of hearing their fine organ played 
 by a young and ambitious stranger. Their 
 curiosity soon turned to wonder and admira- 
 tion, and they lost no time in securing Sebastian 
 at — for a poor musician — a very handsome 
 salary, partly contributed by the church, and 
 partly by the townsfolk. We can imagine the 
 joy of Sebastian at thus finding himself sud- 
 denly installed as the master of a splendid 
 instrument, in that quaint old lovely town so full 
 of tender family associations, with duties com- 
 paratively light and any amount of leisure in 
 which to pursue his favourite studies. What 
 divine ecstasy thrilled his whole being as 
 he heard the mellow golden music swelling 
 from the throat of the organ beneath the 
 touch of his hands, filling every corner of the 
 great church with heavenly sound ! It is said 
 that he would play the simplest hymn-tune 
 with such exquisite beauty that the congre- 
 
BACH 
 
 29 
 
 gation forgot, in their reverent admiration, to 
 sing. 
 
 Two years of peaceful life, passed between 
 his duties and great study, brought Bach to a 
 period in which he felt the need of fresh 
 inspiration, the want of artistic intercourse with 
 superior minds ; in fact, the fire of enthusiastic 
 work had died out ; he realised the necessity of 
 new fuel to feed the flame. A leave of absence 
 was asked, and granted by the Consistory for 
 the space of four weeks. With the money 
 saved out of his salary he undertook the long 
 journey on foot to Liibeck, a distance of fifty 
 miles. His object was to see and hear the 
 great master of Liibeck, Dietrich Buxtehude. 
 With heroic patience Bach set out on this long 
 tedious tramp at the end of autumn, in order 
 to reach Liibeck in time for the celebrated 
 Abendmusiken, or evening performances held in 
 the Church of St. Mary's of Liibeck during 
 Advent. These evening concerts had been 
 instituted by Buxtehude at once for the 
 edification and education of the people, and 
 became an institution which lasted for two 
 centuries. 
 
 The. closing light of the short autumn day 
 found the worn-out youth entering the cheery 
 streets of Liibeck. The homely rays from inn 
 
30 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 and cottage greeted him kindly. A humble 
 resting-place is soon found by the ambitious 
 boy, who wisely resolved to expend sparingly 
 his small store of savings in the poor and 
 cleanly loft of a working man's cottage. A 
 coarse but generous supper soon refreshed him, 
 and in the soft autumn night, under the light of 
 the full silvery moon, we see him set out on a 
 lonely stroll through the sleeping town. We 
 join him in his nocturnal wanderings until his 
 steps linger beside the fine old church of St. 
 Mary's, where he pauses to gaze with fond 
 reverence on the sacred pile, to him the temple 
 of music wherein slumbers the melodious soul of 
 the great organ. We might almost feel the 
 thoughts of his soul, swelling with . beautiful 
 passion into the strains of a silent canticle of 
 thanksgiving, as his eyes dwell on the abode, 
 hushed in repose, of the great master he had 
 journeyed so long and weariedly to see and 
 hear. Perhaps as he pressed his cot, tears 
 softened his hard pillow, tears of joy that he 
 would awaken to find his dreams of the past 
 two years at last realised. Simple German 
 youth that he was, he possessed all the wonder- 
 ful childlike depth of feeling of his nation, a 
 marvellous spring of emotion that could make 
 the strongest nature melt with sympathy, not 
 
. BACH 31 
 
 with the actual fact alone, but the bare thought 
 of the realisation of some cherished object. 
 
 The picture of the entrance of the unknown 
 and friendless Bach into Liibeck would not be 
 complete without the contrasting one of the 
 entrance of his great contemporary Handel 
 into the same town, alas, how different ! Handel 
 departs from Hamburg in the glorious weather 
 of midsummer, his journey made delightful by 
 the care and attentions of admiring friends, 
 while his entrance into Liibeck is one of social 
 and municipal rejoicing. For has he not come 
 at the invitation of the Town-council to hear 
 and try their grand organ, and accept a very 
 handsome honorarium, sh9uld it suit his pleasure 
 to remain in their midst for a time? 
 
 Buxtehude was not long in discovering the 
 genius of the youth who so humbly and enthusi- 
 astically sought him out. And Bach soon found 
 himself in a new sphere of art, which fascinated 
 him to such a degree that he plunged into this 
 fresh field of study with a zest that dipve every- 
 thing else out of his mind. We find the leave 
 of absence lengthening from weeks to months, 
 and Bach still lingering in that charmed influ- 
 ence. Buxtehude had brought the science of 
 the organ to a stage of great development. 
 His chorales were finely constructed, but lacked 
 
32 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 the poetic treatment. Herein Bach surpassed 
 him, as he did in everything he received from 
 the old master. It is a most interesting study- 
 in itself, this study of the style and methods of 
 Buxtehude and its influence on Bach, who, 
 while assimilating all these new methods, never- 
 theless left upon them the stamp of his own 
 peculiar genius. On his return to Arnstadt, 
 Bach found himself involved in complications 
 with the Consistory. They grumbled at his 
 long absence, brought him to task for neglect- 
 ing to make music with the scholars, or, in 
 other words, give singing lessons to the pupils 
 of the college attached to the church — a request 
 which Bach calmly ignored, — and last, but not 
 least, the quaint protest raised against ' the 
 stranger maiden ' whom he had allowed to show 
 herself and make music, in the choir. Here we 
 come to the first romance in the life of Bach. 
 The mystery of the stranger maiden was not 
 explained to the Consistory ; for Bach, tired of 
 the difficulties with that good body, which had 
 begun to embitter his position, resolved to leave 
 Arnstadt. A year later, when installed as 
 organist at Muhlhausen, Bach began a new era 
 in his life by his marriage to the stranger maiden. 
 No doubt the gossiping old ladies of Arnstadt 
 were relieved when the news reached the little 
 
BACH 33 
 
 town that the gifted young Bach had not fallen 
 a prey to any worldly siren, and all the pretty 
 courting carried on right under their noses in 
 the old choir-loft had resulted in the delightful 
 excitement of a wedding. The Consistory re- 
 gretted their harshness, and would have the 
 young couple return, but Bach paid no heed 
 either to apologies or to renewed offers. The 
 marriage was recorded in the following quaint 
 and formal style : — ' On Oct. lytk, 1707, the 
 respectable Herr Jphann Sebastian Bach, a 
 bachelor, and organist to the Church of Saint 
 Blasius at Miihlhausen, the surviving lawful son 
 of the late most respectable Herr Ambrosius Bach, 
 the famous town organist and musician of 
 Eisenach, was married to the virtuous m,aiden 
 Maria Barbara Bach, the youngest surviving 
 unmarried daughter of the late very respectable 
 and famous artist Herr fohann Michael Bach, 
 organist at Gehren, here in our house of God, by 
 the favour of our gracious ruler, after their banns 
 had been read in Arnstadt.' 
 
 The bride was his cousin, therefore young 
 Bach followed the family tradition in marrying 
 a maiden of his own "kin. The happy couple 
 set up housekeeping in comfortable style, en- 
 abled so to do by a legacy which happened 
 to fall to them quite opportunely through the 
 C 
 
34 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 death of a brother of Sebastian's mother. This 
 step endowed the young composer's position 
 with more dignity and security. The happy 
 peace of a well-ordered home, the care of a 
 tender and adoring wife, the innocent delights 
 of family pleasures, and the sweet companion- 
 ship of the little ones that grew up rapidly 
 around him, all combined to make the master 
 a perfect man, one truly patriarchal in tastes, to 
 whom the home was the be-all and end-all of 
 every hope and aspiration. _ When we consider 
 how essential the repose and seclusion of the 
 . home ■ is to the brain worker, especially the 
 musician, the poet, and writer," where they 
 may . recuperate after the wearing flights of 
 imagination and drain of enthusiastic inspiration, 
 we can realise how blessed was Sebastian Bach 
 in the simple inclinations which found their 
 completeness and satisfaction in the domestic 
 circle. Hence his great works, majestic in 
 their spirituality, God-like in their grandeur; for 
 they found their root in a life of godliness and 
 purity, the only true inspiration of enduring 
 fame. 
 
 From this period until his death the master's 
 career was one of ever-increasing perfection 
 and fame. Antagonism did not daunt him nor 
 obstacles intimidate him. He became the 
 
BACH 35 
 
 honoured friend of kings and princes. Many 
 legends are told of the favour his genius found 
 with those great ones. At one time the Crown 
 Prince Frederick, afterwards King of Sweden, 
 summoned him to Court in order to judge for 
 himself of the master's wonderful skill on the 
 organ. Bach presented himself, a plain sober 
 figure indeed, amid the crowd of richly-clad 
 courtiers. The Prince, with royal courtesy, con- 
 ducted the composer to his seat at the organ. 
 When the master had ceased a pedal solo, the 
 Prince was so carried away with enthusiasm 
 over the marvellous skill of his execution that 
 he drew from his finger a superb ring of jewels, 
 and with his own hand placed it on the finger 
 of Bach. One of the courtiers in describing 
 the scene is said to have exclaimed — ' His feet 
 flew over the pedal board as if they had wings, 
 the ponderous tones pierced the ear like a clap 
 of thunder, and if his feet earned him such a 
 gift, what would the Prince have given him had 
 he used his hands as well ! ' 
 
 On another occasion Bach was entreated by 
 a patriotic courtier to attend the Court at 
 Dresden and uphold the glory of German music 
 against French art, as displayed in the skill of 
 a Frenchman who had gained the favour of the 
 King by his playing. Bach did not hesitate 
 
36 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 to answer the summons, as the music of his 
 country was as sacred to him as its religion. 
 There may have been some political intrigue at 
 the root of the matter. But to the simple mind 
 of the master, thoroughly unsophisticated in the 
 ways of the world, the idea that the precedence 
 of German art was in question was sufficient to 
 fire him with zeal, and he set out with all pos- 
 sible haste to reach Dresden. The day appointed 
 for the contest which was to decide between 
 Marchand, the French musician, and Sebastian 
 Bach, the German composer, at last arrived. 
 The Court, in a flutter of excitement, had 
 assembled at the house of a great noble, whom 
 the King honoured with a special visit on this 
 occasion. When all the beauty and celebrity 
 of the Court was gathered together, the King . 
 and Queen arrived and took their place in the 
 midst of the brilliant assembly. The French 
 musician, gorgeously arrayed in a velvet court- 
 dress, made his obeisance to His Majesty, and 
 then retired to an ante-room to avoid embar- 
 rassing his rival — so he declared. Bach, grave 
 and pale, attired in a simple dress of black, 
 guiltless of any ornament, advanced, holding 
 his plain three-cornered hat under his arm, and 
 saluted the King. The King glanced at him 
 coldly. 
 
BACH 
 
 37 
 
 ' So we have here a bold man who challenges 
 the well-known skill of the Frenchman ? ' 
 
 ' Even so, your Majesty,' replied Bach, ' but 
 German art has no reason to dread French 
 skill.' 
 
 ' Oh ! ho ! ' laughed the King, ' indeed, and 
 is it as profitable?' glancing at the master's 
 shabby dress. 
 
 ' Not quite, your Majesty,' answered Bach 
 unflinchingly. ' It aims at something higher 
 than mere gain. It is not an art that tricks 
 itself out gaudily to please the highest bidder.' 
 
 The King frowned at the noble candour of 
 the master, while the Court listened aghast at 
 the musician's frankness. Then the King ex- 
 claimed impatiently — 
 
 ' Begin the contest.' 
 
 In silence the King awaited the coming of 
 Marchand, whom a courtier had gone to fetch 
 from the ante-room. The King still frowned 
 and seemed in a very bad humour. At length 
 the messenger returned and declared in breath- 
 less tones that the Frenchman had disappeared. 
 A messenger was soon despatched to his lodg- 
 ings ; but on his return, he could give no 
 tidings of the object of his search further than 
 the news of his empty lodgings and the manu- 
 script of a song dedicated to the King, which 
 
38 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 had been left behind by the absconding artist. 
 Taking the book, the King bade Bach play, 
 saying — 
 
 ' Here we have the masterpiece of Marchand. 
 That is enough for the contest. It shall 
 decide.' 
 
 Bach seated himself at the harpsichord, 
 playing not only the Frenchman's masterpiece 
 with surpassing skill, but, taking up the theme, 
 began improvising a fugue of such marvellous 
 beauty that the King was overwhelmed with 
 delight. His brusqueness changed to kindness. 
 He sent the master away loaded with gifts, 
 and honoured him by conferring on him the 
 dignity of Court-musician and composer. 
 
 Bach's works are almost innumerable. He 
 composed no less than three hundred and 
 eighty cantatas for every Sunday and festival 
 during five years. Many of these compositions 
 have been lost, owing to the neglect which 
 hung over his memory for almost a century 
 after his death. Those were the busiest years 
 of his life, for during the same period he wrote 
 his magnificent Passion music, a work which 
 will live as long as German music exists. Much 
 of this splendid interpretation of the Gospels 
 has also been lost. Only two remain : the one 
 ' according to St. John,' and the other ' accord- 
 
BACH 
 
 39 
 
 ing to St. Matthew.' The admirable custom 
 of the congregation taking part in the choral 
 singing during the services of Passion week 
 was, no doubt, the inspiration which incited 
 the master to set the sacred themes of the 
 Passion to music. He divided the story into 
 two parts, ending the first section with the 
 capture of Jesus and flight of his disciples. 
 The trial before Caiaphas, the denial of Peter, 
 the sentence of Pontius Pilate, the suicide of 
 Judas, the march to Calvary, the crucifixion, 
 death, and burial of Jesus — all occur in the 
 second part. The contrast in a theme of such 
 solemn grandeur and sacred woe required 
 workmanship of the most decided genius. 
 Bach has accomplished all this in his stupend- 
 ous composition, which, had he never written 
 any other work, would have been sufficient to 
 immortalise his name. He has employed with 
 singular power a double chorus in the vehement 
 scenes of the mob pursuing and 'persecuting 
 Christ. Each sings singly until the climax is 
 reached, when they coalesce in a mighty burst 
 of passionate rage. The effect is as startling 
 as it is terrible in its abandon. The contrast 
 between the first part, with its solemn calm, 
 like the lull before a storm, and the second, 
 full of the clash of passion, thunder of rage. 
 
40 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 and whirl of doom, is well-nigh indescribable. 
 The one is essentially lyric in form and the 
 other dramatic. The musical world owes to 
 Mendelssohn a debt of eternal gratitude for 
 his revival of this sublime work at Berlin ex- 
 actly one century after its first production. 
 Since , then the master has been studied and 
 played, to the infinite benefit of modern music. 
 No master of the fugue has ever arisen to inherit 
 the mantle of Bach. His fugues are as poetical 
 in theme as they are wonderful in construction, 
 while his preludes are mines of musical wealth 
 in the golden melodies lying concealed amid 
 their chords. Not to all, alas ! is given the 
 power to penetrate their mysteries. It was the 
 genius of a Gounod alone that could have 
 created the incomparable melody of the Ave 
 Maria wedded to the first Preludium, May it 
 not be long ere another tone-poet shall ravish 
 our senses with a like discovery ! 
 
 The last years of the great master were, like 
 those of his noble contemporary Handel, over- 
 shadowed by the cloud of blindness — a dark- 
 ness that never lifted until the brightness of 
 eternity swept it away. He died the 30th day 
 of June 1750, surrounded by the few children 
 remaining of that band of twenty, and lovingly 
 tended by his second wife, Anna Magdalena. 
 
BACH 41 
 
 The last thought of that great heart was for 
 his beloved son Friedemann, to whom he left 
 his precious work of the ' art of fugue.' And 
 his last moment was a fitting close to that life 
 of grand work, when he called in faltering 
 tones to his son-in-law — 
 
 ' Your pen, Altimiol.' 
 
 Then he began to feebly dictate to him the 
 four-part chorale, ' If sunk in deepest misery.' 
 
 'That is the end of the art of fugue,' he 
 whispered softly. 
 
 Then the flame went out, and nothing 
 remained but ashes of the greatest composer 
 emblazoned on the scroll of Germany's famous 
 sons, Johann Sebastian Bach, 
 
BEETHOVEN 
 
 1770-1827 
 
 T N the hierarchy of mythology there are many 
 gods — gods of war and peace and love. 
 In the elysian fields of music there are like- 
 wise many gods, among whom there is none 
 greater in the interpretation of human love — 
 none richer in expression of the deepest emo- 
 tions of the soul — than Beethoven. Across his 
 work has been written in golden letters of 
 undying lustre the glorious name of Tone-Poet. 
 For has he not, in his flight to those heavenly 
 fields, bathed the wings of his inspiration in 
 the rainbow of sound? for sound has colour, 
 albeit invisible to human view, yet clear as 
 the rays of the stars of night to the eyes of 
 the soul. Has he not caught in every match- 
 less strain the rosy hue of love, the dazzling 
 rays of passion, the sombre tints of despair, the 
 very blackness of death? In the Moonlight 
 Sonata he has bequeathed to us a tone-poem 
 matchless in the silver purity of its harmonies, 
 
BEETHOVEN 43 
 
 full of the mystical beauty of night in its 
 dreamy voluptuousness, as it is full of the pa- 
 thetic despair of hopeless love, which pervades 
 its lovely themes like the purple mists over- 
 hanging a fair valley. How superb the colour- 
 ing of the Symphony Eroica, fitting memorial 
 of one whose career was the most splendid fail- 
 ure the world has ever beheld, whose lighf 
 went down Hke some lost sun never to shine 
 again — Napoleon Bonaparte. 
 
 Do not those stirring strains paint for us a 
 picture of alternate light and darkness, sun- 
 shine and cloud ? The thunder of the bass 
 ushers in the storm of battle. The cymbals 
 emit their crashing cries. Sharp as the clash 
 of whizzing steel rings the whirr of the wind 
 instruments. We see the smoke, we tremble 
 beneath the shock of all this din of arms. 
 Soon the tumult fades away. The low mellow 
 note of the horns steals like the disc of the 
 golden moon above the scene. The tremulous 
 tones of the violins arise like dreams, soft, 
 shadowy, unreal. In her mantle of peace 
 Sleep has wrapped each weary soldier, like the 
 warriors in Datielle's Le Rive. 
 
 Again, what grandeur of tone, what wealth 
 of purple colouring, befitting a royal mourning, 
 we find in the Mania Funebre. We hear the 
 
44 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 plaintive introduction of the strings, summon- 
 ing up before us the pale' face of woe. The 
 heart-touching melody wailed by the oboe 
 reveals to us the spirits of the dead waving 
 their shadowy hands in mournful greeting to 
 the melancholy rhythm. The sudden burst of 
 divine melody in the intermezzo comes like an 
 angelic song of hope, only to be drowned, lost, 
 extinguished in the sad wail of the minor, as 
 the last glimpse of the shore of Life fades for 
 ever amid the winds and waves of the river of 
 Death 1 
 
 In the numbers of this impressive symphony 
 the genius of Beethoven has painted, with 
 touches of immortal beauty, the life of the 
 man who was at first to him the hero, then 
 the tyrant, despised and repudiated, but in 
 death restored to his place in the homage of 
 the great composer. 
 
 It was in the year 1798, when Vienna rang 
 with the fame of the brilliant deeds of the 
 first Consul, that Beethoven met Napoleon. 
 The master recognised his heroic soul, and in 
 his unbounded admiration resolved to erect a 
 monument in his own art to the Idol of the 
 time. The personification of Liberty, who can 
 tell the joy of that' labour of love? and what 
 pen can depict the grief, the rage, the despair 
 
BEETHOVEN 
 
 4S 
 
 of the master, when he found that his idol was 
 not a god of gold, but a man of clay ? 
 
 One morning the news was brought to him 
 by & pupil that the Republic was overthrown, 
 and its first Consul had accepted the Imperial 
 crown. For a moment the master was dumb 
 with astonishment and grief Then the rage 
 of disappointment overcame him. Snatching 
 the unfinished score 'of the Eroica from the 
 table, he dashed it on the floor, trampling it 
 underfoot, while he cried in a voice choked 
 with passion, ' Away with the tyrant ! my hero 
 is but mortal ; he has sold liberty for a bauble 
 — away with the tyrant ! ' 
 
 It was years before Beethoven could bring 
 himself to finish the work, for he was a Re- 
 publican of the most ideal tendencies, and 
 honestly despised kings and titles, thrones and 
 empires. But the death of his fallen hero 
 appeased the wrath of the master. He forgave 
 his errors for the sake of that sad, lonely end 
 on the rocky prison home of bleak sea-bound 
 St. Helena. 
 
 ' I have written the music to commemorate 
 this occasion long ago,' he said, producing the 
 score of the Marcia Funibre, when the news of 
 Napoleon's death was conveyed to him. And 
 then, after twenty-two years, was re-copied 
 
46 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 the title-page which had been destroyed that 
 May morning, and under which was written 
 with Beethoven's own hand, the legend — 
 
 ' Geschrieben auf Beethoven.' 
 
 In the Ninth Symphony there is unrolled a 
 sublime picture — a tone-poem whose immortal 
 beauty soars to a climax of supremest ecstasy in 
 the final hymn of joy. .The spirits of Schiller 
 and Beethoven are blended in that glorious 
 unison of sound — 
 
 ' Freude, schoner Gdtterfunken ! G otter funken ! ' 
 
 Borne on the golden flood of human voices we 
 behold a vision of Paradise itself, and, as they 
 culminate in one mighty shout of melody, we 
 seem to hear the angelic choirs re-echo the 
 earthly hymn of joy. 
 
 The effect of this inspired hymn, one of the 
 noblest interpretations of human yearning after 
 the infinite joys of heaven, upon the vast 
 audience assembled to hear it when first per- 
 formed at Vienna in 1822 is described as 
 electrical. Women sobbed, men rent the air 
 with their shouts and embraced each other in 
 their delight. The very performers wept. But 
 all the while Beethoven stood at his conductor's 
 post, silent, unheeding, like a motionless rock in 
 
BEETHOVEN 47 
 
 that ocean of applause, until at last Fraulein 
 Unger, one of the singers, her face streaming 
 with tears, went to him and gently turned his 
 face to the multitude. The master bowed 
 calmly and then turned his back. Poor old 
 master ! cut off from the world by that terrible, 
 impenetrable wall of deafness. The cheers and 
 cries of those thousands of hearts thrilling with 
 the wonderful beauty of his creation could 
 never reach him. But what mind can ever 
 fathom the well of joy and human love deep in 
 that silent soul from whence sprang such 
 heavenly music — for heavenly it may be justly 
 called, since no echo of earthly sound had called 
 it forth. That which is to ordinary mortals a 
 bitter curse became to the master a blessing of 
 incalculable power, a blessing in which the 
 whole world has shared. As out of darkness 
 Cometh light, so out of silence came forth the 
 sweetest concourse of soimd the world has ever 
 heard. 
 
 Beethoven had what might be called the 
 beauty of ugliness, that is to say, the beauty of 
 intellectual expression without the charm of 
 feature which is supposed to constitute per- 
 fection of face. We could not call a lion 
 beautiful, and yet it is surpassingly grand in 
 the pose of head and noble flow of mane. The 
 
48 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 master's was a purely leonine type in its square, 
 heavy chin, firm-set mouth, broad, powerful nose, 
 the small piercing, blue-grey eyes, with their 
 gloomy upward look, shining like half-concealed 
 fires beneath the heavy overhanging eyebrows 
 from whence rose, grand as the summit of a 
 mountain-peak, the noble brow crowned by 
 clustering curling locks of steel-black hair. A 
 glorious head which has been likened to that of 
 a demoniac god by those who have seen him in 
 one of his, alas ! frequent, transports of rage. 
 Again, when the master was moved by the 
 enthusiasm of inspiration, that wonderful brow 
 seemed to expand, the flashing eyes beneath 
 dilating to a marvellous degree, while his 
 diminutive body seemed to tower up as though 
 filled with the gigantic spirit dominating that 
 magnificent brain. At such moments he is 
 said to have looked like Jupiter. 
 
 A pretty anecdote is recorded of the master's 
 gallantry on hearing a lady compliment his 
 brow. One evening while he was seated at the 
 harpsichord in a crowded drawing-room, ravish- 
 ing the ears of his listeners with his performance, 
 a young lady, quite carried away with en- 
 thusiasm, expressed in very warm terms her 
 admiration of Beethoven's glorious brow. The 
 master overheard her, and, rising abruptly from 
 
BEETHOVEN 49 
 
 the instrument, he advanced to her with a happy 
 smile transforming his rugged face. 
 
 'Thank you, kind Fraulein, for your pretty 
 compliment ; will you kiss my forehead ? ' 
 
 The young lady, who was MAximiliane 
 Brentano, of Frankfort on the Main, to whom 
 Beethoven afterwards dedicated his lovely 
 Sonata in E Sharp, op. 109, arose blushing 
 and smiling, and instantly imprinted a kiss on 
 the master's brow. 
 
 The master was born at Bonn, the 17th of 
 December 1770. His father, Johann Van 
 Beethoven was a tenor singer in the Electoral 
 Chapel. He died in 1792. The mother of 
 Beethoven, Maria Magdalena Keverich, was a 
 native of Coblentz. Of his grandfather, Ludwig 
 Van Beethoven, a native of Maestricht, Beet- 
 hoven retained a lively recollection. The old 
 man had been a composer of operas as well as 
 music-director and bass singer, and his operas 
 were in great favour with the Elector, who had 
 them produced with a degree of perfection quite 
 magnificent for that period. During one of those 
 performances, so the story goes, the old man 
 picked up his grandson and placed him in the 
 conductor's seat. The baby composer grasped 
 the baton quite stoutly in his little fingers, 
 beating the time correctly, if vigorously, to the 
 
so THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 great amusement of the Elector and the 
 assembled court. 
 
 The master's first lessons were received from 
 his father, who proved a stern task-master, 
 despite his convivial habits. He kept the young 
 Ludwig severely confined to his music-practice, 
 a thing not easy to accomplish, for the boy was 
 wild, restless, and headstrong, hating the long 
 hours passed at the piano, as only a healthy, 
 growing boy can do. He disliked equally the 
 violin practice, and many were the devices to 
 which he resorted in order to shirk the unplea- 
 sant duty. Shut up in a small chamber for 
 hours with only his violin and the wooden stool 
 on which he sat, the little Ludwig made friends 
 with the very moths dancing in the shining 
 sunbeams, and found amusement in frightening 
 the mice scampering behind the wainscotting, 
 attracted no doubt by the strains from his 
 instrument, for mice are strangely susceptible to 
 music. According to one account he found a 
 rare boon-companion in a great black spider, 
 who regularly appeared at the sound of a certain 
 strain, and let itself down from the ceiling by 
 its silken thread until it settled on the violin, 
 where it remained spellbound by the vibrations 
 of the instrument. The little Ludwig grew 
 passionately fond of his queer guest, and when 
 
BEETHOVEN 51 
 
 the spider kept him company never grew tired of 
 practising. One day, unfortunately, his mother, 
 on entering the room suddenly, discovered the 
 great ugly insect, and, much alarmed, straight- 
 way destroyed it. The loss of the spider threw 
 the boy into a fit of rage, in which he dashed 
 the violin to the floor, shattering it to pieces. 
 Beethoven never denied or affirmed this strange 
 little story, although the recital of it always 
 amused him greatly. ' For,' he is said to have 
 once declared, ' it is much more Hkely that my 
 horrid scraping would have driven the spider 
 and flies away.' 
 
 For his mother the master entertained the 
 deepest affection and tender memory. The 
 report that he was a natural son of Frederick 
 William II., King of Prussia, caused him great 
 grief and vexation, and he left nothing undone 
 to convince the world of the falseness of the 
 statement. In a letter written by Moscheles, 
 an intimate friend of Beethoven, at the com- 
 poser's dictation, to Dr. Wegeler, he wishes ' to 
 make known to the world the unblemished char- 
 acter of his parents, and especially of his mother! 
 This letter was published by Dr. Wegeler, to- 
 gether with a copy of Beethoven's baptismal 
 register, thereby thoroughly refuting the fable. 
 
 At the age of sixteen the master began that 
 
52 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 heroic battle with the world which never ended 
 until the noble heart had ceased to beat. The 
 good mother dead, the father banished to a 
 small provincial town through his irregularities, 
 young Ludwig was obliged to take upon his 
 youthful shoulders the care of his two younger 
 brothers, — a duty he worked unceasingly to 
 fulfil, and not until that brotherly duty was 
 entirely performed, and his brothers old enough 
 to lift the burden from him, did he take up his 
 studies as an artist. He became the pupil of 
 Haydn, of Schenk, of Salieri, and of the master 
 of counterpoint, Albrechtsberger. Close and 
 enthusiastic study soon brought the master to 
 a thorough understanding of his own powers. 
 He felt within his soul the divine spring of 
 inspiration, but he firmly denied himself the 
 happiness of quaffing those sweet waters until 
 the rigorous discipline of study had prepared 
 him to derive strength, not intoxication, from 
 them. Sometimes the genius within him would 
 arise and thrust aside the conventionalities of 
 study ; notably on one occasion when he had 
 played before Mozart. It was their first meet- 
 ing. Mozart seemed indifferently impressed 
 with the piece. The master's pride was hurt. 
 He eagerly asked Mozart to give him a theme. 
 His request was granted with an impatience 
 
BEETHOVEN 
 
 53 
 
 almost amounting to contempt. Beethoven 
 began to improvise on the theme, playing with 
 such marvellous technique and beauty of ex- 
 pression that Mozart was lost in wonder. Call- 
 ing some friends from an adjoining room, he 
 bade them listen, exclaiming, in the words 
 which have now become historic — 
 
 ' This youth will some day make a noise in 
 the world.' 
 
 In those early days of his career the master 
 was obliged to give lessons, for the remunera- 
 tion gained thereby was no small assistance in 
 his straitened circumstances. But he detested 
 the giving of them, and rebelled against the 
 unhappy fate which compelled him to resort to 
 such irksome duties. It is told that he would 
 start out on a lesson-giving mission, but when 
 he arrived at the door of the pupil's house his 
 courage would disappear, and he would leave 
 an excuse ' that he could not give his lesson at 
 that time, he would give two the next day.' 
 
 It was at this period of his life that he first 
 experienced the consolations of womanly sym- 
 pathy. The much despised teaching brought 
 him -that blessing in the person of Frau von 
 Breuning, whose youngest son was his pupil. 
 This kindly keen-sighted woman at once per- 
 ceived the genius of the lonely uncared-for 
 
54 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 youth, and devoted herself to the humane task 
 of brightening his life, helping him by a thou- 
 sand acts of encouragement and assistance, 
 opening the doors of her home to him, where 
 he found happiness in the society of her chil- 
 dren. In a family of such refinement and 
 culture the master could not but derive much 
 benefit. There he became acquainted with the 
 classics — the well-thumbed volumes of Homer 
 and Plutarch became to him mines of richest 
 intellectual treasure. He got a taste for French 
 and Italian, and a knowledge of the poetry of 
 his country. He would pass hours poring 
 over Goethe. The influence of this worthy 
 gentlewoman evoked in the breast of the youth- 
 ful composer a reverent love, which was the 
 foundation of his love for everything good and 
 noble in womankind. 
 
 Soon the years of studious probation are 
 passed, and we find the master the idol of 
 music-loving Vienna. He has taken the place 
 of Gluck, of Haydn, and Mozart. His com- 
 positions reflect the spirit of the times, the 
 spirit of freedom and independence. He has 
 given to the world the expression of those 
 youthful aspirations in the wonderful Sonate 
 PatMtique. In the words of Nohl : — ' It ex- 
 pressed in full powerful tones what he himself 
 
BEETHOVEN 55 
 
 had lived, felt, and experienced, on the free 
 Rhine, and what had long slumbered in his 
 breast, till he had acquired the complete leisure 
 and outward security necessary for the pure 
 expression of his inner self.' 
 
 As the fairest summer day has its thunder and 
 showers, so was the golden sky of Beethoven's 
 inspiration ofttimes obscured by the clouds of 
 domestic trouble, — the vagaries of his brothers, 
 the sorrow and disappointment heaped upon 
 him by his graceless and ungrateful nephew, the 
 numb agony of unrequited love, and, last and 
 heaviest cross of all, the loss of his hearing. 
 He tells us of that awful affliction not only in 
 the priceless legacy of his numerous letters (in 
 one of which — the pathetic story of the flute — 
 he writes : — ' I would put an end to my life, 
 only my art restrains me, and it is impossible to 
 leave the world before I have finished all I feel 
 capable of doing'), but in the wordless spirit- 
 language of his soul, the strains of his wondrous 
 symphonies. It is in these we stand face to 
 face with the real Beethoven, revealed in all the 
 poetic grandeur of his true inner-self It is 
 not the deaf, half-blind, rugged old Beethoven, 
 wounded to the death by his misjudges, his 
 tormentors, and enemies. No ! It is a Beet- 
 hoven with the shining face of an archangel, the 
 
S6 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 glittering shield of a god, from which the sor- 
 row, the pain, the bitter sufferings that assailed 
 the human Beethoven fall away like spears 
 cast against a wall of granite, from that guard 
 of immortality. 
 
 The master had many friends, true, faithful, 
 and sometimes adoring. Unlike Schubert,, he 
 never knew the remorseless grinding of poverty, 
 the inevitable squandering of precious years in 
 the work of producing mere ' pot-boilers.' But 
 while accepting the various posts as music- 
 master conferred on him by his royal or wealthy 
 patrons, he preserved jealously the freedom of 
 his art. He knew that music was a flower 
 needing the full sweet breeze of liberty to 
 nourish it into its highest perfection. The 
 genius of Haydn and Mozart lost its bloom in 
 the stifling over-heated atmosphere of the Court. 
 The art of each was curbed by the caprice and 
 pleasure of a royal master. Beethoven, like 
 Bach, would never place the neck of his glorious 
 muse beneath the foot of a king ! 
 
 In accepting the patronage and friendship of 
 Prince Lichnowski Beethoven was in reality the 
 donor, for he enjoyed rest, quiet, and absolute 
 freedom. The prince and his worthy spouse 
 treated the great composer with a hospitality 
 as delicate as it was deferential. They placed 
 
BEETHOVEN 
 
 57 
 
 at his disposal a charming suite of rooms. The 
 presence of the master brightened their child- 
 less home. The evenings were devoted to 
 music, at which all that was most gifted in 
 Viennese society assisted. Those were the 
 happiest years of Beethoven's life, and those 
 wonderful nights of song and music were like 
 the planets streaming their light across the 
 heavens above. It was on those charming 
 occasions that some of the master's finest 
 quartettes found birth. There in the gilded 
 salon, aglow with the mellow candle-light, sur- 
 rounded by beautiful women, their silken gar- 
 ments rustling harmoniously, their bright eyes 
 resting adoringly on him, their gentle hearts 
 beating to the rhythm of his creations, the 
 master gathered his quartette — Schuppanzigh 
 the first violin, Sina second violin, Weiss, 
 Bratsche, viola, Kraft the elder alternating with 
 Linke, violoncello — and poured into the souls of 
 those gentle dames and gallant men the essence 
 of his sublime muse. 
 
 Beethoven watched over the beloved mem- 
 bers of this quartette with a more than fatherly 
 solicitude ; he bound them to him by a chain of 
 sympathy and pride, — sympathy as enthusiastic 
 as it was genuine, and pride in being the first 
 interpreters of those marvellous quartettes. 
 
S8 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 Moscheles records a letter addressed by the 
 master to this quartette when, in 1825, one of 
 his last difficult quartettes was to be performed 
 for the first time before a select audience. It 
 is quaintly humorous — no doubt the master 
 strove to conceal his anxiety for the success of 
 their efforts under the bantering tone. 
 
 'My DEAR Friends, — Herewith each of you 
 will receive what belongs to him, and is hereby 
 engaged, upon condition that each binds himself 
 upon his honour to do his best to distinguish 
 himself and to surpass the rest. 
 
 ' This paper must be signed by each of those 
 who have to co-operate in the affair in question. 
 
 ' Beethoven.' 
 
 (Here follow the four signatures.) 
 
 The master was a profound lover of the 
 beautiful ; his love of flowers, and that fairest of 
 human flowers, a lovely woman, was next to 
 that of his passion for his sublime art. But Art 
 remained his only mistress, his only bride ; 
 whenever his heart wandered from her she drew 
 him back with the leash of disappointment, and 
 in her pure and tender breast he found consola- 
 tion. For, truly. Art is a jealous love ; she will 
 share her realm with none. Many and bitter 
 were the poor master's experience ere he 
 realised this, 
 
BEETHOVEN 59 
 
 Volumes could be written of Beethoven's 
 love episodes, and the influence they had upon 
 his work. His great heart yearned to love and 
 be loved. Unlike Bach, he had no sweet 
 domestic surroundings, no tender wifely sym- 
 pathy. The homely joys of the fireside were to 
 him unknown pleasures. It is a sad picture, 
 that of the master's desolate home, uncared for, 
 uncheered, at the pitiless mercy of unscrupulous, 
 stupid servants, where disorder reigned supreme! 
 After the rupture with his friend and patron. 
 Prince Lichnowski, he left the palace and 
 was a wanderer ever afterwards. Constantly 
 changing his abode, the,poor old master lived 
 a life of squalor and privation, his servants 
 bullying and robbing him to an incredible 
 degree. On one occasion a valuable MS., the 
 score of a mass, was missing, and after a long 
 search it was found in the kitchen, where the 
 cook had utilised the pages in wrapping up 
 butter and such like edibles. 
 
 One day a friend found the composer sitting 
 in his den breakfastless and fireless, nursing his 
 face, which was scratched and torn cruelly. It 
 was the work of a refractory servant. The 
 friend promptly dressed the wounded face, and 
 then proposed finding another servant. 
 
 ' By all means,' said the master, gladly avail- 
 
6o THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 ing himself of the offer. ' But the new one 
 must be steady, of good character, and,' with a 
 humorous twinkle in his eye, 'not of a blood- 
 thirsty nature.' 
 
 It is pleasant to turn from the contemplation 
 of these disagreeable, pitiful pictures of the 
 master's troubles to the delightful friendships, 
 charming letters, and romantic experiences 
 which go to make up the love episodes of the 
 master's life. Dr. Wegeler tells us that Beet- 
 hoven was always in love, and generally with 
 some lady of high rank. Fraulein Jeanette 
 d'Honrath, a beautiful girl with pale golden 
 hair, a bright merry disposition, and a lovely 
 voice, was his first love. She was a visitor to 
 the Breuning family, to whose refining influence 
 the master owed so much at that period of his 
 lonely youth. His susceptible heart was 
 immediately captured by the loveliness of this 
 blonde goddess, and many were the musical 
 offerings of song and improvisation he laid at 
 her feet. He found a rival in his friend, young 
 Stephen von Breuning. But the successful 
 rival was one Carl Greth, a young Austrian 
 oiificer, to whom she was afterwards married. 
 A second affection sprang up in his heart for a 
 pretty gentle girl, Fraulein von W. This little 
 romance was a strictly musical love affair, and 
 
BEETHOVEN 6i 
 
 carried on through the medium of sweet sound. 
 The young composer rarely spoke his love 
 save through the voice of the instrument, near 
 which the fair young girl would seat herself and 
 drink in the secret message of his melodies. 
 But these were innocent boyish rhapsodies, 
 leaving on either side no sting of bitterness or 
 regret. It is at Vienna that we find the master 
 entering upon a serious love career ; he is said 
 to have always been in love with some one, 
 ' making a conquest where many an Adonis 
 would have found it difficult to gain a hearing.' 
 
 'Love is the feeder of music' So the master 
 has written ; and in his case we may believe him, 
 since many of his most exquisite masterpieces 
 found their source in that wondrous spring, the 
 spring of human love. 
 
 The first record of these loves of maturer 
 years we find in a description of a picture of 
 Psyche, in which Cupid is represented applying 
 a torch to the wing of the goddess ; underneath 
 is written in the hand of Beethoven — 
 
 'A New Year's gift for the tantalising 
 Countess Charlotte Brunswick, — From her 
 friend, Beethoven.' 
 
 Next we find him paying court to a beautiful 
 singer, whom he had befriended in those boyish 
 
62 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 years passed at Bonn. Meeting her again in 
 Vienna, his heart is set aflame by her beauty, 
 wit, and genius, and the master lays at her 
 feet the noblest gift of man to woman, the offer 
 of his heart and name ; but the ambitious 
 singer rejects the poor composer, — ' because he 
 is very ugly and half crazy,' she is reported as 
 having said when charged by her friends with 
 foolishly refusing the idol of the musical world. 
 But the master soon forgot the capricious 
 singer in the charming love-idyll between him- 
 self and the young Countess Giulietta Giuc- 
 ciardi, his pupil, who is described as being 
 extremely beautiful, with a lovely figure and 
 warm liquid-blue eyes. Twenty years after 
 the master shows that he has not forgotten 
 the charming love of his youth. In a letter to 
 a friend he writes of her — ' J'etais bien aimi 
 d'elle et plus que jamais son ipoux! In a letter 
 to his unceasing confidant he reveals the sad 
 hopelessness of this love ever becoming a per- 
 manent one, yet rejoices in the solace it has 
 brought into his life, already shadowed with 
 that terrible affliction of deafness. 
 
 ' Life has become brighter to me lately,' he 
 writes. ' I think you can have no idea how 
 sad, how desolate, my life has been — my deaf- 
 ness, like a spectre, appears before me every- 
 
BEETHOVEN 63 
 
 where. This change has been wrought by a 
 dear fascinating girl whom I adore, and who 
 loves me. After two years I bask again in the 
 sunshine of happiness ; for the first time I feel 
 what a truly happy state marriage must be. 
 She is not of my rank of life — were it other- 
 wise I could not marry now, I must drag along 
 valiantly. But for my deafness I should long 
 ago have compassed half the world with my 
 art — there exists for me no greater happiness 
 than working at it.' 
 
 Unfortunately the charming young Countess 
 was not permitted to bring consolation and 
 happiness to her deaf lover for very long. A 
 marriage was arranged by her family, which 
 speedily put an end to this romantic attach- 
 ment. Still she must have loved him tenderly, 
 and felt the lack of courage which separated 
 them deeply, for she is said to have sought him 
 weeping, beseeching forgiveness for the act 
 which had separated them, and we find the 
 master consoling himself in the following reflec- 
 tion when alluding to the subject years after — 
 ' And if I had given up inborn inspirations for 
 marriage, what would have become of my higher, 
 better self? ' 
 
 It is recorded that after the master's death, 
 in a secret drawer of an old cabinet, amongst a 
 
64 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 number of letters, was found one containing 
 two postscripts, which first revealed to the 
 world the affectionate heart of the dead master, 
 its sweetness and depth of sympathy, which 
 his sonatas had already proclaimed in their 
 rich beauty and tender pathos.. There was no 
 name, no clue to whom these were written, but 
 there can be no doubt that they were addressed 
 to that early love — the Countess Giulietta — who 
 surrendered back to him those precious letters, 
 too fondly loved to be destroyed, and too sacred 
 for a stranger's eye. We can picture the poor 
 old master poring over each faded line in the 
 long dreary after years, recalling in each sen- 
 tence the sweetness of every emotion, living 
 over again and again the joyous days of that 
 happy past. Ah ! well can we understand — for 
 who among us has not a like buried romance, a 
 secret grave of love to which we often wander 
 to keep green with our teafs ? 
 
 There is another to whom the master paid 
 the glorious tribute of his homage, long after 
 that first unforgotten love — Fraulein Amalie 
 Sebald, a lady of great gifts and distinguished 
 appearance. But this was that strange love — 
 love and yet not love, which is called Platonic, 
 full of the sweetness of sympathy, the calm 
 pleasure of intellectual companionship. The 
 
BEETHOVEN 65 
 
 master has left a charming letter to this lady, 
 the ending of which is a prose verse of quaint 
 tenderness — 
 
 'Farewell, dear Amalie, if the moon shines 
 this evening brighter to me than the daylight, 
 it will show you the least of all men by him- 
 self, — Your friend, BEETHOVEN.' 
 
 In all that long array of beautiful women, clever 
 and gifted, who were the subject of the master's 
 immoirtal themes and inspiration, none stands 
 out a fairer picture in her innocent devotion 
 and gentle enthusiasm than the friend and 
 worshipper of Goethe, the lovely artless child - 
 woman — Bettina. In her letters to the great 
 poet we read of that admiration for the deaf 
 old master which stirred even his profound 
 soul, absorbed in itself, to a keener apprecia- 
 tion of. the marvellous genius of Beethoven. 
 That the master appreciated the genuine sym- 
 pathy of this charming woman, her wonderful 
 touch with his noble mind, is proved by the 
 passionate words found in one of his letters to 
 her. ' Good God ! ' he writes, ' if it had been my 
 lot to pass such a time with you as he [Goethe] 
 did, depend upon it I should have produced 
 many, many more great works ! ' 
 What more noble tribute from the pen of the 
 E 
 
66 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 greatest genius the world has ever beheld to 
 the power of woman to elevate as well as to 
 inspire has ever been written ! And so let us 
 leave the great tone-poet, with no thought of 
 old age, no thought of death, but ever young 
 in his transcendent genius amid that garden of 
 lovely women, his friends, and his loves, like 
 some broyvn nightingale singing in the pale 
 moonlight to the sleeping flowers. 
 
CHOPIN 
 
 1809-1849 
 
 1 X rHO is this half buried in the shadows of 
 a lofty salon — shadows a Whistler or a 
 Lhermitte would have loved to paint — whose 
 face, framed in masses of umber-tinted hair, 
 and illumined by eyes of the same rich, warm 
 hue, gleams like a cameo of palest ivory in the 
 mellow light of the candles burning on the 
 instrument before which he is seated ? The 
 subdued rays flicker across the white fingers 
 swiftly moving in and out of the bed of keys. 
 The pale sensuously-modelled lips are parted in 
 a smile of dreamy beauty — the delicate nostrils 
 of the aquiline nose seem to curve more proudly 
 to the measure of the music springing into life 
 beneath the play of those slender, supple hands 
 — across the white temples the blue veins 
 swell and palpitate with the suppressed passion 
 of those soul-reaching strains— ^the noble head 
 s thrown back, while the full, round throat 
 
 6T 
 
68 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 seems throbbing with the silent melody of his 
 song. 
 
 It is Chopin ! The very name is fragrant 
 with the subtle charm of poetry, the essence of 
 love and fascinating spell of mysticism. 
 
 Out of the shadows shine other faces. The 
 marvellous eyes of George Sand sparkle like 
 leaping flames beneath the burning glow of her 
 lover's inspiration. Near her, in the fire-lit 
 circle, looms up the grand, meditative, sphinx- 
 like head of Liszt. Heine has dropped his 
 glowering mask of cynicism ; the soul of the 
 poet smiles through his half-closed eyes. 
 Meyerbeer with bowed head sits listening, his 
 own masterly harmonies forgotten, led by the 
 silver thread of melody through the graceful, 
 light, fantastic labyrinth of Chopin's weird and 
 beautiful conceptions. Ary Scheffer, pale as 
 one of the classics of his own romantic school 
 — Delacroix weaving a dream of colour from 
 the tangled skein of brilliant chords and pale- 
 hued modulations — Nourrit, the singer, his 
 spiritual features aglow with chaste emotion — 
 Mickiewicz, the great Polish poet, lost to view 
 in the deepest of the purple shadows, where 
 with closed eyes he revels in the poetic visions 
 conjured up by the magic strains of his friend 
 — Hiller, the man of the faithful heart — Haron 
 
CHOPIN 69 
 
 von Stockhausen, ambassador and courtier, the 
 devoted pupil. All that distinguished company 
 is borne entranced upon the waves of melodious 
 sound, mingling with the perfume of the hidden 
 flowers ; the rich reflections blurred and indis- 
 tinct of the polished floor ; the faint rustling of 
 the silken curtains shutting off" the world with- 
 out. For Chopin is improvising. It is one of 
 his weird fascinating odes to the night. A 
 sonnet of dreamy mist-like colour and silvery 
 vapoury sound — a nocturne. The soft frou- 
 frou of the wind amid the trees, the drop of 
 the rain, the sullen rumble of the approaching 
 storm, the sweeping steelly flash of the lightning, 
 the reverberating dirge of thunder now near, 
 anon distant, more and more distant still, until 
 it is swallowed up in silence. Soon is heard 
 the sweet wail of the nightingale ; she seems 
 to shake the glistening storm-drops from her 
 brown breast, as the wail is lost in a gush of 
 melody soft and clear and tender as the light 
 of the reappearing moon glimmering in the 
 rain-dashed clouds beyond her. 
 
 And now, as the gushing strains fade and are 
 murmuringly lost in new modulations, the 
 lights on the piano are extinguished by the . 
 hand of one knowing well the player's moods 
 and his love of improvising in the dark ; only 
 
70 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 the dull red gleam of the firelight casts wavering 
 shadows across the shining floor. A plaintive 
 melody, wild and sweet as the breeze singing 
 through the topmost boughs of a mountain fir, 
 steals into the shadows. It is a Polish air, 
 rising and falling with rhythmic tenderness on 
 the wings of memory from the dear and distant 
 Fatherland. At first it floats out dreamily, 
 yearningly through the room, then bursts 
 into passionate, pleading cadences, until every 
 bosom in that little assembly thrills with the 
 pent-up emotion of its moving refrain. It is, 
 they feel, the soul-cry of the composer as it 
 fades away in whispering chords low and pro- 
 longed, like clouds slowly sweeping adown a 
 distant view, and is gone. 
 
 Suddenly the silence is broken by a far- 
 away measure, grand, bold, and indescribably 
 thrilling ; louder and louder it grows, swelling 
 at last into sonorous, vibrating, martial rhythm, 
 filling the room with a rich music at once 
 melancholy and vivacious, spiritual and volup- 
 tuous. It is the Polonaise. And as the flash- 
 ing strains surge to the stirring tempo, the 
 shadows of the room are alive with brilliant 
 figures dancing maje.stically to the ringing 
 echoes of the Carabella. Dames and knights 
 of the golden days of happy, prosperous 
 
CHOPIN 71 
 
 Poland, clad in gleaming brocades, shimmering 
 satins, silvery sables, stomacher and head-dress 
 sparkling with the scintillating light of cluster- 
 ing gems, and all the gorgeous display of the 
 Kontusz, they seem to the eyes of the listeners 
 to start into life, swaying and gliding, bowing 
 and turning in graceful rhythm to the harmoni- 
 ous measure. They see the sweep of each 
 cavalier's plumed and jewelled cap rend the 
 shadows like the flight of a dove. They hear 
 the faint rustle of each rich robe as its gentle 
 wearer returns with stately obeisance the salute 
 of the plumed and booted knight. Their pulses 
 quicken to the measured music growing fast 
 and faster still with each modulation, until at 
 last it bursts into a mad poem of motion, the 
 delicious abandon, the intoxicating, blinding 
 whirl of the Mazourka. Then out of the sudden 
 lull following that passionate climax, wanders 
 back like a lost spirit that same sad weird 
 Polish air, sobbing out its heart-touching melody 
 over the graves of buried hopes, the lost liberty 
 of that " beloved unhappy Fatherland. With 
 tears and sighs they crowd round him as the 
 last strains die away. The lights are relit, and 
 with a smile in those beautiful eyes, bright with 
 unshed tears, Chopin turns to his little band of 
 worshippers, hiding with laughing words the 
 sorrowful yearning of his aching heart. 
 
72 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 In the year 1787, when the capital of Poland 
 was the scene of great political excitement 
 over the election of the Diet, a young man who 
 had just arrived was interested to such a degree 
 by the activity of the picturesque old town that 
 he determined to settle there. But the sun of 
 peace and prosperity did not shine for long on 
 the devoted city in which the young stranger 
 had found a resting-place. Troublous times 
 dawned on the ^unhappy country, and twice 
 Nicholas Chopin sought to return to Lorraine, 
 his native place. A strange fatality held him 
 back, for on each occasion he was seized with 
 a severe illness ; to use his own words : ' It 
 seems to be the will of Providence that I should 
 remain in Poland, and I willingly submit. 
 Providence had indeed reserved for him a 
 blessing by detaining him in Poland, since, 
 through his marriage with a Polish lady, 
 Fraulein Justine Kryzanowska, he became the 
 father of Frederic Chopin, poet-composer and 
 pianist, whose genius has interpreted to the 
 world the marvellous melodies and matchless 
 dance-music of Poland. 
 
 Chopin was born at Zelazowa, on the estate 
 of Count Skarbek, in whose house Nicholas 
 Chopin was tutor. Music exercised a deep 
 emotional influence over the boy from his 
 infancy. So delicate was this inner sense that 
 
CHOPIN 73 
 
 a strain of melody would send the tears gush- 
 ing to his eyes, and fill his childish bosom with 
 sobs. 
 
 ' What grieves you, my Fritzchen ? ' the lov- 
 ing mother would anxiously inquire. ' Does 
 the music pain you ? ' 
 
 ' No, maman ; it makes me feel happy here,' 
 placing his little hand where he supposed his 
 heart to be. 
 
 This marvellous susceptibility soon revealed 
 to Nicholas Chopin the gift of his young son. 
 He placed the boy under Zwyny, whose teach- 
 ing soon developed the latent talent of the little 
 Fritzchen. He began to improvise before he 
 had mastered the means of expressing his ideas 
 on paper, and we find him eagerly, urging the 
 master to set the themes which flowed so easily 
 beneath his tiny fingers. In a few years the 
 boy's genius began to attract the attention of 
 the dilettanti of Warsaw, and we find him at 
 the age of nine years making his first public 
 appearance at a charity concert, quite carried 
 away with enthusiasm on this momentous occa- 
 sion, an enthusiasm which was thoroughly 
 boyish,' and busied itself more with the pre- 
 parations for, than the artistic importance of, 
 the event. The little fellow's dress seemed to 
 engross his childish attention, for the good 
 
74 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 mother had made up a handsome costume of 
 blue velvet that delighted Fritzchen beyond 
 measure, especially the collar, which was of 
 rich lace — altogether a very gorgeous affair. 
 
 On his return from the concert, the mother, 
 hiding her anxiety under a show of caresses, 
 exclaimed — 
 
 'Which piece did the audience approve of 
 the most, my Fritzchen ? ' 
 
 ' Oh ! I think they liked my collar best ! ' 
 cried the little fellow naively, ' for every one 
 looked at it.' 
 
 One day the boy was summoned to play at 
 the private concert of a great lady. When he 
 arrived, clad in the now indispensable velvet 
 suit and famous collar, he became at once the 
 centre of attraction to the crowd of beautifully 
 robed ladies assembled, and was soon seated 
 at the piano, his little fingers busily at work in 
 improvisation. It may have been the gracious 
 presence of all those lovely women, or the 
 elegance of his surroundings, which pleased the 
 boy's artistic sense of colour, but he played 
 with an inspiration that surprised his mother, 
 standing near him, and filled all with wonder 
 and admiration. 
 
 When he had ceased, a charming woman, 
 clad in a rich robe of crimson moirS, approached 
 
CHOPIN 
 
 75 
 
 him. Clasping the boy in her arms, and im- 
 printing a kiss on his forehead, she exclaimed — 
 
 ' You are truly a poet, my little man ! ' 
 
 It was Madame Catalani, the great singer. 
 Fritzchen passed many happy hours with the 
 distinguished artist, one moment lost in childish 
 admiration over her splendid jewels and gor- 
 geous raiment, the next weeping with joy over 
 the exquisite melody of her wonderful voice. 
 And the height of his delight was reached when 
 the kind-hearted singer presented him with a 
 beautiful gold watch bearing the legend — 
 ' Dotmi par Madame Catalani a Frediric Chopin 
 dgi de dix ans^ as a souvenir on her departure 
 from Warsaw. 
 
 The first patron of little Frederic was the 
 Princess Lowicka, a gracious and beautiful but 
 unhappy lady, who sought in art the consola- 
 tions denied her in an uncongenial marriage. 
 The young virtuoso was constantly at the 
 palace. The Grand Duke, who was of a 
 morose and passionate nature, shared with his 
 wife in the admiration aroused by the boy's 
 genius. On one occasion, while improvising, 
 his head cast back and the beautiful eyes gaz- 
 ing upward with a rapt expression, the Grand 
 Duke approached the piano. 
 
 ' Why do you always look at the ceiling ? ' 
 
76 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 he exclaimed brusquely. ' Do you see the notes ■ 
 up there ? ' 
 
 To this curious speech the boy vouchsafed 
 no answer, so absorbed was he in interpreting 
 his inspiration, while the Grand Duke, whose 
 word was law, and whose frown a thing to be 
 dreaded, turned away smiling indulgently. On 
 another occasion the little virtuoso demanded 
 to have all the candles extinguished, a whim 
 the Princess graciously humoured by putting 
 out the lights near him with her own hand. 
 But it was only when under the spell of his 
 improvisation that he became a capricious 
 young autocrat, otherwise he was as playful 
 and childlike as any of his less gifted com- 
 panions. 
 
 A great love of acting marked those boyish 
 years of the great composer. Albert Piasecki, 
 a famous actor of that time, predicted for him 
 a future, and strongly urged upon Nicholas 
 Chopin the wisdom of training his son for a 
 histrionic career. ' Your-son,' he declared, ' has 
 every gift necessary to make a great actor. 
 He has presence of mind, a charming facility 
 of declamation, and a wonderful capacity for 
 facial expression.' All of which is not surpris- 
 ing when we consider how near akin are the 
 dramatic and the musical art. The one speaks to 
 
CHOPIN 77 
 
 the eye, the other to the ear, while both depend 
 on the same scheme of construction — plot, 
 counter-plot, and climax. Out of that vivid 
 inner sense called imagination, Chopin wove 
 musical dramas of such rare beauty and quaint 
 originality that he has berome the Romancist' 
 of Music, the Prince of Improvisatores, the 
 Regenerator of that much abused and little 
 understood instrument the Piano. 
 
 The youth of Chopin cannot be passed over 
 without a word of reminiscence about his sister 
 Emilie. These two charming children, for they 
 were nothing more, were a constant source of 
 inspiration one to the other. Emilie had a 
 wonderful gift for verse, and, had she lived, 
 would undoubtedly have shared if not surpassed 
 her brother's fame. She was five years younger 
 than Frederic, and is described as bearing a 
 striking resemblance to her brother. She had 
 the same fair silken hair, the same beautiful 
 eyes, full of tenderness and melancholy, the 
 same exquisite sensibility, the same alternations 
 of sadness and gaiety. These two wrote many 
 clever plays in collaboration, which they per- 
 formed for the amusement of the pupils of their 
 father's school. They -also founded a literary 
 society, of which Frederic was the president 
 and Emilie the secretary. We cannot imagine 
 
78 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 anything more charming than this childish 
 symposium of art. Alas that it was destined 
 to end so suddenly, through the death of Emilie 
 when in the first bloom of early girlhood, at the 
 age of fourteen years ! 
 
 Among the cherished memorials of Chopin's 
 youth, collected by the family, are two numbers 
 of a little journal entitled Kuryer Szafarski, 
 the editing and printing of which afforded the 
 young composer amusement during his rusti- 
 cating at a little country town. In one appears 
 the following record, which speaks for itself in 
 regard to the humour of Chopin : — 
 
 'On July 15th, M. Pichou [a name Frederic 
 assumed] appeared at the musical assembly at 
 Szafarnia, at which were present several persons, 
 big and little. He played Kalkbrenner's con- 
 certo, but this did not produce such a furore, 
 especially among the youthful hearers, as the 
 song which the same gentleman rendered.' 
 
 About the same time, it appears, there was a 
 number of Jews in the town for the purpose of 
 buying grain. Chopin sent them an invitation 
 to hear him play. The Jews gladly accepted 
 the courtesy of the kind-hearted youth, and 
 assembled in a goodly number. Chopin played 
 for them a Jewish wedding-march, called 
 Majufes, which so delighted them that they 
 
CHOPIN 79 
 
 straightway began to dance and sing in their 
 delight. They begged him to assist at an 
 approaching Jewish wedding, and to play some 
 more of his wonderful music. On the composer 
 accepting the invitation, they departed, loud in 
 their praises, and exclaiming gleefully, ' He 
 plays like a born Jew ! ' Another interesting 
 story of his boyhood is that told by one of his 
 father's pupils. One day, it seems, when Pro- 
 fessor Chopin was absent, there was a great 
 uproar in the school. The master presiding 
 was at his wits' end, when Frederic entered the 
 schoolroom. Without a word of reproof, he 
 requested the roisterers to sit down, called to 
 those who were making a noise outside, and 
 promised to improvise a story on the piano if 
 they would be quiet. Instantly all was still, 
 and Frederic sat down to the instrument and 
 extinguished the lights. He described how 
 robbers approached a house, mounted by 
 ladders to the windows, but were frightened 
 away by a noise within. Immediately they 
 fled on the wings of the wind into a deep dark 
 wood, .where they fell asleep under the starlit 
 sky. Then he played more and more softly, 
 as if trying to lull children to rest, till he found 
 that the boys had really fallen asleep. Pre- 
 sently he stole noiselessly away and brought 
 
8o THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 the family with hghts to see the slumbering 
 children. Then, laughing softly, Frederic sat 
 down to the piano and struck a loud chord. 
 Whereupon the children awoke, and all trooped 
 off to supper, laughing merrily over the musical 
 joke. 
 
 Thus the boyhood and youth of Chopin 
 passed happily along, like the placid waters of 
 a silver stream purling melodiously through 
 mossy banks and sunny scenes. Tradition is 
 rich in anecdotes of those early years, and, no 
 doubt, like all traditions, more fascinating for 
 the halo of romance surrounding these records. 
 There are stories of the young comppser's wit, 
 his boyish pranks and childish attachments, but 
 none more characteristic than the following. 
 
 While travelling with a friend through the 
 wastes of Poland they found themselves sud- 
 denly snowbound ; a huge drift had swept across 
 their path, and, but for the timely aid of some 
 peasants, our young composer would have been 
 lost to fame. But, with the help of some sturdy 
 peasants, they managed, not without trouble, to 
 reach the little town of Giillichan, where they 
 were detained for horses. Finding the time 
 hang heavy on his hands Frederic was agree- 
 ably surprised to find a piano in a room adjoining 
 the combined kitchen and dining-room. Going 
 
CHOPIN 8i 
 
 up to it he struck a few chords, and then cried 
 out in delight — 
 
 ' Santa Cecilia, the piano is in tune ! ' 
 Seating himself, he was soon oblivious of his 
 surroundings in the dream of improvisation. 
 Soon the music attracted the peasants, who 
 came and stood behind the player, who called 
 out to his friend, 'Now we shall see whether 
 my listeners are lovers of music or not,' and 
 began his fantasia on Polish songs. 
 
 The love of song characterises the Slav 
 above all races. The rudest peasant might be 
 lured to the end of the world by one of his 
 national songs. Poetical perception and sensi- 
 bility to the beauties of nature are eminently 
 innate in the Polish character. The peasants 
 stood petrified, captivated by the music so new 
 and bewitching, their eyes mechanically follow- 
 ing every movement of the pianist's delicate 
 hand ; even the pipes, most important of 
 objects, had ceased to be of interest to their 
 owners and languished smokeless between the 
 half distended lips ; the crowd increased until 
 well-nigh half the population were gathered 
 around the small unpretentious house, un- 
 heeded by the performer, who played in deep 
 abstraction drinking in the creations of his own 
 fancy. 
 
 F 
 
82 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 At last the postmaster appeared. 'The 
 horses are ready!' were the words which 
 recalled Frederic from dreamland to reality. 
 He sprang up. ' Finish that beautiful piece ! ' 
 is the chorus of a dozen of voices. He looked 
 at his watch ; too much time had been lost 
 already ; his thoughts were expressed in his 
 face. ' 1 11 give you courier, horses, everything 
 that you want ; only remain a little while ! ' 
 urged the postmaster. Long afterwards, when 
 the composer held spell-bound the critics of 
 Paris, most fastidious of all publics, he re- 
 collected with pleasure the touching tribute to 
 his skill by the population of this unpretentious 
 hamlet. 
 
 Soon the gay life of Vienna absorbed his 
 whole attention. Like all composers he was 
 most anxious to secure the suffrages of the 
 music-loving Kaiserstadt. His letters are full 
 of descriptive incident connected with his 
 appearance at the Imperial Opera House, and 
 the anxiety which naturally filled his mind at 
 so perilous an undertaking. But the result was 
 all that could be desired, and he was much 
 lauded for his performance of one of Beethoven's 
 overtures, followed by his own variations and a 
 cracovienne which is said to have occasioned 
 an improvised dance on the benches by a portion 
 
CHOPIN 83 
 
 of the audience. The latter part of his stay at 
 Vienna was dimmed by the ill-starred revolt of 
 his native country against Russian oppression, 
 and the terrible punishment meted out by 
 the victorious oppressors. He had ever pre- 
 served a deep-felt love for the land of his 
 birth, and even on his deathbed his wishes 
 wafted eastward towards the wide plains 
 and their inmates, sighing under an alien 
 yoke. 
 
 When leaving Warsaw a banquet was given 
 in his honour, and the presentation of a silver 
 goblet filled with Polish earth brought the tears 
 to his eye. ' May you never forget the father- 
 land ; think of Poland ; think of your friends 
 who are proud to call you their compatriot, who 
 expect great things of you ! ' With these 
 prayers and wishes ringing in his ears he left 
 Poland, alas ! never to return. 
 
 Irresistibly he was drawn to Paris. That 
 most elegant of cities was best suited to the 
 development of his graceful, zephyr-like genius. 
 Paris swarmed with his exiled countrymen, 
 and to one of them he owed his sudden and 
 unparalleled success. Friendless and poor, 
 he despaired of his future, when a meeting 
 with Prince Radziwill and an introduction to 
 Baron James de Rothschild transformed him 
 
84 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 into the lion of the hour, petted and spoiled by 
 the most brilliant society. 
 
 It was at this period of his career that Chopin 
 first met the gifted woman who was destined 
 to exert a powerful and fascinating influence 
 over his art. One evening while improvising one 
 of his favourite themes before a delighted audi- 
 ence in one of the most brilliant and exclusive 
 salons of the Faubourg St. Germain, a lady, 
 remarkable at once for the plainness of her face 
 and wonderful beauty of her eyes, was pre- 
 sented by the Abb^ Liszt, on whose arm she 
 was leaning. The lady was George Sand. 
 On both sides it was love at first sight, a love 
 partaking more of the senses than of the soul, 
 for, as the composer afterwards wrote, the soft 
 rustle of her silken gown, the faint odour of 
 violets hovering round her, the deep tones of 
 her rich voice, filled him with an overpowering 
 thrill of sensuous pleasure, that was almost re- 
 pellent to one whose spirit had been chastened 
 by a most unhappy love affair. 
 
 He was irresistibly drawn to the feet of this 
 siren of the pen by the sympathy of intellect, 
 and a fancied resemblance to the object of his 
 recent attachment, a beautiful young Polish 
 woman of rank who loved him in return, but 
 not with a devotion strong enough to brave 
 
CHOPIN 85 
 
 the opposition of her parents in view of the 
 difference in rank of the young composer. 
 With a heart crushed and wrung with disap- 
 pointed hopes, Chopin abandoned himself body 
 and soul to the spell of this literary enchantress. 
 
 Months of bliss and years of gradual estrange- 
 ment preceded the last act in that wild love 
 drama, and the image of his lost Polish love, 
 long forgotten in the aifection of the most 
 accomplished and famous woman of Parisian 
 society, came back to him in increased strength 
 as the bonds between them loosened. Proud 
 to the last, Chopin rejected a love which he felt 
 to be based on pitiful commiseration of his 
 enfeebled health. The happy days spent at 
 Majorca were henceforth to be only a reminis- 
 cence. The delighted admirers of many of his 
 Nocturnes and Impromptus little know the 
 pain and agony, mental and physical, which 
 shadowed the cradle of those cherished children 
 of his brain. 
 
 The last day was not distant. The Countess 
 Potocka cheered his parting moments. ' Sing 
 to me ! ' exclaims the dying man with failing 
 voice. Choked with tears, she entoned Stra- 
 della's hymn to the Virgin, filling the room with 
 its matchless beauty. ' Oh ! how beautiful ! 
 how beautiful ! ' he mutters, in dying ecstasy. 
 
86 THE GREAT COMPOSEES 
 
 When the last agony was impending, he 
 whispered, ' Who is near me ? ' They were his 
 last words. His sister and faithful friend 
 Gutenann clasped his hands. Just as the bells 
 of Paris chimed three, with the last stroke he 
 sighed and all was at an end. 
 
 Flowers hid his grave, and the Polish earth, 
 carefully preserved in its silver receptacle, 
 mingled with its soil. His heart, restored to 
 his fatherland, found an honoured resting-place 
 in the Church of the Sacred Cross at Warsaw, 
 while his remains were entombed in the Pfere 
 Lachaise, beside the ashes of Bellini. 
 
GLUCK 
 
 1714-1787 
 
 A VISION of loveliness in powder and 
 patches, pouting lips and smiling eyes, 
 enframed by towering masses of snowy tresses, 
 flits across the page conjured up by the magical 
 name of Gluck. 
 
 It is the face of a beautiful ill-fated Queen 
 whose enthusiastic love of music bestowed on 
 the great composer a royal favour which 
 fostered and protected his genius. Interwoven 
 with the superb harmonies and delicious 
 melodies of Iphigenia are memories of the 
 incomparable Marie Antoinette, graceful and 
 beautiful, the very queen-butterfly in that 
 garden of pleasure, the court life of Versailles, 
 to whom Gluck offered the purest incense of 
 homage, the simple gratitude of an honest 
 German heart. 
 
 And to that lovely Queen, brave in misfortune 
 as she was gaily frivolous in prosperity, the 
 musical world owes a debt of imperishable 
 gratitude for her discovery of the eighteenth 
 
 century Wagner. 
 
 m 
 
88 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 The name of eighteenth century Wagner can 
 descend on no worthier shoulders. Before his 
 powerful mind asserted its sway, the operatic 
 stage, steeped in antiquated Italian traditions, 
 was- tottering towards morbid decay. Wher- 
 ever the student casts his eye during the pre- 
 reformation era of music, which included fully 
 one half of Gluck's own lifetime, he is confronted 
 by inane and trivial melody hardly discernible 
 amid a plethora of senseless vocal gymnastics, 
 calculated to display the singer's skill, with an 
 utter disregard of the legitimate claims of plot 
 and libretto. 
 
 The practical and manly mind of Gluck was 
 the first to vindicate for the written test of opera 
 that importance which alone can justify the co- 
 existence of written words in contradistinction 
 to purely instrumental works. In the mighty 
 era of musical upheaval which revolutionised 
 the art in its very foundations, the important 
 part so ably performed by Gluck, though 
 acknowledged during his lifetime, has come to 
 be somewhat unjustly overlooked after his 
 death. In his native country, Austria, his 
 radical measures never met with full approba- 
 tion, and France, the country which was the 
 iirst to do him justice, was soon afterwards in 
 the throes of political convulsions which dead- 
 
GLUCK 89 
 
 ened for many years to come all musical germs, 
 while the period of lassitude which naturally 
 followed on a lustrum of unexampled stir and 
 feverish energy heralded in a revival of Italian 
 music, with many of the faults against which 
 the German master had waged a successful 
 warfare. 
 
 But true merit, though for a time it may be 
 obscured, must eventually assert its rights, and 
 it has been reserved to our time to vindicate the 
 master's fame by a revival of his Orfeo, which 
 will, no doubt, be followed by the presentation 
 of other compositions. The splendid reception 
 of this opera is a matter of recent history. It 
 has more than justified the courageous policy 
 of the theatrical manager. No better passport 
 to the older master's claims to be ranked with 
 the foremost exponents of his art could be 
 imagined than the enthusiastic plaudits of a 
 public familiar with the dulcet strains of Mozart, 
 Gounod, Wagner. And can the constantly 
 growing Wagnerite school do otherwise than 
 venerate the memory of one who, alone and 
 unaided, unfurled the banner of equal rights for 
 all component parts of opera, and placed music 
 above its exponent, nearly a century in advance 
 of their idol .' 
 
 He has expressed his views of the relation 
 
90 THE GKEAT COMPOSERS 
 
 between composer and librettist, in regard to 
 the production of opera, in unmistakeable terms: 
 to second the poetry, and in this combination 
 to elevate the soul. It \yas the fashion to write 
 music for the vocalist, and to suit the capacity 
 of the latter for a certain species of gymnastics 
 at the expense, not only of the poetry, but of 
 the scenes exhibited on the stage. In the 
 dedication of Alceste to the Grand Duke of 
 Tuscany, Gluck says, with a modesty which dis- 
 arms criticism : ' I shall try to reduce music to 
 its real function ' {i.e. in opera), ' that of second- 
 ing poetry by intensifying the expression of 
 sentiments and the interest of situations, with- 
 out interrupting the action by needless orna- 
 ment' 
 
 This independence of character, as applied 
 to authority in music, was also exemplified in 
 Gluck's personal relations with great person- 
 ages. A story is told, on the authority of Mr. 
 Sutherland Edwards, of a certain rehearsal of 
 Orfie, which took place in Sophie Arnould's 
 apartment. The singers were all seated, and 
 while the prima dontia was in the midst of an 
 aria, the Prince d'Hennin entered the room. 
 This 'prince of dwarfs' — as he was styled — 
 thereupon interrupted the proceedings, and, 
 addressing Gluck in austere tones, said : ' I be- 
 
GLUCK 91 
 
 Heve it is the custom in France to rise when 
 any one enters a room, especially if he be a 
 person of some consideration.' It is easy to 
 imagine the blaze of indignant fury in the eyes 
 of the master as he replied : ' The custom in 
 Germany, sir, is to rise only to those we esteem ;' 
 then, turning to the intimidated Sophie, he 
 added : ' I perceive, mademoiselle, that you 
 are not mistress in your own house. I leave 
 you, and shall not .set foot here again.' The 
 Queen heard of the offence given by d'Hennin, 
 and insisted upon due reparation being made 
 to Gluck, to whom the Prince apologised. 
 
 Rugged and harsh the features of Gluck look 
 down out of his numerous portraits. To seek 
 a comparison we must conjure up the repulsive 
 grandeur of Mirabeau and Danton ; in vain do 
 we look for the placid gentleness of Haydn, 
 or the melancholy beauty of Mozart, in the 
 wrinkled countenance, scarred and seamed by 
 the ravages, of small-pox, encircled by mighty 
 wig and illumined by a pair of eyes worthy of 
 thunderbolt-wielding Jupiter. But, happily, as 
 Victor Hugo sang, 'the Heart has no wrinkles.' 
 Gluck was afflicted with a violent temper, 
 which flamed up in lightning haste and sub- 
 sided as quickly into his natural goodness of 
 heart. Though his lines were cast in the 
 
92 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 palaces of the rich, he disdained the wiles of 
 a courtier, and in the behests of his art all were 
 equal before him. 
 
 He knew not the bitterness of struggling 
 poverty. The Empress Maria Theresa was 
 his gracious patroness, and what higher honour 
 could be conceived than the title of court 
 composer and teacher to the Archduchesses of 
 that Imperial court which honoured itself by 
 doing homage to genius. 
 
 He was not exactly an ideal teacher, that im- 
 patient thunderer who hardly relished the task 
 of supervising mediocrity, though it might be 
 of royal descent. Full well can we believe that 
 he lost his temper with the charming but way- 
 ward Marie Antoinette, and apostrophised 
 ' her confounded Imperial fourth finger ' which 
 persisted in playing the wrong key. Honour 
 alike to the sterling qualities of the old man to 
 whom his profession was above rank, and to 
 tlie amiability of the pupil whose unwavering 
 attachment proved his mainstay against envious 
 antagonists during her short day of power in 
 gay Versailles. 
 
 The early days of Gluck were not remarkable ; 
 though undoubtedly gifted, his talents had none 
 of that precocity so frequent in that age. A 
 good musical education and fair ability as a 
 
GLUCK 
 
 93 
 
 violoncellist secured him an appointment with 
 Prince Melzi, a nobleman of Milan, and his 
 first successes were achieved as a thorough 
 partisan of the Italian style. Artaserses, 
 Ipermnesfra, Demetrio are some of his early 
 operas, performed in Milan in 1741 and 1742, 
 which he was the first to condemn in after 
 years. Two operas written for the Haymarket 
 Theatre, London, achieved very moderate 
 success, and were roundly condemned by 
 Handel, who pronounced them-' detestable, and 
 hardly worthy of his cook.' 
 
 This adverse criticism 'impelled him to cast 
 -off the shackles of the old school, and his next 
 operas, Alceste, Paris and Helena, and Orfeo, 
 prove that he had ventured on hitherto un- 
 trodden ground. The Viennese, headed by the 
 influential authorities Hasse and Metastasio, 
 broke out in open revolt, and though Gluck's 
 fame stood too high to be obscured, a partial 
 recognition, such as he received, could not 
 satisfy his nature, which was nothing if not 
 thorough. With a perspicacity which is truly 
 remarkable, he hit upon Paris as ^he soil most 
 congenial for the propagation of his principles. 
 Though well advanced in years, being sixty 
 when he left Vienna, he took up the fight with 
 all the ardour of a youth. 
 
94 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 Nor could he have spared any of his vigour. 
 The worship of Lully, Piccini, and Sacchini 
 was in full bloom, and to challenge these tried 
 composers was considered an act of temerity 
 bordering on madness. True, Gluck had the 
 support of the young Queen, but Piccini was 
 not without powerful friends, and the whole 
 influence of the court had to be invoked to 
 counterbalance the intrigues which were openly 
 indulged in with the avowed purpose to wreck 
 the performances of the German master's music. 
 
 But Orfeo held the audience spellbound, 
 and after its continual run for forty-nine nights, 
 the performance of Racine's Iphigenia in 
 Aulis effectually disposed of the pretensions 
 of the Piccini faction. The star of Gluck, 
 already in the ascendant, shone in solitary 
 grandeur never to wane during his lifetime. 
 The successive performances of Iphigenia in 
 Tauris, Armida, and Echo and Narcissus, were 
 as many triumphs. His life in Paris was one 
 round of ovation and glory. The court dis- 
 tinguished him above all others, his relations to 
 the. Queen were those of a fatherly friend, the 
 leaders of society coveted his friendship, and 
 money and honours were showered on him to 
 the gratification of his somewhat cerem9nious 
 tastes. 
 
GLUCK 95 
 
 At an early age he had married one of his 
 pupils, Marianne Pergin, with whom he lived in 
 happy though childless wedlock. His adopted 
 niece, Anna Maria Gluck, alike renowned for 
 beauty and accomplishment, and a worthy ex- 
 ponent of his arias, filled the place of a daughter 
 in his home and heart. A halo of peace and 
 comfort was shed around the ageing man's 
 life by these two devoted women, who appre- 
 ciated at its full worth his kindly nature, which 
 could not be obscured by occasional fits of 
 temper. 
 
 When,. therefore, his niece died in the flower 
 of her youth, the old man, then sixty-five years 
 of age, received a blow from which he never 
 recovered. Two strokes of paralysis, though 
 slight in themselves, were forebodings of death ; 
 but though the last years of his life passed in 
 Vienna only gave birth to one opera, which 
 bears the signs of his decadence, he struggled 
 on bravely to the last. 
 
 It came with great suddenness. On the 15th 
 November 1787 during a drive he became 
 unconscious and expired the same evening in 
 the arms of his disconsolate widow. 
 
 The same vault in the Matzlein cemetery in 
 Vienna holds his remains and those of the two 
 women he loved best. 
 
96 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 But though the master is no more, his work 
 will ever be among us. With the clairvoyance 
 of a prophet he hailed the nascent genius of 
 Mozart, and during his declining years pointed 
 to him as a worthy successor to the task he 
 had inaugurated. 
 
 A touching anecdote is related as having 
 occurred three days before his death. It bears 
 striking testimony to the pious simplicity which 
 was a cornerstone to the man's character, and 
 which finds a fitting reflection in the massive 
 grandeur of his harmonies. 
 
 He was much impressed by the poetry of 
 Klopstock, and it had been an unfulfilled desire 
 to set some of his odes to music. But he felt 
 doubts as to his ability to attune the grand 
 words laid into the mouth of Jesus. In the 
 course of an argument on this subject with 
 his friend Salieri, he said, with a painful 
 smile — 
 
 'Though I may feel doubtful now, I shall 
 only be so for a very short time. Soon I shall 
 be in the presence of my Saviour.' 
 
 With a merciful hand Providence removed 
 him before the untimely fate of his revered 
 Queen could strike horror to his heart, by the 
 realisation of a strange spirit of prophecy which 
 impelled him to exclaim in tones of conster- 
 
GLUCK 97 
 
 nation, ' Mon Dieu ! there is blood on your 
 Majesty's throat ! ' when he approached her 
 * one evening at a Court Concert. The fancied 
 drops of blood were the pendent jewels of a 
 ruby necklace encircling the fair throat. 
 
HANDEL 
 
 1685-1759 
 
 HOWEVER startling and radical the 
 changes that may be in store for the 
 noble art of music in centuries to come, the 
 great man who forms the subject of this dis- 
 quisition will ever stand out as a beacon of 
 excellence equalled by few, surpassed by none, 
 among the long roll-call of musical heroes. 
 
 German by birth and education, a long so- 
 journ in England endeared him to that nation, 
 in whose Walhalla he has found a fitting rest- 
 ing-place among the remains of many of her 
 noblest sons. Honour to the people which 
 has honoured itself by the generous apprecia- 
 tion of genius brought forth by an alien though 
 kindred race. 
 
 Grandeur and majesty, the principal attri- 
 butes of his matchless works, loom imposingly 
 from the mighty head and features, the massive 
 brow, the bold outline of nose and chin, over- 
 towered by ambrosial wig, and find their 
 climax in the clear and fearless eye, which, 
 
HANDEL 
 
 99. 
 
 terrible in the frequent paroxysm of rage, shone 
 in mild benevolence when not aroused. Poor 
 eyes, whose lustre wa^ haplessly fated to be- 
 come obscured and shrouded in the awful night 
 of blindness ! 
 
 With a figure tall and impressive, of herculean 
 framework, his every feature betokened strength, 
 and was in perfect keeping with the gigantic 
 creations of a brain of unparalleled fertility. 
 Sturdy in limb and sturdy in temper, we can 
 well imagine him fighting his bitter, desperate, 
 cruel fight against hopeless odds, he, single- 
 handed giant, against an army of pygmies. Arid 
 when at last defeat overtook him, as it was 
 bound to do, when energy and genius could no 
 longer prevail against numbers and purse power, 
 who but this Titan could have soared eagle- 
 like to heights before which the ordinary mind 
 stands aghast in spellbound admiration ? Who 
 but this Hercules could have turned into a 
 blessing that defeat which would have paralysed 
 the genius of a lesser man ? 
 
 ' Obstinate to a fault ' has been the verdict of 
 the host of his biographers, and such he had 
 need to be, for if Handel has become a shining 
 light in the world of music, this is certainly 
 not due to the fostering encouragement of his 
 early surroundings. The father, a worthy but 
 
100 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 uncompromising surgeon, no sooner discovered 
 the passionate fondness of the boy for his future 
 art, than a severe interdict was laid upon all 
 instruments that might encourage so blameable 
 a propensity. His boy was to become a lawyer, 
 and the sooner other fancies were discarded the 
 better. But the five-year-old stripling had a 
 will of his own. An old spinet was furtively 
 introduced into the house and secreted in an 
 attic, and while the whole household was lying 
 in slumber, the boy would steal upstairs and 
 indulge in such performance as his untutored 
 fingers would command. 
 
 A few years later, accompanying his father 
 to the Court of the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels, 
 the saloons and churches rang with his impro- 
 visations, until the Duke, who had been a silent 
 witness, upbraided the father for his indifference 
 to the boy's genius ; and, notwithstanding the 
 counter-current of paternal obstinacy, ducal 
 interest, even if expressed in the form of re- 
 monstrance, was not a thing to be taken lightly. 
 Old Handel, though with a bad grace, consented 
 to the boy receiving instruction from Zachau, 
 and for three years a motett was the weekly 
 contribution of the young composer to the 
 church service. 
 
 Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg, afterwards 
 
HANDEL loi 
 
 first King of Prussia, thought so highly of the 
 boy's promise that he offered to send him to 
 Italy at his expense, but for some reason the 
 father refused this offer, and it was not until 
 1697, when the old man died, that his son be- 
 came possessed of his freedom. 
 
 But after this event he seems to have dis- 
 played great activity in travelling and gathering 
 information. Thus we hear of him at Leipzig, 
 and afterwards at Hamburg, where his first 
 opera Almira was performed 8th January 1705, 
 followed closely by the second, Nero, on 
 25th February of the same year. While in 
 that city he treated the world to a remarkable 
 specimen of his hot temper. A quarrel with 
 his friend Mattheson led to both young men 
 drawing their swords, and a friendly button 
 is said to have saved Handel from a dangerous 
 thrust. With characteristic impulsiveness the 
 friendship was immediately resumed, and con- 
 tinued without further interruption. 
 
 Shortly afterwards we find Handel at Ljibeck 
 competing for the successorship to Buxtehude, 
 but, though otherwise eligible, he objected to 
 a salient condition, which amounted to nothing 
 less than that he should marry his predecessor's 
 daughter. His refusal proved fatal, and he had 
 to return to Hamburg. But even thus early 
 
I02 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 the fame of the composer was widespread, and 
 a journey through Italy in 1708 and 1709 was 
 a series of triumphs. In Venice his opera 
 Agrippina had the unprecedented run of 
 twenty-seven nights, and similar successes were 
 achieved wherever his steps led him. 
 
 It was therefore not astonishing that the 
 Elector of Hanover offered most munificent 
 terms to secure his services. Not only was he 
 allowed an ample salary, but leave was accorded 
 him to visit London while receiving full pay in 
 Hanover during his absence. In December 
 1 7 10 he first set foot in London, which city was 
 to become his residence, and with lightning 
 rapidity he wrote his first opera for the Hay- 
 market Theatre. The phenomenal success of 
 the publisher, who netted fifteen hundred pounds, 
 out of the sale of the score, gave occasion to 
 one of the few jokes for which Handel was re- 
 sponsible. ' I propose now that the next opera 
 should be written by you and sold by me,' he 
 is reported to have said to the fortunate pub- 
 lisher. Queen Anne who received him with 
 great distinction was most pressing that be 
 should return to London, and his second visit, 
 reluctantly permitted by his employer, took 
 place in 17 12. Several operas can be traced 
 to that visit, which also gave birth to an elabo- 
 
HANDEL 103 
 
 rate Te Deum in commemoration of the Peace 
 of Utrecht. 
 
 But the celebration of this peace gave um- 
 brage to the Elector of Hanover, who soon 
 afterwards ascended the throne of England as 
 George I., and the composer, who had also 
 offended by overstepping his leave, fell into 
 disgrace. Several attempts at reconciliation 
 failed, but the King could not resist the touch- 
 ing appeal conveyed by the celebrated Water 
 Music, performed during a feast on the Thames, 
 and his old servant was fully reinstalled in his 
 favour. 
 
 For a number of years Handel prospered 
 under the patronage of the Court and some of 
 the highest of the land. Among the latter, the 
 Earl of Burlington and the Duke of Chandos 
 became his direct employers. Untrammelled 
 by the cares of everyday life, operas and 
 cantatas followed one another in unbroken 
 succession until the foundation of the Royal 
 Academy of Music by an influential syndicate 
 headed by the King formed a new epoch in 
 his career. To him was relegated the task to 
 engage the singers, and the rival claims and 
 endless pretensions of this self-sufficient class, 
 seconded by partisans and aggravated by rival 
 organisations, involved the passionate man with 
 
104 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 endless quarrels and rendered his life nearly- 
 intolerable. 
 
 The nobility took sides against him, and 
 started a rival opera which soon became a hot- 
 bed of intrigue, and absorbed many of those 
 elements whose claims Handel had rebutted. 
 The tenor Senesino was the most important of 
 his enemies. For a long time he held the 
 boards at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, zeal- 
 ously supported by numerous ill-wishers of 
 Handel, who grouped themselves around the 
 composer Bononcini. Similar to the Gluck- 
 Piccini controversy in Paris, London was 
 divided into partisans of Handel and Bonon- 
 cini, and a witty epigram is still extant char- 
 acterising the subjects of this squabble as 
 'Tweedledum and Tweedledee.' The after- 
 world is no longer in doubt as regards the 
 merits ; the only thing we marvel at is that 
 there should have ever been any doubt. 
 
 For years this fight was kept up with in- 
 credible acrimony. Defeated at the Haymarket, 
 Handel betook himself to the Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields Theatre, and spent health, money, and 
 energy in the vain attempt to cope with the 
 financial means arrayed against him. Even 
 his reputation suffered in this unequal combat ; 
 some of his later operas bear unmistakeable 
 
HANDEL 105 
 
 traces of hasty workmanship, and none of them 
 compare for artistic finish and freshness with 
 those composed before 1729. Seriously com- 
 promised in health and pocket and temporarily 
 disabled by a paralytic stroke, the master leaves 
 the field in possession of the enemy and sets 
 out for Tunbridge and Aix-la-Chapelle. And 
 though he regained his health completely, the 
 resumption of opera at the Covent Garden 
 Theatre convinced him that in that branch of 
 his art he had outlived his popularity. 
 
 The sufferings of his proud nature must have 
 been intense. For a short time he was stunned, 
 but activity was to Handel what breath is to an 
 ordinary man. He finally, after due delibera- 
 tion, fixed upon oratorio as his future field. He 
 was not inexperienced in this branch of music. 
 Though not so striking as his later composi- 
 tions, there are extant early works of that kind 
 which betray rare merit. Though nearly for- 
 gotten, his skill as an organist was yet 
 undisputed. Only one possible rival existed 
 in Bach. Everything impelled him towards 
 oratorio; neither expense nor risk could 
 be compared to that of opera, and, when we 
 listen to those mighty strains which the loftiest 
 halls and the proudest domes cannot dwarf, we 
 only wonder that he did not discover long 
 
io6 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 before the only true outlet for his massive 
 genius. For, though his opera overtopped 
 contemporaneous work, what remains of the 
 volumes over volumes v/ritten indefatigably 
 under the lash of hatred to a body of enemies 
 who ought to have been beneath the master's 
 notice ? Not that his operatic works are with- 
 out gems of a high order, but can they bear 
 comparison with the majestic strains of the 
 Messiah, Samson, Judas Maccabczus, and many 
 others which bid fair to survive the obliterating 
 waves of Time as the Egyptian pyramids have 
 triumphantly withstood the gnawing tooth of 
 centuries ? 
 
 This last crowning era of the master's fame 
 is also an astounding proof of his vitality. It 
 has been said that genius is definable as 
 capacity for hard work. If this be the case 
 we know of no worthier claimant of the title 
 of genius. Fifty-seven years old, bowed down 
 by bitter disappointment, his frame racked by 
 disease, the master not only strikes out a new 
 path but compasses his own apotheosis at a 
 time. when most mortals sigh for rest and will- 
 ingly relinquish their field of action to younger 
 generations. How shall we qualify that brain 
 which in twenty-four days gave birth to the 
 monumental harmonies of the Messiah, whose 
 
HANDEL 
 
 107 
 
 every number teems with soul-stirring ideas, 
 threaded together in so masterly a manner, in 
 so ingenious a structure, that even the skill of a 
 Mozart, while adding some instruments, de- 
 spaired of increasing its solid grandeur ? 
 
 For- eight years he delighted the world with 
 his matchless creations. Thirteen oratorios 
 flowed from his pen and challenged the echo 
 of unbounded enthusiasm. Never had the fame 
 of the composer stood so high ; never had 
 applause been showered on him with a more 
 ungrudging hand. The indignation of a whole 
 people was aroused when an envious coterie 
 attempted to forbid his performances under 
 some sophisticated plea. Abashed, the detrac- 
 tors withdrew, while the object of their enmity 
 became an idol of popular worship. 
 
 But a blow, the hardest of all, was at hand. 
 In 1750 his eyesight declined, and in 175 1 total 
 blindness supervened. Jephthah was his last 
 work ; it is written in a handwriting vastly 
 changed, and unspeakably touching is the quo- 
 tation written at foot in trembling letters : — 
 
 < ' Sweet as sight to the blind.' 
 
 Twice he was operated on for cataract, but 
 when he found that his doom was sealed, he 
 submitted with that courage which was in 
 
io8 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 keeping with his manly character. For eight 
 years he lingered, calmly quiet, A marked 
 decline overtook him in 1758, but his robust 
 constitution enabled him to struggle on till 
 1759, when he expired on Good Friday, 13th 
 April, his last wish being that his life should 
 terminate on that auspicious day. Had he 
 been a prince or a victorious general his obse- 
 quies could not have been attended with greater 
 splendour. The venerable Abbey seemed 
 hushed in awe. The Bishop of Rochester 
 officiated to the strains of the composer's own 
 funeral anthem. A whole people mourned the 
 decease of this man who blended simplicity 
 with majesty, and whose courage in days of 
 woe was equalled by his unassuming modesty 
 in the zenith of his glory. 
 
 Great stress has been laid on his violence of 
 temper, and, unless all accounts are untrue, we 
 cannot exonerate the master from this blame. 
 The man who held a recalcitrant prima donna 
 out of the window until she consented to sing, 
 who struck the violin from the hands of Corelli 
 for a difference of opinion, and whom the pre- 
 sence of the Court would not prevent from 
 swearing at ladies who did not preserve strict 
 silence during his performances, cannot by any 
 stretch of imagination be adjudged an angel of 
 
HANDEL 
 
 109 
 
 meekness. The reproach must stand, though it 
 may be added in extenuation that, if his wrath 
 was terrible, it was also shortlived. This and 
 the charge of intemperance in eating are the 
 only exceptions taken to his character. It is 
 difficult to refute them when practically nothing 
 is known of the accused's private life, and that, 
 for this very good reason, that he had, properly 
 speaking, no private life. A man of such in- 
 domitable pluck, and overwhelmed with the 
 wealth of ideas which enabled him to write his 
 masterpiece in a few weeks, not to mention the 
 endless pile of other compositions stapled up in 
 the Royal library, had no room for private life. 
 From morning to noon and deep into the night 
 he worked without losing a moment. Invita- 
 tions, showered on him, were invariably refused ; 
 and only two or three people had admission to 
 his house. The spinet on which he thundered 
 forth his ideas had little rest ; after his death 
 it was found that the keys were scooped out by 
 constant usage until they took the shape of 
 spoons. No wife ever ministered to his com- 
 forts or soothed his joyless age ; no love affair 
 ever had possession of his mind ; in a state of 
 strict celibacy he devoted his entire existence 
 • to his art, 'the only exception being a remark- 
 able love of the sister art of painting, evidenced 
 
no THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 by a small but valuable collection of pictures 
 gradually acquired. He did not shine as a 
 man of letters or linguistic attainments ; a good 
 knowledge of Italian was indispensable for a 
 musician of those days, and his English though 
 necessarily comprehensive was marred by a 
 very strong German accent. 
 
 It has often been attempted to draw a 
 parallel between Handel and his great contem- 
 porary Bach, but beyond a great proficiency in 
 manipulating the organ, common to both, there 
 are many points of divergence. While Bach 
 will ever remain caviare to the masses and 
 accessible only to the select few, Handel was 
 an essentially popular composer, in constant 
 touch with the people, and, though far from 
 pandering to their taste, intrinsically an ex- 
 ponent of music that found its way to the heart 
 of the many. Bach, therefore, thdugh of the 
 greatest influence on the music of all times, has 
 only become so through other, less profound, 
 writers, who, adopting his ideas and teachings, 
 have filtered them into a shape easier to under- 
 stand. Handel cannot be said to have founded 
 a new school. He had neither time nor inclina- 
 tion to surround himself with disciples who must 
 have been his inferiors, and who would have 
 probably not been bedded on roses. Smith, 
 
HANDEL III 
 
 whom he trained to conduct his oratorios, was 
 nothing but a respectable mediocrity. His 
 mission was to place on record the torrent 
 of ideas which must have filled his brain to 
 overflowing. Nor was he influenced by con- 
 temporary tendencies. Handel was Handel 
 and nothing besides. Would the Niagara be 
 more majestic if fed by another tributary 
 river? Without despising his coevals he had 
 no time to devote to their music ; and while 
 Bach eagerly sought acquaintance with those 
 whom he thought worth cultivating, Handel 
 had no such inclination. A depreciating 
 estimate of Gluck is indeed on record, but then 
 it does not refer to Gluck's happier efforts. 
 Bach tried repeatedly to make the acquaintance 
 of Handel, and madeJ:wo abortive journeys for 
 that purpose. There is no mention of any 
 eagerness on the part of Handel to meet the 
 man who was widely considered his .equal. 
 
 But though comparisons between great men 
 will be ever attractive, it is more than difficult 
 to arrive at conclusive opinions. The world has 
 reason to be thankful that Bach and Handel 
 have existed to enrich its knowledge. Both 
 were great among the great ; both of strongly 
 pronounced individuality carried to a high 
 degree of perfection. Why indulge in futile 
 speculations as to which was the greater? 
 
HAYDN 
 
 1732-1809 
 
 IF Bach is justly esteemed the originator of 
 the new style of music which in the latter 
 part of the eighteenth century revolutionised 
 the Italian school, Haydn has the undisputed 
 claim to being the first to apply these principles 
 to instrumental music, and thus not only 
 establish his own undying . fame, but smooth 
 the way for his eminent contemporaries and 
 successors, Mozart and Beethoven. 
 
 Though the former may be his superior in 
 passion and intensity, and the latter in energy, 
 grandeur, and solemnity, there is a quiet, child- 
 like simplicity, the ineffable charm of innocence 
 and gay good humour, in Haydn's compositions 
 which has never been equalled in the history of 
 music, and from which the new style of music 
 is drifting apart with great steps. But, however 
 great the changes that have been wrought in 
 style and conception since he has disappeared 
 
 from the stage, succeeding generations have 
 
 112 
 
HAYDN 113 
 
 stood in wondering admiration before his chaste 
 and sunny tone poems, revealing in tReir every 
 tone the purity of soul and guileless tempera- 
 ment of their conceiver. 
 
 It is believed that the family of Haydn, or 
 Haiden as the name was originally spelt, can 
 be traced back to Bohemia, but it can only be 
 said with certainty that the father, Matthias 
 Haydn, lived at Rohrau, a small town near the 
 Hungarian frontier, where Joseph was born on 
 the 31st March 1732, not on the ist of April, 
 as has been erroneously stated by some bio- 
 graphers. 'He was the eldest of a family of 
 nine, of which two younger boys embraced the 
 musical career with moderate success. His 
 parentage was of the simplest : the father 
 united the functions of wagoner, justice of the 
 peace, beadle and organist ; and the mother 
 had been cook to Count Harrach, the local 
 magnate. But — what is more to the point — 
 they were both gifted with some vocal and 
 instrumental talents, and not beyond regaling 
 their fellow villagers with music on Sundays 
 and holidays, the wife accompanying her hus- 
 band on the harp. 
 
 At an early age young Joseph evinced signs 
 of musical talent, and, while his parents plied 
 their voice and instruments, he would sit on a 
 H 
 
114 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 low stool with two sticks, pretending to use 
 them as a violin. Unimportant though this 
 appears, it must have had no small influence 
 on the boy's career. An uncle at Hainburg, 
 struck by the evident sense of rhythm and time 
 displayed by the boy in his make-belief pro- 
 fession, offered to charge himself with his 
 education, and the parents, none too well off, 
 accepted gladly. 
 
 For three years Hainburg was his home, 
 and though a little better treatment and a 
 more liberal fare might have been acceptable, 
 these three years were of considerable use to 
 him, on his own admission, as having been the 
 means of storing his mind with a fundamental 
 knowledge of music, reading, writing, Latin, and 
 elementary violin playing. He was eight years 
 old when by accident, Renter, leader of the St. 
 Stephen's choir at Vienna, arrived at Hainburg 
 in search of choristers. He consented to hear 
 young Haydn, and gave him a task, of which 
 the boy acquitted himself creditably, with the 
 exception of the trills, with which the master 
 found fault. 
 
 ' How should I be able to trill,' young Joseph 
 said, ' when my master himself cannot do it ? ' 
 
 'Come here, then,' said the visitor, and he 
 was quite charmed to find that his pupil 
 
HAYDN 
 
 IIS 
 
 followed his instructions with the greatest 
 facility. 
 
 Thus Haydn entered the choir of St. 
 Stephen's and laid the beginning of his grand 
 career. His duties were not onerous, but all 
 his spare time was taken up by ceaseless efforts 
 to obtain mastery of everything pertaining to 
 music. To hear a performance of any kind 
 was his principal delight ; the intonation of the 
 organ in the venerable cathedral was for him 
 the signal to quit his games in spite of the 
 taunts of his playfellows. When about thirteen 
 he felt impelled to compose, and started on 
 some trifles, but soon trifles sufficed for him 
 no longer. He wrote a mass, and showed the 
 score to Reuter, who, however, laughed at him, 
 saying that he ought first to learn to write. 
 The boy, much chagrined, felt nevertheless the 
 justice of this remark, and determined to 
 launch into the necessary studies at once. 
 Unfortunately, he knew of no master who 
 would teach him without pay, and this he was 
 unable to afford. In his despair he wrote to 
 his father asking for some money for repairs to 
 clothes. The good man sent him six florins, 
 which were forthwith invested in the Gradus 
 ad Parnassum, by Fox, and the Parfait Mattre 
 de Chapelle, by Mattheson, and now commenced 
 
ii6 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 a course of assiduous and unrelenting study. 
 But though these works were devoured with 
 insatiable appetite, he did not accord an 
 unqualified agreement to all the principles 
 therein contained, and showed thus early that 
 he felt the vocation to strike out a course for 
 himself. 
 
 Over eight years Haydn remained at St. 
 Stephen's, well known for his excellent voice, 
 and in high favour with the director. Renter ; 
 indeed, so favourably was this latter impressed 
 with the boy's talents, that he offered to take 
 his two younger brothers, Michael and Johann, 
 into the choir, and promised the father to 
 secure their future, an offer which must have 
 gladdened the hearts of the brave but needy 
 old people. But, approaching the age of 
 puberty, Joseph's voice grew weaker, and at 
 last his connection with the cathedral was 
 severed rather abruptly. The year in which 
 this took place has been " variously stated 
 between 1747 and 1750, the latter period being 
 perhaps more probable. There is also con- 
 siderable doubt as to the immediate cause 
 which led to Haydn's dismissal from the choir 
 in something like disgrace. Some authorities 
 allege professional jealousy on the part of 
 Renter, others mention a puerile escapiade, in 
 
HAYDN 117 
 
 the course of which one of his colleagues would 
 seem to have been deprived of his pig-tail. But 
 it seems certain that the parting was not friendly, 
 and that for one night poor Haydn had to 
 camp in the street without a roof to his head. 
 On the next day a temporary make-shift was 
 offered to him by a friend or acquaintance, 
 himself in needy circumstances, which was 
 gratefully accepted. Again doubts prevail as 
 to the person of this benefactor. A suggestion 
 has been thrown out that it was a certain 
 Spangler, but this cannot be reconciled with 
 chronological circumstances, and the theory 
 that it was the barber Keller, destined after- 
 wards to become the composer's father-in-law, 
 though interesting from that reason, cannot be 
 satisfactorily substantiated. 
 
 A journey to Mariazell, and an unsuccessful 
 application to join the choir, which the young 
 enthusiast circumvented by taking the law in 
 his own hand, would also appear to have fallen 
 in this period, which is altogether veiled in 
 great obscurity ; but anyhow, Haydn emerges 
 from it after a time as an eager student of 
 music, afflicted with great poverty, but still 
 enabled to devote himself to his favourite 
 study, and even boasting the coveted possession 
 of a piano of questionable excellence. 
 
ii8 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 His parents, much disappointed at his refusal 
 to enter the church, seemed to have made up 
 their mind to the inevitable. A wonderful 
 impetus was given to his creative genius by the 
 first six sonatas of Emanuel Bach, and he often 
 confessed to a debt of sincere gratitude towards 
 this master. Occasional engagements with 
 orchestras and poorly-paid tuition of piano 
 were his only sources of income, until an un- 
 expected stroke of fortune procured him the 
 acquaintance of the poet Metastasio, and through 
 him of the singing-master Porpora, who engaged 
 him as accompanist, and although his position 
 was still far from brilliant, as may be imagined 
 from the fact that he had to board with the 
 servants, his emoluments increased steadily 
 from that time to his death, and of actual 
 misery, such as shortened the days of Mozart 
 and many others, Haydn had only a very short 
 spell. 
 
 Many of his smaller sonatas, trios, and 
 serenades date from this time, also his acquaint- 
 ance with the actor Bernardone, at whose in- 
 stance he wrote an opera. The Crooked Devil, 
 which was suppressed after a few performances 
 owing to personalities which occasioned com- 
 plaint. The Countess Thun also proved a 
 valuable acquaintance for him, and she it was. 
 
HAYDN 
 
 119 
 
 probably, who procured him a situation with 
 Count Haugwitz, and another at a cathedral 
 in the Leopoldstadt. 
 
 Altogether Haydn seems to have had great 
 aptitude in inspiring others with sympathy, 
 and when a burglary deprived him of all his 
 possessions, the loss was made good immediately 
 by friends, and temporary quarters found for 
 him in the house of a Baron Fiirnberg, who 
 was a great enthusiast for music, and gave 
 regular concerts at his place near Vienna. It 
 was here Haydn made the acquaintance of the 
 well-known composer Albrechtsberger. But if 
 most of his connections proved of great ad- 
 vantage, this was not the case with the barber, 
 Keller, to whose daughters he gave lessons. 
 Various opinions exist as to the commence- 
 ment of this friendship, which was destined to 
 have such unfortunate results. Certain it is 
 that after some time Haydn took up his abode 
 with the family altogether. Keller himself 
 seems to have behaved with great generosity, 
 laying his guest under undoubted obligations. 
 A tender attachment towards the elder daughter, 
 which was fully reciprocated, promised well, 
 but her death supervened and led to the one 
 fatal step, which cast a blight over the days 
 of the composer, binding him to the younger 
 
I20 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 daughter, whom he thought himself in duty 
 bound to marry. 
 
 His residence with the Keller family lasted 
 till 1758 or 1759, when he was offered a good 
 engagement with Count Morzin, a Bohemian 
 nobleman. Here he made the acquaintance of 
 Prince Paul Esterhazy, who greatly admired 
 one of his symphonies, and wished at that time 
 to engage him. Soon afterwards Count Morzin 
 was compelled by pecuniary reasons to dismiss 
 his orchestra, and on the ist May 1761 Haydn 
 entered the service of Prince Esterhazy. ' Blacka- 
 moor,' the nobleman is reported to have said 
 to the swarthy composer, 'you are henceforth 
 in my service.' But for all that he proved a 
 kind master, and with him and his successors 
 Haydn was to pass many years to come. The 
 written agreement has been recently unearthed ; 
 it is a most ponderous document, enumerating 
 a host of duties that were to come within the 
 range of his office, and laying special stress on 
 the proper attention to pigtail, powder, and 
 dress, and the practice of sobriety. The salary 
 commencing with 400 florins was gradually 
 raised until it stood at 1000 florins, a formidable 
 amount for those times. 
 
 From this period onwards Haydn's pecuniary 
 position was always assured^ and his fame, 
 
HAYDN 121 
 
 already considerable, grew as the years, and 
 with them the number of his works, increased. 
 Symphonies, quartets, trios, sonatas, took shape 
 in never-ending array under the proliiic pen of 
 the master, whose favour with his employers 
 was ever increasing. Noire, his house, in the 
 little town of Gisenstadt, was burnt to the 
 ground, and on each occasion it was built up 
 again by his muniiicent patron. A number 
 of operas were composed, among which Acis 
 and Galatea, La vera Costanga, and A rmida, are 
 best known by name, but being all intended 
 for the miniature stage at Esterhaz, they have 
 scarcely been suitable to larger theatres. Of 
 the piles of sacred music, cantatas, arias, etc., 
 which belong to that period, in oratorio, // 
 Ritorno di Tobias deserves mention as having 
 led to a long estrangement with the Vienna 
 Widows' and Orphans' Society, who, not content 
 with the composer's permission to perform his 
 work free of charge, mulcted him in a heavy 
 fine which some antiquated law imposed on 
 compositions not written at Vienna. 
 
 Haydn's fame soon spread beyond the con- 
 fines of his country. In 1780 the Philharmonic 
 Society of Modena made him an honorary 
 member, and in 1784 six quartets, dedicated 
 to Prince Henry of Prussia, procured him a 
 
122 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 medal and the. portrait of that Prince. A 
 valuable diamond ring was the present of 
 Frederick William II. of Prussia, for a cantata 
 on the death of Frederick the Great. Even to 
 a town as distant as Cadiz the master's name 
 had penetrated, as evidenced by an order that 
 reached him for church music. 
 
 And now aji important landmark in his 
 career has been reached. Many attempts had 
 been made to induce the composer to under- 
 take voyages to France, Italy, and England, 
 but attachment to his employer had always 
 prevented his doing so. In London his works 
 were well known, and formed a staple attraction" 
 in all concert programmes. A Professional 
 Concert Society was formed in 1783, under 
 the presidentship of Lord Aberdeen, but all 
 endeavours to lure the celebrated composer into 
 their midst were of no avail. 
 
 At last a private impresario succeeded where 
 the Society had failed. The death of Prince 
 Nicholas Esterhazy and the accession of his 
 son,, who had no taste for music, led to Haydn's 
 retirement with an ample pension, and this, 
 coinciding with repeated pressure of the London 
 agent, led to an agreement and eventually to 
 his departure for London, the composer being 
 laudably careful to have all payments guaranteed. 
 
HAYDN 123 
 
 and a considerable sum of money deposited 
 with a Vienna banker. 
 
 On the and of January 1791 Haydn and 
 Salomon arrived in London and passed the 
 first night at No. 45 Holborn, whence they 
 moved on the next day to No. 18 Pulteney 
 Street. His impressions of London and the 
 hearty welcome accorded to him on all hands 
 seem to have been invariably favourable. A 
 series of twelve concerts was advertised, and, 
 after several postponements, the first one 
 actually took place on March nth. The delay 
 was vexatious, as it enabled the Professional 
 Society to forestall him ; but their programme, 
 which contained many of his compositions, was 
 a further tribute to his name, and every one of 
 his twelve appearances was a brilliant success, 
 his benefit concert, which took place on May 
 i6th, netting ;£'3SO. 
 
 The stay in London lasted about eighteen 
 months. During the whole of this time the 
 composer was made the subject of unqualified 
 applause and admiration. For the first time 
 he was enabled to drink in Handel's music in 
 its full glory, and the effect appears to have 
 been imposing in the extreme. Among other 
 pageants he makes frequent reference to the 
 conferring of the Oxford degree of Mus. D., and 
 
124 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 the Lord Mayor's dinner in the following year, 
 besides many receptions by the Prince of Wales 
 and one by the King, who treated him with 
 the greatest distinction. Professional jealousies 
 created an occasional sound of discord, but not 
 of a lasting nature. 
 
 At last, in July 1792, he left England for 
 Vienna, making a halt at Bonn. Here he met 
 young Beethoven for the first time, and ex- 
 pressed himself favourably of a cantata com- 
 posed by the latter. Most probably it was 
 arranged on this occasion that he should instruct 
 the young man. Much has been written about 
 the estrangement between the two which led to 
 an early separation. The older master has been 
 openly accused of motives of jealousy, but this 
 is hardly likely. In the first place, we can 
 scarcely believe that the feeling of jealousy 
 found room in Haydn's genial temper, and 
 though later on Beethoven overshadowed his 
 whilom teacher, this was not the case at the 
 early stage when the elder man was in the 
 zenith of his fame. But two men more unlike 
 each other could scarcely be imagined, and 
 a lasting attachment between the sunny and 
 childlike geniality of the one and the dark and 
 tempestuous soul of the other seems nearly 
 impossible. 
 
HAYDN 
 
 125 
 
 After an uneventful winter in Vienna Haydn 
 set out on his second visit to London, where he 
 arrived February 4th, 1794. He had scarcely 
 landed when news came of the death of Prince 
 Paul Esterhazy and the desire of his successor 
 to re-establish the orchestra under Haydn's 
 leadership. Highly pleased, he at once intim- 
 ated his willingness to resume his old position 
 as soon as his engagements would permit him 
 to leave England. The isth August was the 
 last day spent in that country, which besides 
 honour and glory had enriched him by over two 
 thousand pounds. 
 
 The next years of his life were passed in full 
 enjoyment of health and honour. His pecuni- 
 ary position was brilliant compared with that 
 of most of his contemporaries, and, with the one 
 exception of his unhappy marriage, there was 
 no cloud on the horizon to dim his happiness 
 and rob his music of that simple joyfulness 
 which is its characteristic. The two oratorios, 
 The Creation and The Seasons, composed at 
 that time, and the soul-stirring national hymn, 
 God save Franz the Emperor, a pathetic reply to 
 the levelling influence of the French revolution, 
 are among his noblest works ; but an enumera- 
 tion of the endless number of trios, quartets. 
 
126 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 solos, symphonies, etc. etc., would far exceed the 
 limits of this work. 
 
 After 1802 his nerves became much shattered, 
 and the death of his two brothers in 1805 ^^^ 
 1806 was a hard blow to the old man. One 
 last appropriate triumph was in store for him 
 on March 27th, 1 808, when on the occasion of a 
 performance of the Creation the aged master 
 was acclaimed with trumpets and cymbals. 
 After that he sank rapidly. On May 31st, 1809, 
 the roar of the French cannon, plainly discern- 
 ible from the master's house, formed a sinister 
 accompaniment to his death struggle. Mutter- 
 ing the words of his national hymn, Gott 
 erhalte Franz den Kaiser, the old man fell 
 back in his chair and ended a long and honour- 
 able life. 
 
 His wife had preceded him in 1800, after 
 having lived separated from him for a number 
 of years. 
 
 The music of Haydn will ever beremarkable 
 for a charm of simplicity essentially its own. 
 Of the triumvirate whose fame bids fair to out- 
 last centuries his lot alone was cast in happy 
 lines, and there is absent from his music alike 
 the plaintive wail which in piteous vibration 
 traverses the effusions of unhappy Mozart, and 
 
HAYDN 127 
 
 the solemn grandeur of the titanic thunderbolts 
 which flashed from beneath the shaggy brow of 
 Beethoven. 
 
 His was a bucolic, patriarchal mind, suited to 
 the time of his youth and manhood, and out 
 of touch with the stormy events which over- 
 shadowed his declining days. 
 
MEN DELSSOHN 
 1809-1847 
 
 LIKE a wounded boar, Germany was 
 smarting ujider the ruthless heel of 
 Napoleon's ambition. The Austrians, sorely 
 tried, rose up in arms for a second time, but 
 the battle of Wagram put an end to their 
 hopes, and the roar of the French cannon out- 
 side Vienna, besides destroying many fervid 
 aspirations, was not without musical significance, 
 as it sounded the death knell of old Father 
 Haydn. With a tremulous hand and a voice 
 enfeebled by age and emotion, he had sounded 
 his own glorious hymn, Gott erhalte Franz 
 den Kaiser, as- a silent but ineffectual protest 
 against the giant upheaval, which, among so 
 much of antiquated glory, had shattered the 
 German Imperial crown. And who could have 
 forseen that in distant Berlin, saddened by 
 early bereavement, humiliated by a relentless 
 despot, the shadow of that proud fabric reared 
 up by the genius of Frederick — that stripling 
 of twelve, marching by the side of his father's 
 
 128 
 
MENDELSSOHN 129 
 
 giant grenadiers, a second son, should grow up 
 into that regenerator of the defunct empire, 
 whom, only a few years ago, we have seen 
 carried to an honoured grave, bowed down by 
 years, and victories, and honours — the arbiter 
 of Europe ? 
 
 A troublous year, forsooth, that year of 1 809, 
 which gave birth to the composer who forms 
 the subject of these remarks ! 
 
 Hamburg, the birth-place of Mendelssohn, 
 under the yoke of Davoust, was the scene of 
 cruelties which have made that name a by- 
 word of iniquity. Life in the ancient Hanse 
 town became so intolerable that the parents, 
 though encumbered with three little children, 
 resolved to transfer their residence to Berlin, 
 and in this city, his favourite aversion of later 
 years, the boy passed a happy childhood and 
 youth, in the security and charm of the most 
 affectionate family ties. 
 
 The name of Mendelssohn was not without 
 its heritage of fame. In 1786, Moses Mendels- 
 sohn, the grandfather of Felix, had died at 
 Berlin, greatly honoured by the best among his 
 contemporaries as the foremost Jewish philo- 
 sopher since Spinoza. Abraham, his second 
 son, coming between an illustrious father 
 and an equally famous son, used to say of 
 I 
 
I30 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 himself, that in his youth he had been known 
 as the son of his father, and later on as the 
 father of his son. But, though overshadowed 
 by the superior genius of his nearest of kin, he 
 seems on all accounts to have been a man of 
 great merit and rare common-sense, and from 
 every jjoint of view well qualified to foster the 
 talent which was under his care. 
 
 Eminently artistic, both father and mother 
 stood out among art-loving families of the 
 residence ; talent of any kind was a free pass- 
 port to their hospitable house, and yet it is 
 difficult to decide whence the musical gifts of 
 all their children have been derived. , It is 
 characteristic that, in spite of the early promise 
 of the boy, the father doubted for a long time 
 that music was his real vocation. This did 
 not, however, prevent the greatest attention 
 being given to the musical development of 
 the boy and his eldest sister, Fanny, who 
 was possessed of considerable talent. Berger 
 and Zelter were engaged as tutors, and 
 the precocious genius of their charge was so 
 pTienomenal as to recall the early days of 
 Mozart. Zelter, most fastidious of teachers, 
 waxes enthusiastic in his letters to Goethe 
 about this young pupil. On February 2, 1824, 
 when the boy was scarcely fifteen, we find an 
 
MENDELSSOHN 131 
 
 allusion in one of the letters to his ^fourth 
 opera,' and a little later, on 22nd December of 
 the same year, to a ' new double concert,' while 
 a psalm is mentioned much before that, in 
 1 82 1, as having been received with great 
 applause. 
 
 His earliest compositions lean towards the 
 strictly classical style, but a decided departure 
 was to take place when he became acquainted 
 with the compositions of Weber. The style 
 affected by that composer exercised a potent 
 spell over the young enthusiast, and the 
 Overture to the Midsummer Night's Dream 
 amounts to a sudden complete conversion to 
 the ' romantic ' school. 
 
 The memorable movement which under that 
 name took possession of all German thought 
 originated, no doubt, in a widespread sympathy 
 with the course of political events. The fervid 
 enthusiasm which had nerved the whole people 
 into that irresistible uprising against which the 
 genius of Napoleon could no longer prevail 
 had been painfully damped by the narrow- 
 minded maxims of Metternich and his satellites, 
 anxious only to keep out every breath of indi- 
 viduality, to repress every atom of that sacred 
 inheritance bequeathed by the best traditions 
 of the French Revolution. In despair, the Ro- 
 
132 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 mancers turned* away from the poverty of con- 
 temporary surroundings and dived into the 
 traditions of the Dark Ages and the uncertain 
 mirage of Indian and Persian folklore, extolling 
 into fancied brilliancy, and with a total disre- 
 gard of actuality, any age rather than their 
 own. 
 
 For a long time this tendency reigned supreme 
 in poetry. Werther-like, without the realistic 
 power of that sublime impersonation, the pro- 
 ductions of their pen were remarkable for a 
 morbid unreality and a want of depth for which 
 no beauty of language or mastery of form could 
 atone. 
 
 In music this school was not without its ad- 
 herents. » Schubert and Schumann, though not 
 without an admixture of the spirit of their age, 
 may be considered its more vigorous exponents, 
 and it is difficult to reconcile the manly force 
 of the latter with his devoted admiration of the 
 literature of Jean Paul. But a more pronounced 
 master of the purely romantic style arose in 
 Weber, whose libretti, deeply dipped into mystic 
 fancy and dark superstition, are ably inter- 
 preted by his music ; and among all Weber's 
 followers, none interpreted his peculiarities 
 with greater effect than Mendelssohn. Though 
 not without its beauties, the romantic style of 
 
MENDELSSOHN 133 
 
 music has been reproached for a conspicuous 
 want of depth, and the greatest admirer of 
 Mendelssohn cannot gainsay the fact that the 
 broad, monumental style of Bach and Beethoven, 
 and the sweet intensity of Mozart, are not to be 
 found in his works. The elegant sylph-like 
 movement which, like a silvery brook, pervades 
 the score of the Midsummer Night's Dream, the 
 ineffable longing in some of his songs, notably 
 / Would that my Love and On love's bright 
 pinions, appeal to us as graceful wishes for an 
 unknown something, beautiful plaints sighing 
 for the impenetrable, fanciful, unrealistic, inde- 
 finable even by the author, negative as com- 
 pared with the eloquent vigour of the old 
 masters, whose language takes a definite shape 
 accessible only to its admirers. 
 
 Something of this kind may haye occurred to 
 the practical mind of the father, and impelled 
 him to seek the advice of unquestionable 
 authorities before allowing his son to launch 
 into music as a vocation. With this object he 
 made a journey to Paris, and sought the opinion 
 of Cherubini. The verdict was most flattering, 
 and had the more value considering the well- 
 known brusqueness of the old Italian, who was, 
 as a rule, very sparing of compliments, and 
 prone to indulge in satirical sneers when con- 
 
134 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 fronted with mediocrity. But with Felix he 
 was so well pleased that he ofifered to charge 
 himself with his training, and, though the offer 
 was not accepted, the vocation of the young 
 man was now admitted without further hesi- 
 tation. 
 
 The return journey is remarkable for a visit 
 to Goethe, whose correspondence bears ample 
 trace of the esteem in which he held the young 
 cpmposer. The musical studies are now re- 
 sumed with the greatest vigour, but do not 
 prevent a regular attendance at the University 
 and ample researches in philosophy and history. 
 A number of public performances fell within 
 that period, but the best opportunities to hear 
 Felix were afforded by the private concerts held 
 regularly at his parents' house, and eagerly 
 •attended by all that was most prominent in the 
 walks of art. Four operas were thus rehearsed 
 and played before a private audience, but, as 
 they have never been submitted to a public test, 
 we may assume that their intrinsic merit may 
 not have been great. 
 
 The fifth opera. The Wedding of Camacho, 
 was produced on the Berlin stage after con- 
 siderable opposition, but the reception was not 
 favourable. To this circumstance, and to the 
 candour of some critics, may be attributed, the 
 
MENDELSSOHN 135 
 
 marked aversion towards Berlin as a musical re- 
 sort, which rankled in the breast of Mendelssohn 
 until his death, and which the most brilliant 
 subsequent successes could never quite obliterate. 
 It did not, however, prevent his active connec- 
 tion with the • Singakademie, into which he 
 carefully instilled an appreciation of the old 
 masters, foreign to that age of musical decrepi- 
 tude. If Mendelssohn had no merits of his 
 own as composer and musician, his name would 
 deserve mention for the service he rendered by 
 exhuming so many gems of the first value, 
 and thus generally rehabilitating the classical 
 masters in the place which is their just due. 
 The grand Matthaeus Passion by Bach, which 
 did so much to stimulate the universal study of 
 this sublime composer, might still be unknown 
 but for the unremitting activity of Mendelssohn. 
 Berlin, prejudiced though it was, became fairly 
 electrified by the mighty harmonies of this 
 mass, and a second performance was vociferously 
 demanded. . 
 
 But a greater reception awaited the master in 
 England, where Moscheles had with commend- 
 able disinterestedness paved the way for his 
 successful rival. His title to a foremost place 
 among pianists, orchestra-leaders, and com- 
 posers was acclaimed with an enthusiasm 
 
136 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 unknown since Handel and Haydn had wielded 
 the baton. The Overture to the Midsummer 
 Nights Dream evoked an applause which 
 drowned the previous successes of Weber, whose 
 visit was still fresh in the memory of the English. 
 Mendelssohn never forgot his debt of gratitude 
 to his insular friends. Coming so close upon 
 the real or fancied wrongs experienced in Berlin, 
 the demonstration gained by contrast. Nor 
 are the Londoners without obligations towards 
 their celebrated guest, for indeed the man, 
 eminent or not, who can call London, on 
 November 6th, 'indescribably beautiful,' and 
 write from Italy that he longs to be back in 
 ' dear, smoky London,' deserves a wreath at 
 the hands of the gloomy, if colossal, metropolis. 
 But though from a musical point of view the 
 English gave Mendelssohn occasion for many 
 a hearty laugh, he was in thorough touch with 
 his audience, and he could appreciate the ap- 
 plause which nowhere else had been meted out 
 to him with so ungrudging a hand. And, indeed, 
 many reminiscences go to prove that he was 
 the spoilt child of all circles, from the Royal 
 household at Windsor down to the most in- 
 significant member of his orchestra. Only one 
 exception has to be placed on record, and that 
 is to his honour as an impartial and just — 
 
MENDELSSOHN 137 
 
 perhaps too just — appreciation of the music 
 of his contemporaries. He had arranged to 
 produce the Symphony in C by Schubert, a 
 Symphony in C minor by Gade, and his own 
 Overture to Ruy Bias ; but the first two pieces 
 were somewhat coldly received by the band, 
 and this so exasperated the impressionable 
 enthusiast that with rare abnegation he refused 
 to have his own work performed ; it remained 
 unheard in England until after his death. 
 
 Returning from the first visit to England, he 
 undertakes his voyage to Italy. At Weimar 
 he makes his first halt. The great poet, who 
 from this place still diffused his lustre over 
 Germany and the world, holds him in charmed 
 spell.. From day to day the departure is post- 
 poned, until a projected stay of a day has been 
 magnified into a fortnight. It was his last 
 meeting with the majestic Olympian, the last 
 God-speed he was to receive from those revered 
 lips. At Munich he takes another rest ; there, 
 as everywhere, he enchants his audience and 
 reaps a phenomenal success with his overture, 
 Return from Abroad, composed in celebration 
 of the silver wedding of his parents. But 
 wherever he goes his principal aim is to re- 
 establish the worship of the old masters, 
 temporarily obscured by the trivial . melodies of 
 
138 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 Kalkbrenner, Hunten, Ascher, and their worth- 
 less display of shallow fireworks based on 
 operatic banalities. 
 
 From Italy he writes in expressions of rapture 
 about the beauties of nature and art, at the 
 shrine of which all lovers of art should bow in 
 admiration ; but the Italian music disgusts him, 
 and receives unqualified condemnation at his 
 hands. A chance meeting with Madame von 
 Ertmann, the friend of Beethoven, and with a son 
 of Mozart, ' who, though ofiicial, is,' as he writes, 
 ' a musician at heart,' rekindles all his love and 
 admii-ation for these masters, whose worship is 
 ever uppermost in his mind, untroubled by the 
 rival claims of romanticism. But Italian im- 
 pressions may be best gathered from the pub- 
 lished volume of letters, specimens of rare 
 literary excellence in themselves. Among 
 them is one to his adored sister Fanny, contain- 
 ing the first of his Songs without Words. He 
 characterises it as an expression of what he 
 would wish to convey to her by word of mouth, 
 but is compelled by distance to express in music. 
 
 After an agreeable stay in Rome he shapes 
 his course towards Paris, where, however, he 
 was only moderately appreciated. The stay 
 in this town, aggravated by an attack of cholera, 
 cannot have been pleasant, especially as the 
 
MENDELSSOHN 139 
 
 death of his friend Rietz was the first of the 
 series of blows which did so much to cut short 
 his own career in its prime. A few days later 
 the death of Goethe cast a pall over Europe, 
 and must have been severely felt by his young 
 friend. 
 
 London came as a relief after these contre- 
 temps. The Hebrides overture was performed 
 to an audience turbulent in its demonstrations 
 of delight. And still death was busy. Zelter's 
 was the next to darken his brow, and an ill- 
 advised and worse-managed competition for 
 his successorship at the Berlin Singakademie, 
 which met with defeat, cast a shadow over the 
 ambitious mind of Mendelssohn, and intensified 
 the estrangement he felt for Berlin. 
 
 But the Reformation Symphony and the 
 Walpurgisnacht music soon occupied all his 
 attention, and a call to Diisseldorf claimed 
 much of his time and curtailed his productive- 
 ness during that period. Though not un- 
 successful in his attempt to raise the musical 
 standard of the Rhenish town, he eclipsed his 
 own efforts at Leipzig, which town he raised to 
 the first place in Germany, and indeed in the 
 world, as arbiter of music. For excellence of 
 taste, skill of execution, and truly classical 
 tendency the Gewandhaus concerts were un- 
 
I40 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 rivalled, and maintained their reputation for 
 years after the founder had ceased to be among 
 the living. To be considered of the first rank, 
 every musician had to make his bow to the 
 Leipzig audience and submit to the leaders 
 of the Conservatory assembled in conclave, 
 an areopagus, severely just, and unpitying to 
 mediocrity, but frankly appreciative of real 
 genius, and unswayed by petty considerations 
 of jealousy. 
 
 The composer was at work on his oratorio 
 St. Paul when the ha'rdest blow he had 
 yet experienced overtook him. On the 19th 
 November 1835 his father died suddenly, with- 
 out having embraced his beloved son. The 
 grief of Mendelssohn was unspeakable ; for a 
 long time he was not the same man. Indeed, 
 it may be well doubted whether the loss of that 
 father, who to him had been guardian, friend, 
 and companion, was ever completely overcome. 
 Had it not been for the oratorio, which he 
 pushed forward in compliance with the last 
 request of the departed, the consequences might 
 have even been more severe; but hard work, 
 though it could not obliterate his grief, went a 
 long way towards soothing his spirit into the 
 welcome oblivion of fatigue induced by close 
 study and mental concentration. 
 
MENDELSSOHN 141 
 
 In 1837, during a visit to Frankfort, he 
 met the woman who was to sweeten the last 
 years of his existence. Cdcile Jeanrenaud, the 
 daughter of a French Protestant clergyman, 
 was endowed with all the graces of a beautiful 
 presence and a sympathetic soul. Her virtues 
 are enshrined in the touching eloquence of 
 his letters, which one and all refer to her, and 
 the children born of their marriage, in terms 
 of the greatest love. Up to his death she re- 
 mained his devoted companion, and when the 
 beloved husband sank into an early grave, fol- 
 lowed by the son, with whom he had loved to 
 play and gambol, a veritable child himself in 
 the innocent enjoyment of the boy's company, 
 she only survived for a few years, unconsoled, 
 because nothing could console her, for the losses 
 she had experienced. 
 
 We may seem to anticipate, but in reality 
 the declining years of Mendelssohn are already 
 dimly foreshadowed in an increased nervousness, 
 and the appalling effect on his highly-strung sen- 
 sitive organisation of troubles, even of the most 
 trivial nature, which caused his hair to blanch 
 prematurely, and imparted an unmistakeable 
 stamp of weariness to his genial countenance. 
 
 In 1846 Frederick William iv. ascended the 
 throne of Prussia. This eminently gifted and 
 
142 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 artistic prince, who had always appreciated 
 Mendelssohn at his real merits, offered him 
 magnificent terms for the superintendence of 
 an academy to be established in Berlin. The 
 negotiations occupied a long time, and, though 
 the master accepted, his dislike of Berlin, which, 
 from the frequency of its manifestation, would 
 appear to have been somewhat unjust and 
 founded on prejudice, precluded his ever co- 
 operating cordially with his confreres. A great 
 deal of vexation, endless letters and documents, 
 and abortive proposals and counter-proposals, 
 were a source of constant irritation ; and, though 
 the King was invariably considerate and indul- 
 gent towards the most unreasonable whims of 
 his irritable subject, the connection was always 
 half-hearted. A continued disregard of the 
 King's wishes gave rise to an ill-feeling which 
 was not altogether without grounds. At last 
 they parted, Mendelssohn retaining the title 
 and the somewhat irregular functions of a Royal 
 Prussian Kapellmeister, with the permission to 
 reside at Leipzig. The bestowal soon after- 
 wards of the high Prussian Ordre pour le M^rite 
 was a graceful tribute on the part of the royal 
 Maecenas, which deserved a better reception 
 than the sneer .it elicited from some of the 
 composer's contemporaries. 
 
MENDELSSOHN 143 
 
 • Voyages to Frankfort and England, and a 
 quiet uneventful life at Leipzig, fill the last 
 years of the master. Elijah follows his suc- 
 cessful oratorio of St. Paul, and, though weary 
 and melancholy, his music preserved its standard 
 of excellence unimpaired to the last 
 
 A vexatious incident occurred to hasten the 
 sad event. Returning from England, he was 
 made the subject of police inquiry directed at 
 a different man of the same name. The ner- 
 vous tension . of the moribund master became 
 well-nigh intolerable under this indignity, and 
 when, in this frame of mind, he was suddenly 
 informed of the death of his beloved sister, the 
 blow fell on receptive ground. 
 
 Two slight strokes of paralysis acted like 
 thunderbolts on his shattered nerves. For a 
 short time he lingered, the object of the hushed 
 sympathy of all Leipzig, and when the end 
 came at 9 p.m. of the 14th of May, the mourning 
 in which the whole of Germany seemed plunged 
 was as intense as it was sincere. It was nearly 
 equalled in England, where the people had long 
 regarded him in somewhat the light of a suc- 
 cessor to Handel. 
 
 Mendelssohn's influence on music outlasted 
 his life. For a long time young composers 
 tried as well as they could to follow in his foot- 
 
144 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 steps, and the more virile music of Schumann 
 and Brahms would possibly have received 
 earlier recognition had it not been for the trans- 
 cendental worship of their contemporary. And, 
 though the romantic school has been super- 
 seded by the worship of Schumann, Wagner, 
 and the older and more positive masters, the 
 graceful elegance of Mendelssohn stands in no 
 danger of being swept from the boards, though 
 it may be regretted that a master so superior 
 in all the highest works of his art has in many 
 instances sacrificed substance to somewhat 
 superficial melody. In saying this we quote 
 the opinion of many eminent composers, to 
 suspect whom of jealousy there is no reason. 
 But whoever has heard the incomparable Over- 
 ture to the Midsummer NigMs Dream, Hebrides, 
 Ruy Bias, Melusine, the Violin Concerto, and 
 so many other monuments of vocal and instru- 
 mental beauty, may well ask whether a heavier 
 instrumentation would not detract from their 
 elfin-like charms. 
 
 It is not generally known that Mendelssohn 
 was no mean adept at drawing, that he has left 
 a great number of sketches of considerable 
 artistic value, and that as a letter-writer he has 
 not many superiors. Indeed the quantity of 
 his letters, and the minute care devoted to every 
 
MENDELSSOHN 145 
 
 stroke of his pen and every tone of his musical 
 manuscripts, cause the spectator to marvel at 
 the time he must have spent over these appa- 
 rent trifles. The methodical neatness in which 
 all his papers are arranged forms the surprised 
 delight of researchers, who are not spoilt by the 
 somewhat slovenly tendencies generally con- 
 nected with genius. 
 
 It is also a remarkable fact that Mendelssohn 
 was a good gymnast, swimmer, and rider, a 
 passionate dancer, and of fair skill at chess and 
 billiards. 
 
 In appearance he was short and delicate 
 looking, Semitic in type, with wonderful eyes, 
 which seemed to dilate to a marvellous degree 
 when inspired. His nature was kindly, and, 
 sensitive himself to adverse criticism, he shrank 
 from wounding others. Towards contempo- 
 raries he was most indulgent and frankly 
 appreciative, even of those who, like Berlioz, 
 were artistically opposed to him. 
 
 K 
 
MEYERBEER 
 
 1791-1864 
 
 HOT strife has raged around the name of 
 this composer. Musical critics of all 
 classes and shades have freely condemned him, 
 and friendly voices have been few and far 
 between. Wagner himself, by no means one 
 of the least abused composers, has emptied the 
 vial of his wrath and sarcasm over the head of 
 Meyerbeer, whose exertions in his behalf, when, 
 half starving, he sought the suffrages of the 
 Paris public, the immortal composer of Lohen- 
 grin deliberately ignored. 
 
 As a set-off against adverse comment, we 
 are confronted by stubborn facts, amounting 
 to actual successes hitherto unknown and un- 
 dreamt of, success conveyed by the lusty voices 
 of thousands, and substantiated by a flood-tide 
 of money, such as has fallen to the lot of no 
 operatic composer before or since. It is re- 
 markable that these very successes form the 
 basis of all the indictments hurled with more 
 or less vituperative eloquence at the devoted 
 
 U6 
 
MEYERBEER 147 
 
 head of a man generally esteemed as kindly 
 and amiable. 
 
 ' My heart bleeds,' writes C. M. von Weber, 
 who nevertheless preserved for Meyerbeer an 
 affectionate friendship and a warm appreciation 
 of his great gifts to his death, 'to see a German 
 composer of creative power stoop to become 
 an imitator, in order to win favour with the 
 crowd.' ' He is going to settle in Berlin,' occurs 
 in a later letter, ' where, perhaps, he will write 
 a German opera. Please God he may ! I 
 made many appeals to his conscience.' Wag- 
 ner is less indulgent. While regrftting the 
 mistaken tendency of his friend, Weber never 
 for a moment doubts his abilities ; but the 
 judgment of the latter master disdains any 
 reservation on this score. ' A miserable music 
 maker,' 'a Jew banker, to whom it occurred 
 to compose operas,' are a few of the epithets 
 scattered broadcast with a lavish hand, and a 
 pen steeped in scathing sarcasm and the bitterest 
 of venom. We can well imagine that a com- 
 poser who was both rich and a Jew would 
 receive but scant mercy at the hands of the 
 prejudiced master. 
 
 But, although the opinions of Wagner, how- 
 ever deeply they may be disfigured by bias, 
 cannot be lightly set aside, we have no hesi- 
 
148 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 tation in pronouncing them unjust in at least 
 one respect. For even those who most differ 
 from the tendency of Meyerbeer cannot — if they 
 be just — for a moment deny that he was a 
 musician possessed of great gifts. Indeed, had 
 it been otherwise, the outcry against him would 
 have been less pronounced. A less capable 
 man might have escaped obloquy for works 
 which were in accordance with his lights. 
 With Meyerbeer it is undisputed genius 
 frittered away in undignified subservience to 
 unworthy motives which his detractors con- 
 demn. 
 
 The son of rich parents, cradled in luxury 
 that ever remained at his beck and call, the 
 boy gave early promise of musical talent. As 
 a mere child he had the faculty of repeating 
 melodies correctly after a first hearing. There 
 was no attempt to stifle his talent. The best 
 of teachers were engaged. Lauska, considered 
 at the head of his profession in Berlin, super- 
 intended his studies ; and the aged Clementi 
 was so delighted with his aptitude that he gave 
 him lessons during the whole of his stay. As 
 a boy of nine, Meyerbeer performed at a con- 
 cert, and was rapturously applauded. In 1806 
 he joined the. pri rate academy of Vogler of 
 Darmstadt, who has been variously pronounced 
 
MEYERBEER 149 
 
 an excellent authority and an egregious char- 
 latan. One of his co-disciples, the celebrated 
 Weber, became bound to him in friendship that 
 only ceased with his death. 
 
 In Meyerbeer's early compositions church 
 music predominates. An opera, JephthaKs Vow, 
 singularly dry and heavy, and altogether more 
 like an oratorio, was performed at Munich, and 
 not appreciated by the public, though connois- 
 seurs thought highly of it. This is the case 
 with all his earlier music, and points to the fact 
 that the subsequent idol of the crowd started 
 as a caterer to exclusive tastes. 
 
 In 1813 he wrote the comic opera, Abimelek, 
 performed with some success at Stuttgart and 
 Prague. A journey to Vienna, undertaken in 
 order to superintend its performance at that 
 city, brought him face to face with Hummel, 
 whose execution as a pianist threw him into 
 such raptures that he postponed all his plans 
 for the moment with the object of perfect- 
 ing his own play. Moscheles, who heard him 
 at that time, said that, ' had he persevered, 
 as a pianist he would have had few equals.' 
 But his mind was set on composing, and even 
 at that early age his thirst for popularity 
 was evident. The comparative failure of his 
 opera at Vienna plunged him into the deepest 
 
ISO THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 grief, and did much to determine his future 
 career. 
 
 After a brief stay in Paris he went to Italy, 
 with the ambitious ihtention to beard the all- 
 powerful Rossini in his lair. The imitative 
 powers of Meyerbeer which enabled him to 
 identify himself at the shortest notice with any 
 style stood him in good stead. In Italy he 
 composed operas so thoroughly Italian, that 
 all his German training seemed to have evapor- 
 ated into space. The success was instantaneous. 
 The laurels of Rossini seemed for a moment 
 to pale beside the daring assault of this auda- 
 cious youngster. // Crociato, his best creation, 
 during that period, electrified the audience at 
 Venice, and nothing would satisfy them until 
 the master had made his bow from the stage 
 and accepted a wreath tendered him. 
 
 Emboldened by this triumph he had the 
 opera performed at Berlin, but in Germany 
 they would have none of Italian music, and in 
 Paris the result was not much better. From 
 1825-1831 very little is heard of the composer. 
 The death of his father, followed by the death 
 of two of his children, saddened the feelings of 
 this man who was thoroughly typical of his 
 race in his strong family attachments. These 
 bereavements, coupled with the growing dis- 
 
MEYERBEER 151 
 
 approbation of his friends at his musical 
 aberrations, brought about the momentous 
 decision, not only to expatriate himself from 
 the land with which he was no longer in artistic 
 touch, but, moreover, to jiesert the Italian for 
 the French style of music. 
 
 Auber and Boieldieu had been his precursors 
 in paving the way for a national opera which 
 was to hold the mean between the pure reign 
 of melody, to the exclusion of dramatic exigen- 
 cies which obtained in Italy, and the prevalence 
 of harmony characteristic of German opera. 
 The French masters, while refusing to tie 
 themselves down strictly to the dictates of the 
 libretto, introduced a style which has been 
 aptly described as ' decorative ' music. There, 
 opera becomes a series of tableaux set off by 
 music, which, like the scenery, the costumes, and 
 the general arrangement, took the place of an 
 accessory rather than that of the principal part. 
 The impressionable character of the French 
 lent itself easily to a tendency which aimed at 
 startling effect rather than gradual development. 
 This function Meyerbeer proposed to amplify, 
 and render so effective that, without impairing 
 the principle laid down by Auber, the music 
 should by means fair or foul be expressive of 
 effects so thrilling that the enthusiasm of the 
 
152 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 audience should be taken by storm. The stu- 
 pendous crescendos, worked up by all the 
 resources of orchestra, largely reinforced at his 
 instigation, until the house shakes with the 
 culminating fortissimo, the whole augmented 
 by startling scenery, exciting action, and the 
 weird stage effects producible only on the 
 grandest of theatres, and sufficiently familiar to 
 frequenters of Meyerbeer's repertoire to need 
 comment. 
 
 To qualify himself for this task the master 
 locked himself up for years, and undertook 
 studies of French history, French music, French 
 taste, so comprehensive that even his laborious 
 habits must have been subjected to no ordi- 
 nary strain to master the piles of books and 
 manuscripts that crowded his library. 
 
 At last he was ready, and the result stood 
 revealed. Robert le Diable and the Huguenots 
 are operas so intensely descriptive of French 
 history and French customs, so irresistibly 
 appealing to the fancies of the excitable Gauls, 
 that it is not surprising they should have landed 
 him from comparative obscurity by one bound 
 into the first place in the heart of the audience. 
 The success was instantaneous, and even in Ger- 
 many these operas and the subsequent ones, Le 
 Prophete and Dinorah, held the boards in spite 
 
MEYERBEER 153 
 
 of the frantic opposition of the classical school. 
 As early as 1852 the performances in Paris 
 alone had reached 100 of the Propkete, 222 of 
 the Huguenots, and 330 of Robert, figures which 
 in those days were nearly incredible. There 
 were not wanting critics who pronounced 
 Meyerbeer the greatest composer ever known 
 or ever likely to exist, and the Prussian Govern- 
 ment, proud of its brilliant subject, and anxious 
 to secure his services, recalled him to Berlin in 
 the most flattering terms, and with the title of 
 Royal Kapellmeister. 
 
 There is ample evidence of his activity during 
 the time he held that position. Though never 
 a great leader of orchestra he deserved well of 
 the Berlin opera. Euryanthe, by Weber, was 
 put on the boards as a sacred legacy bequeathed 
 by his dead friend, and Wagner ought at least 
 to have remembered that, if his opera Rienzi 
 was performed at Berlin in spite of previous 
 failure, this was solely due to the master 
 whom he could not sufficiently revile. The 
 Feldlager in Schlesien, composed by Meyerbeer 
 for Berlin, had a moderate success, and Struensee, 
 written to a drama by his brother, though 
 scarcely known, is considered by many to be 
 his best work. 
 
 In 1849 he returned to Paris, which was after 
 
IS4 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 all his most appreciative soil. The Prophete, just 
 completed, was performed with phenomenal 
 success. His last years call for little mention. 
 The North Star (into which were merged some 
 melodies from the Feldlager in Schlesien) and 
 Dinorah were among his last compositions, ex- 
 cepting the Africaine, on which he had worked 
 off and on for over thirty years. Racked by 
 painful diseases and compelled to have frequent 
 recourse to watering-places, he yet worked to 
 the last with unabated energy. A march and 
 hymn for the accession of William I. of Prussia 
 give evidence that his connection with the 
 country of his birth had not ceased. On the 
 2nd May 1864 he breathed his last. He was 
 not spared to see the performance of his Afri- 
 caine, which took place in 1865. To all his 
 works he had devoted the most minute care, 
 changing and substituting up to the hour of 
 performance, but on none more so than on this 
 favourite child of his brain. Though no ex- 
 pression to that effect is on record, it may, we 
 think, be assumed that he thought it his best 
 opera, but this opinion was not shared by the 
 public, who prefer Robert, and, above all, the 
 Huguenots. 
 
 That Meyerbeer's music, besides many pas- 
 sages of sublime grandeur, contains much that 
 
MEYERBEER 155 
 
 is trivial and reprehensible, few will deny. 
 Some of his arias opening with heroic majesty 
 subside with paltry endings, rendered the more 
 feeble by contrast with the preceding strains, 
 rung forth by the premier voices of the day 
 with all the powerful adjuncts of orchestral 
 effect. His successes were eminently popular ; 
 he spared no pains to hire enemies into his 
 camp and disarm the sting of hostile criticism ; 
 but music is an aristocratic art, and if the claims 
 of Bach and Beethoven were submitted to 
 universal suffrage they would come off badly 
 indeed. Impartial observers must therefore 
 side with those of Meyerbeer's opponents who 
 regret that a great genius has been unworthily 
 employed. What strengthens their case even 
 more is the fact that he spared no money to 
 enhance his successes by such despicable means 
 as a paid claque, bribed journalists, and heavy 
 bets, so framed as to artificially crowd out other 
 operas in favour of his own. Of all the hun- 
 dreds of thousands which were. made out of his 
 operas hardly anything flowed into his pockets ; 
 but this cannot be put down to disinterested- 
 ness, as his private fortune counted by millions, 
 and he could well afford to gratify any desires 
 he might have for publicity. 
 
 For all that he was a very modest man, and 
 
TS6 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 no harsh or overbearing word is reported of 
 him. With most of his contemporaries he lived 
 on good terms ; towards Rossini he behaved 
 with a submission more than remarkable, and 
 the Italian master held him in great estfeem, 
 and was much shocked at the news of his 
 death. An insatiable craving for popularity is 
 responsible for most of the faults imputed to 
 him. He was well known in Paris, and much 
 gratified when passers-by remarked, ' Voild M. 
 '^Meyerbeer !' It is said that the reproduction 
 of his melodies on the vilest of barrel-organs 
 elicited a contented smile. Ever in seach of 
 dormant talent, the world is probably indebted 
 to him for the proper development of many 
 famous singers, notably Lucca, and, in a mea- 
 sure, for Jenny Lind. 
 
 As a last word, let us not forget that the 
 poor and needy seldom applied to him in vain. 
 The Meyerbeer Stiftung in Berlin, and many 
 similar bequests, bear testimony to the good- 
 ness of his heart. 
 
MOZART 
 
 1756-1791 
 
 IN all the variegated annals of musical 
 heroes, not one is to be found whose life 
 has been replete with triumphs so signal, 
 opposed to reverses so cruel, as those reserved 
 for the subject of this chapter. The early- 
 promise of childhood was more than borne out 
 by the most phenomenal of creations in later 
 days. But, unfortunately, the brilliant achieve- 
 ments of genius and patience did not serve to 
 shield their author from the petty annoyances 
 of everyday life ; even from the pangs of hunger 
 and privation ; which, thbugh they could not 
 obscure his splendid powers, drove him into an 
 early and unknown grave. With deep emotion 
 and sincere reverence we approach the tale of 
 unexampled misery meted out to a character ex- 
 quisitely lovable and unblemished ; misfortunes 
 enhanced in an eminent degree by its childlike 
 simplicity and total absence of worldliness. 
 
 Mozart was born at Salzburg on the 30th 
 June 1756, His father, a man of sound musical 
 training, was possessed of excellent common 
 
 167 
 
IS8 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 sense. The boy Wolfgang and a sister, five 
 years his senior, who as ' Nannerl ' occupies so 
 great a space in his little heart, were the only 
 surviving children out of seven. 
 
 When Nannerl received her first musical 
 instruction, it was noticed that the brother, a 
 baby of three years of age, would forget his 
 playthings and steal up to her side, lost in 
 rapturous attention. When the lesson was 
 over, he would pass his little fingers over the 
 keys, and overbrim into exaggerated expressions 
 of childish delight when he struck a consonance. 
 These proofs of an uncommon talent were 
 of such frequent recurrence that they could 
 not be put down to accident. After a time 
 the boy would repeat simple melodies after 
 one or two hearings ; very soon, and before 
 knowing the notes, he began to extemporise 
 little pieces, remarkable for their correct har- 
 ^mony. Indeed, his sensitiveness to dissonance 
 was so keen that a harsh and jarring discord 
 would bring the tears to his eyes, and the 
 sound of a trumpet make him faint. As a boy 
 of four he played with taste and feeling. The 
 father, afraid of overstraining the child at this 
 tender age, did everything to repress his 
 eagerness, but could not succeed in keeping 
 him from the piano. There he would sit for 
 
MOZART 1 59 
 
 hours at a time playing and improvising. His 
 eyes were lit up by a strange fire, his face was 
 serious beyond his years. While so employed, 
 a joke, however innocent, would pain him ; the 
 only remark habitual to him was the question 
 addressed to his wondering audience : ' Do you 
 love me ? ' It was no idle question.; it was the 
 emotion with which his heart was overflowing, 
 the nourishment of which, more than others, his 
 tender mind was ever in need. Perchance, at 
 times, some one would tease him by saying ' no,' 
 but they would soon repent this harmless joke 
 when they saw the tears start to the boy's eyes. 
 Of love and of music the child's soul was 
 composed ; to love and be loved was the key- 
 note of his existence. Alas that it should have 
 remained so, only to become the cause of all 
 his misfortunes ! 
 
 In other respects he was just like any child 
 of his age, gay and boisterous, as far as his 
 delicate health would admit, fond of play and 
 passionately devoted to those around him. It 
 was only at the piano that he assumed the 
 solemn air which showed that music was to 
 him something widely removed from play. 
 And the character of his works points to the 
 fact that, if ever music was inspiration divine, 
 it was so in his case. Even while playing and 
 
i6o THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 romping it was ever uppermost in his thoughts. 
 The removal of his playthings from one room 
 to another had to be effected to the strains of 
 a march, and similar incidents are plentifully 
 dispersed over his early history. Parents and 
 sister, dearly beloved by the little fellow, doted 
 on him. Never had he been to them aught 
 but a source of unmixed joy ; punishment 
 was unknown to him, his docile temper did 
 not call for it, and the effects on a nervous 
 temperament so highly strung might have been 
 serious. In after years the father related that 
 they had often regarded him with secret fear ; 
 so delicate and gifted a child, they thought, 
 would not attain manhood. 
 
 In 1762, the boy being six years of age, the 
 first journey was undertaken. At Munich the 
 children played before the Elector, and the 
 result was so encouraging that the trip was 
 extended to Vienna. At this town a perfect 
 ovation awaited the family. The scenes that 
 were enacted day by day at court had never 
 been known in the Imperial palace, with its 
 stiff unbending etiquette. The Emperor forgot 
 the dignity of his position, and subjected 
 himself to treatment which would have fairly 
 shocked some of his ceremonious ancestors. 
 The Empress, a model of true womanliness, a 
 
MOZART i6i 
 
 rare embodiment of chaste wife- and mother- 
 hood, in that age of licentious corruption, was 
 never tired of caressing that most lovable of 
 children, who addressed her by the familiar 
 ' Du,' who made her lap his home, and whose 
 kisses knew not of the trammels of rank and 
 the worship of a throne. The little Arch- 
 duchesses were to him brothers and sisters, with 
 whom he might romp through the splendid 
 rooms, blissfully ignorant in the democracy of 
 childhood of what is due to Imperial Highnesses, 
 and the ladies, taking their cue from their supe- 
 riors, lost their hearts to the fascinating little 
 fellow. Had it not been for the scarlet fever, 
 which at this important juncture cut short his con- 
 nection with the court, his life might have been 
 cast in different lines ; but the fear of infection 
 made him suddenly an object to be shunned, 
 and aided the short-lived memory of the great 
 to expunge a strange intermezzo from the cold 
 and measured routine of every-day life. 
 
 However, the child's triumphs were by no 
 means over. At Versailles a repetition of the 
 Vienna experience took place, and in London 
 the music-loving . Royal Family showed the 
 greatest interest in the infant prodigy. The 
 first published compositions, printed and dedi- 
 cated to Madame Victoire, the daughter of 
 
i62 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 Louis XV., date from that journey ; they were 
 shortly followed by six sonatas, dedicated to 
 the Queen of England. But even at this early 
 period of unparalleled triumph we find the 
 father complaining that the financial results are 
 not commensurate. ' If we could only change 
 a few of those kisses into coin ! ' is his constant 
 refrain ; ' we have watches and snuff-boxes 
 enough to stock a jeweller's establishment, but 
 no money ! ' and even the boy joins in in his 
 quaint childish way. He wants to have 
 watches hanging out of each of his pockets to 
 show kind-hearted donors that he has no 
 further need of that article ! 
 
 All this time the musical capacities of the 
 boy are increasing apace, and the concerts at 
 which he appears are almost exclusively made 
 up of his own compositions. After a stay of 
 over one year in England the family leave for 
 Holland, greatly impeded by illness which over- 
 takes both Wolfgang and his sister. The suc- 
 cess at the court of the Prince of Orange is no 
 less phenomenal, but at Paris, which is their 
 next stage, the performances seem to fall flat, 
 and the first warning note is sounded that 
 precocious reputations are rarely long-lived. 
 The home voyage via Switzerland is mainly 
 remarkable for an unsuccessful attempt to visit 
 
MOZART 163 
 
 Voltaire, who was ill. The meeting between the 
 straitlaced and most orthodox Mozart phre and 
 the sceptical /craseur of the infante would have 
 been a splendid subject for a genre painter. 
 
 The arrival at Salzburg is the signal for a 
 course of severe study, wekome food to the 
 boy's insatiable appetite. The rdle as infant 
 phenomenon is now definitively cast aside ; 
 henceforth the tenderness in years must be dis- 
 guised rather than accentuated. The time has 
 come to enter into competition with the elders, 
 and for this purpose the world considers youth 
 a disadvantage and something to be regarded 
 with suspicion. Already jealousy rears her 
 ugly head, and bad luck begins to dog the foot- 
 steps of the youthful master. The death of the 
 Emperor, sincerely mourned by his widow, and 
 the inauguration with the advent of Joseph II. 
 of a reign of frugality and parsimony, eagerly 
 imitated by a numberofsycophants,is not favour- 
 able to Mozart's desire to obtain employment-. 
 
 Nevertheless the kindly Emperor commis- 
 sions him to write an opera, and selects for this 
 purpose the libretto La Finta Semplice. This 
 opera was never performed. The Italian clique, 
 all powerful at Court, resented the pretension 
 of a boy of eleven, and the orchestra refused 
 roundly to be led by one so youthful. Greatly 
 
i64 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 mortified and unable to obtain an engagement 
 at Vienna he returns to Salzburg. He has the 
 joy to see his rejected opera placed on the 
 boards, and receives the appointment as concert- 
 master to the Archbishop, but this purely 
 honorary title does not provide him with the 
 means of existence of which he stands in need. 
 Since the fame legitimately achieved is still 
 insufficient, the father determines to have re- 
 course to the ultima ratio of those days. In 
 1769 he starts with his son for Italy. The 
 fame of the lad has preceded him, but it is 
 regarded with suspicion and incredulity. Such 
 things as boy musicians have been known 
 before ; they hava seldom out-lasted their 
 childhood. The first serious task placed before 
 them generally proves a sharp extinguisher to 
 these ephemeral reputations. Let Mozart 
 come ; they will soon find out the weak points 
 in his armour. They place the tasks before 
 him ; as child's-play they are solved — solved in 
 a manner which adepts, aged in the study of 
 music, have never dreamt of They search for 
 fresh problems ; wise professors put their heads 
 together to devise some formula profound 
 enough to baffle this German stripling. It is 
 in vain. In two Italian cities he is elected 
 member of philharmonic societies, not without 
 
MOZART 165 
 
 hesitation, not before the most cruel of doubts 
 have been expressed and vanquished. His 
 father is supposed to have helped him — by 
 some underhand means he has procured the 
 key to the problems placed before him. ' Very 
 well, then,' he exclaims, 'give me fresh pro- 
 blems ; lock me up and set a watch on my 
 movements while I work them out ! ' It is 
 done as he desires. At last doubt becomes 
 impossible ; suspicion changes into enthusiasm ; 
 old abb^s blanched in the worship of Merca- 
 dante, and who have long, become reconciled 
 to the conviction that Palestrina and AUegri 
 have sealed the last rung of the ladder of 
 musical genius, beyond which there is no ascent, 
 are copipelled to admit that a master has arisen 
 destined to eclipse everything that has hitherto 
 been seen or heard. ' Evviva il maestro, evviva 
 il maestrino ! ' is the shout heard from one end 
 of the art-loving peninsula to the other, and 
 wherever Mozart plants his foot, new and un- 
 heard-of musical feats proclaim that his star, 
 far from paling, is still in the ascendant, that 
 the downward turn is as far off as ever, that 
 what he offers to the world is no empty trick 
 of legerdemain, no exposition of ephemeral 
 pyrotechnics, but the true impress of genius, 
 the like of which surpasses all imagination. 
 
i66 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 At Rome the celebrated Miserere of AUegri 
 is performed. So sacred is the possession of 
 this masterpiece held, that the score is jealously 
 kept under lock and key. No copy of it is 
 allowed to be taken. Rome alone is to be 
 possessed of the acme of sacred music ; no 
 other city may be permitted to rob the capital 
 of the ancient world of its exclusive privilege. 
 But the framers of this wise precaution did not 
 bargain for the memory of a Mozart. To hear 
 the mass once and write it down from memory, 
 a feat impossible to others, is not so to him. 
 The Pope hears of it and doubts ; nothing but 
 the examination of the score will satisfy him. 
 Competent men inform him that the rumour is 
 only too true, and then he sends for Mozart. 
 The Order of the Golden Spur is the mark of 
 his appreciation. Gluck has received this de- 
 coration when in the zenith of his fame, and 
 ever since he has called himself the Chevalier 
 Gluck. Not so the boy ; he takes the bauble 
 but never uses it, and continues to call himself 
 by a name immeasurably more honoured by 
 posterity, that of simple Wolfgang Amadeus 
 Mozart. 
 
 Three operas and a large number of other 
 compositions may be traced to this Italian 
 visit ; for two years in succession his was the 
 
MOZART 167 
 
 opera which received the place of honour at the 
 Milan Carnival. Hundreds of anecdotes, many 
 of which are, no doubt, spurious, bear testimony 
 to the brilliancy of his achievements, and to the 
 irresistible way in which he battled down pre- 
 judices and doubts which assailed him from all 
 sides. 
 
 His voyage had been interrupted by the in- 
 stallation of a new Archbishop of Salzburg in 
 1772, for which occasion he composed a cantata. 
 But in spite of his brilliant successes his appli- 
 cation for the post of Kapellmeister was refused. 
 The prophet counts for nothing in his father- 
 land. Three long and weary years he waits 
 patiently ; then, reluctantly, he leaves home in 
 search of the modest pittance denied him 
 Munich is his first stage ; there his memory is 
 still honoured ; there he may hope to find a 
 lasting home. It is no great wage he asks at 
 the hands of the Elector — 500 florins (equal to 
 forty pounds) ; and for this he is willing to com- 
 pose four operas, and to play at court every 
 day. ' He is too young,' is the reply ; 'let him 
 go to Italy and make his name, then I shaJl not 
 refuse.' Go to Italy and make a name ? He 
 has been there and who has made a greater 
 name. 'Will your Highness call together all 
 the best composers that I may compete with 
 
i68 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 them ? I ask nothing better.' No, his Highness 
 will not do so, and the poor lad has to leave 
 Munich, deified by the public but unable to 
 obtain the appreciation of Princes, which alone 
 in those days could be of use to him. 
 
 At Augsburg he gives a "concert to defray 
 his travelling expenses. ' Never,' he writes to 
 his father, ' have I received greater applause ! ' 
 But beyond the applause ninety florins is all he 
 obtains. At Mannheim he is well received, 
 but there is no vacancy. There is no help, he 
 has to try Paris again ; but at Paris he fares no 
 better. A libretto that he is promised never 
 arrives, and at last, after months of vain plead- 
 ing and bitter disappointment, he is glad to find 
 a pupil who is generous enough to pay him 
 three louis for twelve lessons. 'If I only knew 
 here of ears to listen, a heart to feel, and the 
 faintest understanding for music, I should feel 
 happy in spite of all my reverses,' he writes in 
 the depth of despair. For years after the bitter 
 memories of Paris haunt his mind. And now 
 a blow befalls him, the bitterest he has yet 
 known ; the mother, whom he has worshipped 
 with all the tenderness of his heart, dies sud- 
 denly. 
 
 In 1779, twenty-three years of age, one of the 
 greatest musicians the world has seen esteems 
 
MOZART 169 
 
 himself lucky to obtain a position as organist 
 to the court, and afterwards to the cathedral of 
 Salzburg, at a salary scarcely sufficient to defray 
 the most rudimentary expenses of living. That 
 his splendid genius did not only survive but 
 rise superior to these continual reverses is, in 
 itself, a proof of its irresistible vigour. A call 
 to Munich, during 1780, may have occurred to 
 him as somewhat of a relenting of his bitter 
 ill-fortune. If so, it was doomed to disappoint- 
 ment, although it gave him occasion to com- 
 pose the most memorable work he had yet 
 attempted. 
 
 The opera, Idomeneo, which was received with 
 unbounded success by the public, and vindicated 
 for its composer, at the hands of his confreres, 
 the title of the greatest musician of his time, 
 constitutes an entirely new departure in operatic 
 music. The style is so essentially original, so 
 divergent from anything hitherto known in Italy, 
 Germany, or France, and so anticipatory of ideas 
 that were to obtain much later, that competent 
 judges have pronounced it the origin of all new 
 opera. It may appear surprising that a work 
 so eminently subversive of all tradition should 
 have met with immediate recognition} yet such 
 was undoubtedly the case. The name of 
 Mozart was again wafted across the whole 
 
170 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 extent of the musical world. It must have 
 seemed as if this success would at last carry 
 him into a safe harbour. Twenty years sooner 
 it would probably have done so, but the time 
 in which he flourished was one of reaction and 
 severe retrenchment. 
 
 His master, the Archbishop of Salzburg, not 
 unwilling to partake of the glory the possession 
 of such a genius might shed over his person, 
 took him to Vienna, where he had to board and 
 lodge with the servants and put up with the 
 most galling insults. The eminent dispenser 
 of Christian grace and benevolence was not 
 above torturing his unfortunate dependant to 
 the top of his bent. For a long time poor 
 Mozart submitted to being the butt of his 
 delicate humour. ' Gutter boy, villain, low 
 fellow. Lump,' and similar terms of endearment, 
 were by no means sparingly inserted in his con- 
 versation. If Mozart had had himself alone to 
 consider, he would probably have cut short the 
 connection long before he did, but there was 
 the position of his father to be taken into 
 account, and the prelate made no secret of his 
 intention to visit the supposed sins of the son 
 on the father. At last, however, things became 
 unbearable, and the breach, long impending, 
 took effect in a way which admitted of no 
 
MOZART 
 
 171 
 
 reconciliation. ' Is your grace dissatisfied with 
 me ? ' timidly askes the composer, mindful of his 
 father struggling at Salzburg. In reply he is 
 literally kicked out of the palace, and thus ter- 
 minates this most unfortunate of engagements. 
 For over a year Mozart, landed on the pave- 
 ment of Vienna, was dependent for his living 
 on what he could make out of lessons and the 
 sale of compositions. The Emperor Joseph, 
 well meaning but surrounded by a. strong cabal 
 of intriguing Italians, and honestly devoted to 
 their style, could not appreciate his great 
 subject. All the influence of some great ladies 
 at court had to be employed to procure him a 
 commission to compose an opera. The Ent- 
 fiihrung aus dem Serail which was the work in 
 question was coldly received in Vienna, while 
 throughout Germany it met with such signal 
 success that at last even the prejudiced Viennese 
 circles found it wise to bury their prejudices. 
 'There are too many notes in the opera,' was the 
 Emperor's verdict. 'Not mere nor less than 
 required,' was the answer, which did not, how- 
 ever, increase the favour in which the composer 
 was held. Fifty ducats for the opera, and — 
 much later — a salary of eight hundred florins 
 as composer to the court, were all the emolu- 
 ments Mozar-t's friends could procure from his 
 
172 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 apathetic sovereign, and to make tliese eight 
 hundftd florins appear in the light of an alms, 
 the court for years deliberately abstained from 
 availing itself of his services, with the excep- 
 tion of the little opera, Der Schauspieldirector, 
 performed in 1786. 'Too much for what I am 
 set to do and too little for what I could do,' is 
 the sad remark wrung from Mozart with regard 
 to this salary. It is the opinion of C. M. von 
 Weber, that no opera can compare with the 
 Entfuhrung for placid sweetness of melody and 
 beauty of instrumentation ; he does not even 
 except the later and more successful works by 
 the same composer. The sweet influence of 
 love at this time exercised its potent sway over 
 the composer. There are many chance coinci- 
 dences between the plot of the opera and the 
 troubled course of his love romance. The name 
 of the heroine, Constanze, was also that of his 
 bride, and whereas the plot of the opera turns on 
 an elopement, he himself had to resort to this 
 drastic remedy to obtain what he hoped would 
 be his happiness. 
 
 It was not his first encounter with Cupid. 
 A previous love affair with the gifted singer 
 Aloysia Weber had thrown his father into great 
 consternation. It had been responsible for a 
 longer stay at Mannheim than would otherwise 
 
MOZART 173 
 
 have been called for. But at last it had been 
 broken off, partly through fickleness on the part 
 of the girl, partly through a severe exercise 
 of his father's authority. It was the only occa- 
 sion on which something like a cloud threatened 
 to obscure the hearty relations between father 
 and son. The former, ever solicitous for the 
 son's fame, deprecated marriage, especially when 
 coupled with impecuniosity. Wolfgang, he 
 thought, should be wedded to his art only. 
 ' Come back instantly 1 ' one of his letters runs, 
 'it is folly to saddle yourself with a wife and 
 children, doomed possibly to ruin and starva- 
 tion.' Was there foreknowledge in this sombre 
 prophecy, which the composer at the time re- 
 garded as well-meant exaggeration, but which 
 was fulfilled to the letter ? It did not influence 
 his decision ; when has love been amenable to 
 the dictates of common-sense ? But the paternal 
 displeasure was a thing not to be set aside 
 lightly, and he resolved to cut short all opposi- 
 tion by taking the bull by the horns. When 
 Leopold Mozart was made aware of his son's 
 decision, it was too late to remonstrate. The 
 bond uniting him to Constanze Weber, the 
 sister of his first faithless lo.ve, had already been 
 sealed, and nothing remained but vain regret 
 and an estrangement which lasted for years. 
 
174 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 Thus commenced a marriage which was pro- 
 ductive of some happiness alloyed by great 
 misery. The girl, though fondly attached to 
 her husband, was just as inexperienced in 
 worldly wisdom, and instead of buoying him 
 up with that counsel which his improvident 
 nature stood in need of, she added to the hope- 
 less confusion which rendered the household 
 a purgatory peopled by exasperated creditors 
 and importunate duns, and often devoid of the 
 barest necessities of life. 
 
 Wherever we glance we are confronted by 
 the saddening spectacle of the destruction that 
 can be wrought upon a nature weak and con- 
 fiding, that has never emerged from childhood. 
 And yet, though ill-luck was largely responsible 
 for the melancholy state of affairs, though the 
 most energetic of tempers must get warped by 
 the continued sting of indifference, as inexpli- 
 cable as it was undeserved, there can be no 
 doubt that, if properly husbanded, his resources, 
 however meagre, ought to have sufficed for 
 a small and unpretentious household. Had 
 Mozart as a teacher applied himself to those 
 of his pupils who, though incapable as musicians, 
 were yet able to pay for their lessons, instead 
 of lavishing his pains on those who both as 
 regards talents and impecuniosity approached 
 
MOZART 175 
 
 nearer to his own standard, the result would 
 have been more gratifying to his pocket and 
 his happiness. Had he sold his compositions 
 instead of giving them away to unworthy asso- 
 ciates, who traded on his good-nature ; had he 
 shunned such of them as, under the pretext of 
 a loan, unscrupulously bargained the produc- 
 tions of his brain to publishers, who with the 
 perspicacity of vultures scented the booty from 
 afar ; had he locked up his scores instead of 
 letting them lie about the room a prey to the 
 dustbin and the iire hearth, it would doubtless 
 have sufficed to pay for the bread and butter. 
 But the inborn good-nature of the composer, 
 absolute in. its disinterestedness, culpable in its 
 indiscrimination, untempered alike by his own 
 heartrending indigence and the most crying 
 distress -of his family, unable to refuse aught 
 to an enemy, arid culminating in a childlike 
 fidelity to a sovereign whose claims to his 
 gratitude we fail to perceive, proved his ruin, 
 and show to the world the strange and pitiable 
 spectacle of a genius " weighed down by the 
 most trivial miseries of everyday life, until an 
 early grave lies yawning before him. 
 
 But while the gnawing tooth of poverty is 
 preying on his vitals, while enemies rise up in 
 legion against the most unoffending of beings. 
 
176 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 while the obstinacy of the court in disregarding 
 the claims of its most devoted and illustrious 
 servitor seems to increase in proportion as 
 the public voice is raised in his favour, his 
 genius finds expression in works which 
 stand unrivalled to this day. It is impossible 
 to enumerate the scores that issue from his 
 pen with the fluency of magic. Suffice it 
 to say that, not allowing for the number of 
 compositions lost and uncompleted, the number 
 of complete works left by Mozart exceeds nine 
 hundred, of which the overwhelming portion 
 is traceable to those eleven years of unrelieved 
 penury that are identified with his sojourn in 
 Vienna. 
 
 The year 1785 is memorable for the magni- 
 ficent cantata, Davidde Penitente, which ought 
 to be more widely known. Six quartets, dedi- 
 cated to Haydn, 'froin whom he has learnt to 
 write quartets,' bear a touching testimony to 
 his modesty, and the affection which linked 
 these two eminent men together. Of all the 
 composers of that fertile age, Haydn, who 
 nearest approached the fame of his young con- 
 temporary, was yet the only one to recognise 
 fully and unreservedly his superior genius. 
 ' Upon my honour and before God, I declare 
 that your son is the first composer of our time,' 
 
MOZART 177 
 
 the old master says to Leopold Mozart, un- 
 heeding the greater measure of success which 
 seemed to pronounce the award of merit and 
 fame in his own favour. 
 
 Le Nozze di Figaro follows in 1786. This 
 marvellous work, the brightness of which is 
 difficult to reconcile with the gloomy life and 
 failing health of the composer, is second in 
 popularity to Don Giovanni only, while in 
 musical value it is widely considered superior 
 to the latter opera. To obtain the Emperor's 
 consent for the composition of this opera was 
 no easy matter. 'Mozart cannot compose 
 opera ' was his constant refrain ; and, when at 
 last all obstacles had been removed, the Italian 
 singers, intent on wrecking the opera, sang so 
 badly that Mozart appealed for protection to 
 the Emperor. The second performance was 
 better, but it was evident that Vienna was 
 prejudiced against / his music. A new opera 
 by Martini, La Cosa Rara, made short work of 
 Figaro ; the divine creation of Mozart was 
 laughingly shelved in favour of Martini's conrt- 
 position ! Who knows now of Martini, and 
 who of La Cosa Rara ? By a singular infatua- 
 tion the great composers of the greatest musi- 
 cal era have made Vienna their home, and 
 thus invested that city with a halo of musical 
 M 
 
.178 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 romance to which it has little claim. Indeed, 
 we should say that Vienna is famed for the 
 number of celebrated composers whom it has 
 deliberately ignored and allowed to starve! 
 
 But if the metropolis turned its back on its 
 most illustrious inhabitant, there was no want 
 of appreciation in other cities. At Prague, 
 Figaro was performed with such unbounded 
 success that the composer promised to write 
 his next opera for that city. This -proved to 
 be the most celebrated of all his works, Don 
 Giovanni, which to this day is second in popu- 
 larity to no opera, ancient or modern. Don 
 Giovanni was a revelation ; it uprooted opera 
 in its very foundation. From the most extra- 
 vagant gaiety to extreme pathos hardly an 
 imaginable emotion is unrepresented, and the 
 music is so appropriate, the harmony so ex- 
 quisite, that the most severe of critics have 
 stood silent before the perfection of its structure. 
 That the overture was written on the night be- 
 fore the performance and played by the orchestra 
 at first sight is well known, but not so remark- 
 able as the general ensemble of the whole opera, 
 the masterly blending of libretto and music, 
 and the care bestowed by Mozart on the elabo- 
 ration of the plot, which proves that besides 
 his own musical qualities he stood possessed 
 
MOZART 179 
 
 of great dramatic gifts. Again Vienna society 
 proved its inanity ; the work, regarding the 
 supreme merit of which there was only one 
 voice, fell flat in the capital, and was super- 
 seded by Salieri's Axur. 
 
 Some meagre recognition was, however, now 
 conveyed by the appointment as Imperial court 
 composer, with a salary of eight hundred florins, 
 abeve referred to. The edict dates from 1789, 
 and though it did not materially improve the 
 straitened circumstances of the composer, it 
 laid him unfortunately under -a debt of grati- 
 tude, and gave him soon the melancholy oppor- 
 tunity to prove his doglike fidelity to a master 
 who had certainly done nothing to deserve it. 
 
 Illness and melancholy are now crowding 
 around the master's couch, foreshadowing the 
 end which was soon to come. But the more 
 reason there is to rest his aching brain, the 
 more feverish his activity becomes. The fear, 
 often expressed, that he would leave the world 
 without having done sufficient for his glory, 
 gains hold of him with irrepressible force. The 
 prayers of his wife, most loving and anxious 
 of nurses, the commands of his doctor, remain 
 unheeded. Late into the dismal night he sits, 
 pencil in hand, poring over manuscripts into 
 which he has infused the life-blood of his 
 
i8o THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 inspiration. The incomparable symphonies in 
 C, E flat, and G minor, take shape under the 
 trembHng fingers of the pale-faced master, 
 wasting away under the inejjorable ravages 
 of broken health and heart. Cosi Fan Tutte, 
 perhaps inferior to his more famous operas, 
 and yet sparkling with wit and humour, is 
 one of the pain-gotten children of this last 
 year but one. The adaptation of some of 
 Handel's oratorios to increased orchestral ac- 
 companiment is a labour of love. But every 
 now and then the sordid necessities of every- 
 day life drive him from Vienna to places 
 where his works find more generous appre- 
 ciation. 
 
 Nowhere is his name held in greater honour 
 than in Berlin. The art-loving king receives 
 him with the greatest distinction. Here, at 
 least, is one who values Mozart according to 
 his merits ; here is a prospect which to one 
 less unpractical might have meant life and 
 happiness. 
 
 ' How do you like my orchestra ? ' the king 
 inquires. 
 
 ' It is good, your Majesty,' answers Mozart ; 
 ' and yet there is room for improvement' 
 
 ' Stay with me, then, as Kapellmeister. You 
 shall have three thousand thalers a year.' 
 
MOZART i8i 
 
 The tears rise to Mozart's eyes. He doubts 
 his ears. Should there after all be somebody 
 in the world willing to appreciate him > Three 
 thousand thalers — why, it is eight times the 
 amount he receives from His most gracious 
 Majesty of Vienna. But only one moment 
 does he hesitate before he replies. 
 
 ' I thank your Majesty froifl the bottom of 
 my heart, but how can I leave my Kaiser ? ' 
 
 'Well, well,' the King replies, touched by 
 such devotion, 'you may consider the offer. 
 It remains open.' 
 
 He travels back via Leipzig. In that town 
 he meets Doles, the favourite pupil of Bach. 
 With characteristic modesty he pauses before 
 he passes his fingers over the keys of the organ 
 which has resounded under those revered fingers. 
 ' Thank God, there is at last a worthy successor 
 to Johann Sebastian ! ' is the judgment of Doles. 
 During the long weary drive to Vienna he may 
 have thought often of the splendid offer of the 
 Prussian monarch ; it must have contrasted with 
 the misery in wait for him. For the journey has 
 not been a financial success. 'You must be 
 satisfied with me,' he writes to his Constance, 
 ' and not ask for money.' We can imagine the 
 pressure of friends, when informed of the muni- 
 ficent offer, to discard a sentimentality which 
 
i82 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 is uncalled for, foolish — nay, even culpable ; we 
 cannot feel angry with Frau Constanze if she has 
 reminded her spouse of the duty he owes herself 
 and her children, since he will insist on disre- 
 garding his own claims. At last his scruplps are 
 overcome. He tenders his resignation. 
 
 ' I cannot make my living in Vienna,' he says 
 to his Kaiser. 
 
 But the latter knows his man. Although 
 even now he cannot appreciate him, it dawns 
 on his Imperial mind that there must be some- 
 thing in Mozart which provokes the enthusiasm 
 reigning everywhere but in the good city of 
 Vienna. 
 
 'And you can leave me, Mozart?' is his 
 reply. 
 
 That is too much for the unlucky possessor 
 of a childlike heart. 
 
 ' No, your Majesty,' he replies. ' I cannot 
 leave you, I must stay.' 
 
 Weak and blameable! the strong-minded 
 among our readers will exclaim. One so stupid 
 deserves his fate. \^e must plead guilty to 
 this indictment. No man would have acted 
 thus ; but then, Mozart was no man, he was 
 never more than a child, and in matters pertain- 
 ing to money and worldliness, a child among 
 children. 
 
MOZART 183 
 
 ' At least you Have insisted on an increase of 
 pay,' his friends ask when informed of this 
 latest act of Quixotism. 
 
 ' How could I ? ' he answers. ' At such a 
 moment 1 ' 
 
 And the Imperial patron never intimates 
 a desire to reward the fidelity he has not 
 hesitated to appeal to. Joseph II. was one of 
 the worthiest monarchs that have ever graced a 
 throne. Liberal to the core, his desire was to 
 promote reforms for the welfare of his people, 
 and their ingratitude, which imputed to him 
 motives entirely foreign to his nature, drove 
 him into an early-grave. We are sorry to 
 record of a sovereign so admirable, an action 
 which the staunchest of his adherents cannot 
 defend. 
 
 And now we come to the last year of the 
 composer's life, the climax of struggles and 
 trials preceding the final act of the drama. 
 Again he makes a bid for the favour of the 
 ungrateful town ; again he is refused. The 
 functions of a second Kapellmeister are con- 
 sidered beyond the capabilities of a Mozart ; he 
 has to content himself with the place of an un- 
 paid assistant to the organist of St. Stephen's. 
 While his health is sinking fast, and his cir- 
 cumstances are worse than ever, Schikaneder, a 
 
i84 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 ruined theatrical manager, applies to him to 
 compose the Magic Flute. 'What is your 
 price ? ' he asks the composer, whose wan face 
 speaks of starvation. 'Since you are poor 
 yourself,' he replies, ' I must leave that to you, 
 provided I have the right to produce the opera 
 elsewhere.' ' Agreed,' says Schikaneder, and 
 proceeds forthwith to sell the opera in all places 
 where he can find a market. 'Will you not 
 take action against him ? ' ask Mozart's friends. 
 ' No,' he replies, ' he is a rascal.' 
 
 This opera proves the greatest financial 
 success of any of Mozart's works. Schikaneder 
 penniless and bankrupt, becomes a rich man, 
 while his dupe is hurrying towards his pauper 
 grave. La Clemenza di Tito is his last operatic 
 composition. It marks the accession of the 
 new Emperor, Leopold, who has no sympathy 
 with music of any kind. 
 
 And now; while the death angel is hovering 
 around his prey, there remains to be told that 
 strange and weird history of the Requiem, 
 pathetically illustrative of the unfinished life of 
 its sublime composer. In all the annals of 
 music we seek in vain for a tale more heart- 
 rending, an issue more sad than the mysterious 
 circumstances which link together the expiring 
 days of the composer and the death mass which 
 
MOZART i8s 
 
 filled his entire mind — a last grim battle between 
 Death and Genius. 
 
 An unknown man commissions the master 
 to write a Requiem. He pays the price de- 
 manded and stipulates a time at which he may 
 call for the score. Ill and melancholy, Mozart 
 works night and day, but the time expires and 
 the work is unfinished. A second time the 
 mysterious visitor appears. Will he grant an 
 extension of time ? Yes, as much as the com- 
 poser desires. Again the strange messenger 
 disappears. And now the health of Mozart 
 becomes alarmingly worse, but yet he works 
 with an assiduity that excludes all other 
 thought from his mind. An irresistible fascina- 
 tion seems to rivet him to that score, while his 
 brain is racked with fever and his pulse runs 
 riot. His wife, anxious and tormented, consults 
 the doctor. The score must be hidden away, is 
 the verdict, but the composer frets and worries. 
 Life is intolerable to him without this occupa- 
 tion. ' Do you not comprehend ? ' he asks 
 petulantly. ' The messenger who ordered this 
 work is sent from heaven. It is my own death 
 chant I am writing.' They give him back the 
 score, and forthwith he buries himself in this 
 all-engrossing task. Work and fainting fits, 
 fainting fits and work, constitute the last days 
 
i86 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 of the unfortunate man. The mass is nearing 
 its completion and yet he feels that he will not 
 complete it. A rehearsal is held of the parts 
 written ; he himself in a weak tremulous voice 
 sings the alto part, but when they come to the 
 Lacrimosa he breaks down. ' O God ! that I 
 should be denied the boon to finish this work ! ' 
 he cries in impotent despair. 
 
 The fainting fits now increase in vigour ; for 
 hours at a time he lies prostrate, and the lucid 
 intervals are taken up by work and instruction 
 to his pupil Sussmayer regarding the unfinished 
 portions. Meanwhile the Zaubexflote is playing 
 to ever-increasing audiences. Unheard of is 
 the success ; it gladdens the heart of the com- 
 poser, lying on his deathbed and unable to 
 wield the b^ton and drink in that applause 
 which so long has been denied him by the 
 Viennese. The watch is in his hands, and in 
 thought he follows the course of the opera. 
 Now this aria is being sung, now the chorus is 
 approaching. At last his fame has broken 
 through its trammels. Now, when it is too late, 
 Vienna offers him the baton of Kapellmeister 
 which he has applied for in vain. A powerful 
 syndicate of noblemen club together to offer 
 him an ample annuity. From Amsterdam pro- 
 posals are submitted which will place him 
 
MOZART 187 
 
 above need for the rest of his days. But he is 
 travelling now post-haste to a country where 
 annuities are of no avail. 
 
 On the evening of the 4th December he is 
 still occupied giving Sussmayer instructions re- 
 garding the score. A fainting fit interrupts 
 him. It was to be his last. At midnight he 
 sits up in bed with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, 
 and then turns around to the wall as if asleep. 
 At one o'clock of the Sth his spirit passes away. 
 
 His last malady seems to have been typhoid 
 fever. The funeral took place on the next day. 
 It is a pauper's coffin and in a pauper's grave. 
 A storm is raging, and alone the corpse 
 arrives at the cemetery and is interred with 
 several others in a pauper's vault. His widow, 
 stricken down with illness, has been unable to 
 cheer his last moments. When, hardly re- 
 covered, slie goes to the graveyard to pray on 
 his grave, it cannot be traced ! As if all powers 
 had combined to efface from the world the relics 
 of one whom it had neglected while he was 
 yet mingled with the living, the grave-digger, 
 who alone could have given information, had 
 died two days after Mozart's funeral ! Thus 
 ended the life of one of the most divinely gifted 
 among men. 
 
 In appearance Mozart was short and delicate. 
 
i88 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 with regular features and beautiful eyes of un- 
 fathomable depth and intensity. He was fond 
 of dancing and skittles, and a good mathema- 
 tician. At billiards he is said to have been 
 exceedingly good. Detractors have tried to 
 fasten on him the reproach of intemperance- 
 We seek in vain for any confirmation of this 
 statement, and, looking at the enormous quantity 
 of his work, it is most unlikely that he should 
 have been a drunkard ; that at times he en- 
 joyed a glass of wine is quite possible. 
 
 The place of Mozart in the world of music 
 requires no comment. That he was one of the 
 greatest masters ever known is now no longer 
 disputed ; indeed, in the opinion of authorities 
 so widely divergent in style as Chopin, Gounod, 
 Wagner, he is the absolutely greatest. 
 
 Numerous attempts have been made to 
 adjust the respective claims of Mozart and 
 Beethoven, but we think it absolutely impossible 
 to draw a parallel between two men who have 
 both attained to eminence, but each in a per- 
 fectly different style of music. No more can 
 Raphael be classed with Michael Angelo. Ad- 
 mirers of Beethoven will use the argument that 
 the rugged grandeur of the Eroica Symphony, 
 and similar works, could not have ilowed from 
 the pen of Mozart. Possibly not, but no more 
 
MOZART 189 
 
 could the sombre form of Beethoven be asso- 
 ciated with the serene beauties of Fi£-aro a.nd 
 Don Giovanni. 
 
 GodHke in self-abnegation, pure in life as the 
 sacred themes which inspired the most perfect 
 of his matchless melodies, the gentle spirit of 
 Mozart drained to the bitter, dregs the cup of 
 misery which Genius ofttimes presents to the 
 lips of her most favoured children. 
 
 Like some glorious star, lost in the mists and . 
 clouds of night to arise upon another world 
 brighter, more radiant than before, so shines for 
 us the light of his transcendent inspiration. 
 
ROSSI NI 
 
 1 792-1868 
 
 FREQUENTERS of the Boulevards during 
 the palmy days of the Empire little 
 thought that the portly old gentleman who 
 paraded his embonpoint day after day in the 
 garb of a finished dandy, and who was bowed 
 to obsequiously by scores of the gommeux of 
 the day, had started life as a penniless peasant 
 boy. 
 
 Yet such was the case. Gioachino Rossini 
 was born in 1792. His father was an itinerant 
 musician, and his mother was a second-class 
 prima donna. His childhood was passed amid 
 very modest surroundings. Travelling from 
 town to town, and scraping together in coppers 
 a precarious livelihood, the family often knew 
 what it was to go to bed hungry. Soon matters 
 grew worse ; the father, an ardent patriot, 
 allowed his zeal to get the better of his discre- 
 tion, and, while he was suffering for his patriotic 
 sentiments in prison, the boy and his mother 
 
ROSSINI igi 
 
 were entirely dependent on the gains of the 
 latter until they were rejoined by the husband. 
 
 It was very soon apparent that the child was 
 gifted with 'remarkable talent. At an early age 
 he accompanied his parents on the piano, and 
 further contributed his share to the entertain- 
 ment by means of a good voice. This accom- 
 plishment was not long lived; the voice weakened 
 and gradually disappeared altogether, and the 
 question then arose whether or not to have his 
 musical accomplishments perfected. Tesei, who 
 was consulted, gaye a favourable opinion, and 
 the lad was turned over to him, but ^he had 
 saddled himself with a troublesome pupil. 
 Most of Rossini's talent was derived from 
 inspiration ; long studies of counterpoint and 
 harmony did not commend themselves to his 
 lazy habits. ' You will never learn to compose 
 sacred music,' Tesei called out in despair, 
 ' opera is all you will ever be good for 1' ' And 
 quite sufficient ! ' was the saucy retort. 
 
 In 1 8 10, when i8 years old, he composed his 
 first opera, La Cambiale di Matrimonio. It had 
 only moderate success, but within the next two 
 years we come across eight operas written in 
 great haste and with the evident object to make 
 money. None of these works point to the talent 
 of which the author stood possessed. Had his 
 
192 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 poverty not been absolutely galling, and, indeed, 
 had Rossini been born in easy circumstances, it 
 may well be doubted whether he would ever 
 have astonished the world by his master- 
 pieces ; so little was his mind fired by any 
 enthusiasm, or the sacred fire which generally 
 works its way to the front when located in 
 genius. 
 
 However, quite suddenly, unexpected by him- 
 self and without any special incentive, the opera 
 Tancredi, composed for the Fenice, was so suc- 
 cessful that the author leapt at one bound into 
 the front rank of composers. The author him- 
 self acknowledges his indebtedness to Haydn 
 and Mozart for the success achieved. The 
 Italian school had deliberately ignored the great 
 strides made by German composers. Melody 
 was still their sole aim ; the human voice pure 
 and simple should reign in opera, and every ad- 
 mixture of harmony and orchestration was 
 strictly eschewed as calculated to impair the 
 importance of the singer. Rossini at once saw 
 that .this position could no longer be maintained. 
 Had the daring revolution been inaugurated by 
 an alien, the Italian public would probably have 
 rejected it as a national insult ; but Rossini, 
 being one of their own countrymen, had the 
 good luck to be not only forgiven but lauded 
 
ROSSINI 193 
 
 to the sky for an innovation that had on the 
 previous day been decried with scorn. 
 
 While still overwhelmed with the success of 
 Tancredi, he scored" an equal triumph with his 
 next opera, L'ltaliana in Algieri, but after that 
 his compositions degenerated for a time in 
 some inexplicable manner, and none of the 
 operas turned out during the following years 
 have been able to hold the boards. 
 
 In 181 5 he followed Barbaja to Naples. 
 This impresario knew how to treat the some- 
 what wayward composer. By plying him with 
 good fare and drink, and pandering to a taste 
 for luxurious habits which soon grew on the 
 composer, he coaxed him into writing opera. 
 Nevertheless he often found it a difficult task to 
 overcome a constitutional laziness amounting to 
 a disease. The Barbiere di Siviglia, written in 
 three weeks, might have been delayed had not 
 poverty acted as an incentive. Barbaja, at his 
 wits' end, had stopped the supplies, and the 
 composer, deprived of the means of buying fire- 
 wood, had to write the score in bed. Rossini 
 was a fervent admirer of Figaro ; it was a 
 favourite saying of his that Mozart's opera con- 
 tained matter for twelve. He could not have 
 taken a better model, nor could it have been 
 more worthily followed. With the exception of 
 N 
 
194 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 Fi^arOfthe Barbiere is probably the most success- 
 ful conxic opera ever written. Despite its great 
 merit, it was received on the first night with a 
 storm of derision ; popular antipathy manifested 
 itself in such an alarming degree that the com- 
 poser, dreading a repetition, did not risk taking 
 his seat at the piano the next evening. But the 
 reception on that occasion was totally different ; 
 long and loud applause greeted the opera, and the 
 crowd that had only the day before execrated the 
 "composer now deified him with wild adulation. 
 From that moment his financial status was 
 assured, and his name established for all future 
 time. Otello and La Gazza Ladra wind further 
 wreaths around his brow, and when he arrives 
 at Vienna with his newly married wife, Isabella 
 Colbran, he is received with all the honours 
 of a recognised master. At Vienna Rossini 
 appears to have studied German music, 
 especially Mozart. He had now the authority 
 needed to strike out boldly in a new direction, 
 and he had sufficient wisdom to discern how 
 far he could go without offending the ears of 
 his countrymen. Semiramide burst upon the 
 world, and marks a further advance. But while 
 conceding a wide field to harmony he was 
 careful to preserve the supremacy of melody, 
 without which no opera would hold the boards 
 
ROSSINI 195 
 
 in his country. His undisputed genius enables 
 him to spice his works with refrains so sweet 
 and pleading that only Mozart's scores can be 
 said to excel them. 
 
 Still in the prime of youth, scarcely twenty- 
 three years -of age, he severs his connection 
 with Barbaja and appears in London. Here 
 as everywhere he is received with the greatest 
 distinction, and, when he arrives in Paris, 
 the offers made to him are so tempting that 
 he resolves to make that place his domicile. 
 The directorship of the Italian opera, one of 
 the most coveted prizes in the musical world, is 
 forced upon him. It is a position of great 
 emoluments and equal responsibility, but, while 
 taking kindly to the first named condition, the 
 hard work is by no means suited to Rossini's 
 taste. The opera languishes under its easy- 
 going director. The authorities see that a 
 change is indispensable unless they wish to 
 ruin the institution. At the same time the 
 government does not wish to offend Rossini. 
 A satisfactory solution is found. The master, 
 elected Royal Superintendent of singing, retains 
 his salary, while the sinecure, which his title 
 virtually amounts to, enables him to pass his 
 days in the otium cum dignitate which is his 
 favourite condition. 
 
196 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 Mos^ in Egitto, composed in the twenty- 
 seventh year of his age, .is the next startling 
 creation of his pen, given to the world after a 
 long period of silence. It proves that in serious 
 opera the composer is also qualified to hold his 
 own. The prayer is among the finest music 
 ever written, and stamps the master an efficient 
 exponent of sacred music. . Already the French 
 style inaugurated by Auber asserts its influence, 
 and some of the orchestral effects foreshadow 
 the future course represented by the music of 
 Meyerbeer. Again Rossini pauses for twelve 
 years, satisfied to rest on his laurels as long as 
 they are not seriously disputed. Then, roused 
 by the phenomenal success of Auber's Muette 
 de Portici, the old giant, if a man of thirty-nine 
 may be called old, puts forward his best foot. 
 This time his effort is well-planned, and, as 
 he hopes, final. Tell, the greatest of all his 
 masterpieces, is received from one end of 
 Europe to the other with the most unqualified 
 approval. It is rightly considered the great 
 work of a great master. What might the 
 world not expect from a composer, only 
 thirty-nine years old, whose power stands in 
 its very zenith? To what heights might this 
 paragon not attain ? 
 
 And now occurs one of the strangest phe- 
 
ROSSINI 197 
 
 nomena ever witnessed. For thirty-seven long 
 years the master is silent, and during the whole 
 length of that time no opera and only one 
 piece of music worthy of his genius emanates 
 from his pen. During that time other com- 
 posers rise up around him. Bellini, Donizetti, 
 Verdi, follow in his footsteps and carry his 
 principles to lengths that seriously compromise 
 the school he has inaugurated ; Meyerbeer 
 achieves successes beside which his own pale ; 
 Wagner lays the foundation of a new school 
 destined to attack all known principles ; and 
 yet the old lion sits still and makes no effort 
 to vindicate his right to a hearing. 
 
 The reason, though hard to believe, is not 
 difficult to find. Happy in the possession of 
 ample riches, a lion of society, eagerly sought 
 and spoiled by the brightest gems of intellec- 
 tual Paris, undisputed arbiter in the musical 
 world, his ambition is lulled to sleep. Most 
 indolent of Epicureans, his life dream is fulfilled, 
 and while he can spread his huge form on 
 voluptuous couches he feels no incentive to put 
 to paper the ideas which, no doubt, were still 
 in profuse abundance beneath that bald cranium. 
 That restless fire which consumed the life-bfood 
 of so many composers, whom death only could 
 tear away from their scores, was unknown to 
 
198 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 the easy-going nature of Rossini. Alternating 
 between his house in Paris, his villa in Passy, 
 and an occasional stay in Florence, Bologna, 
 Rome, he passed his days in luxurious comfort. 
 
 Only once did he emerge into the arena of 
 music. It was to tender his last contribution, 
 the celebrated Stabat Mater. The final d^but 
 was as brilliant as had been his earlier efforts. 
 As sacred music, the cantata has been pro- 
 nounced too stagey in its melody and lacking 
 the solemn power of his own prayer in Mos^, 
 but from a musical point of view it is deservedly 
 characterised as a fine work. 
 
 The memory of Rossini is still comparatively 
 green. It does not seem long ago since he 
 hobnobbed with many celebrities that may still 
 be met on the Boulevards. As a reason for his 
 retirement from musical activity, his dissatis- 
 faction with political events has been more 
 than once alleged by people who were in a 
 position to know, and there may be some truth 
 in this assertion. Rossini was nothing less 
 than a democrat. The stiff-necked period of 
 the Restoration suited him best ; even Louis 
 Philippe was regarded by him in the light of a 
 socialist King, and the Republic of 1848 with 
 its Imperial development was not to his liking. 
 That a man of his obscure origin should have 
 
ROSSINI 199 
 
 gradually acquired the polish of a fine wit and 
 thorough man of the world, renowned for rare 
 conversational powers, is a great tribute to his 
 versatility. But if he was renowned for puns 
 and neatly worded repartee, he was also widely 
 known for some astonishing crotchets. What, 
 for instance, shall we think of a man who in the 
 latter half of the nineteenth century refuses to 
 enter a railway carriage and prefers travelling 
 with post-horses, or who takes it into his head 
 to farm all fisheries in Bologna ? 
 
 He was twice married. His first wife died in 
 1845, ^nd in 1847 he married a lady of doubtful 
 antecedents, with whom, however, he lived 
 happily. Her beauty must have been consider- 
 able, as the celebrated Horace Vernet used to 
 employ her as a model. Characteristic, too, 
 is a remark that she made at the composer's 
 death-bed : ' Moi, je resterai fidele au nom de 
 Rossini! 
 
 Rossini is unquestionably the foremost Italian 
 composer of his age. None of his followers, 
 Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, have been able to 
 reach, far less to eclipse, him. In many respects 
 they have misinterpreted his teachings and 
 rendeired opera subservient to the ambition of 
 singers to parade their capabilities. Bellini 
 and Donizetti are the principal votaries of this 
 
200 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 school, which finds its most determined anti- 
 thesis in the latest works of Wagner. In his 
 latest works Verdi appears to have evinced 
 leanings towards the teaching of the German 
 master, and the further development of Italian 
 opera will be watched with considerable in- 
 terest. 
 
SCHUBERT 
 
 1797-1828 
 
 NO more worthy shrine of pilgrimage 
 exists for those in whom glows a spark 
 of the sacred fire of music than the quiet un- 
 pretentious Wahring cemetery of Vienna. 
 
 Here hidden among venerable trees and old 
 time-worn tombstones commemorating names 
 long forgotten of this generation, we come first 
 upon a plain marble slab inscribed with one 
 word, but that word more eloquent in its soli- 
 tude than the most magniloquent epitaph. It 
 reads, 'Beethoven,' and three tombs further off 
 a simple monument erected by loving hands to 
 the memory of Franz Schubert. Its cost is 
 reported to have been le^s than twenty pounds ; 
 but for a needy brother and a few friends not 
 inexperienced in the bitter herb of hunger, this 
 amount is the proof of noble sacrifice and ample 
 devotion. 
 
 ' This grave contains a rich treasure but still 
 fairer hopes.' Alas ! the words are naught but 
 
 truth. Thirty-one years old, another of that 
 
 201 
 
202 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 great immortal band whom a sorrowing world 
 lost before it scarcely possessed them. Mozart, 
 Schubert, Chopin, Weber, Shelley, Schiller, 
 Byron, Keats — all entombed in the flower of 
 their age — many of them without reaping the 
 rewards of their glory. 
 
 Schubert was born at Vienna — the only one 
 of the great composers that shed their light on 
 the Kaiserstadt who was at the same time her 
 son. His father followed the humble calling of 
 a schoolmaster for a miserable stipend, which 
 he must have often found difficult to recon- 
 cile with the fourteen children born to him. 
 Franz displayed early capacity for music, and 
 his first teacher, Holzer, soon avowed him- 
 self incapable of teaching him anything, and 
 limited his functions to frequent expressions of 
 astonishment. The next move was a scholar- 
 ship in the Stadtconvict, a kind of preparatory 
 school for the Imperial choristers, which was 
 under the superintendence of Salieri and Eybler, 
 then holding the principal official posts in the 
 capital. The little lad in a grey suit, with his 
 wild unruly shock of black hair and the spec- 
 tacles which even at night were never off his 
 nose, came in for considerable ridicule from the 
 other boys seeking admittance, but the moment 
 he raised his voice, the 'miller boy,' as they 
 
SCHUBERT 203 
 
 mockingly called him, was appointed at once. 
 In the Stadtconvict, Schubert passed a number 
 of years. It was a gloomy establishment, 
 neither remarkable for a generous table nor for 
 a- great expenditure in fuel, and in winter the 
 poor boys clothed in the gold-braided Imperial 
 uniform had to huddle together and husband 
 their warmth and nourishment as best as they 
 could ; but in regard to music Schubert found 
 nothing to complain of. The noble works of 
 Haydn and Mozart meant more for him than a 
 plate of porridge. The inspired way in which 
 he went through his part could not fail to 
 impress the directors favourably. He was soon 
 promoted to the post of first violin, and when 
 the leader was indisposed he even took his part. 
 Even at this early age he composed sonatas, 
 masses, and songs. Spaun, an elder pupil, sur- 
 prised him in this occupation, and expressed 
 his astonishment at this precocity. Schubert, 
 ever timid and bashful, had to be pressed for 
 some time before he pleaded guilty to composing, 
 adding that he could not repress his temptation 
 to do so, but that he was often unable to pro- 
 cure music-paper. In this respect and in many 
 others Spaun, who continued his friend to the 
 last, was of great service to him. 
 
 In 1 8 10 he composed his first greater work : 
 
204 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 a most gruesome corpse fantasy founded on 
 the doleful poem by Schiller ; this was written 
 as a duet for piano, but immediately afterwards 
 we come across two songs, Hagar's Plaint and 
 The Parricide, both of which show remarkable 
 talent. In 1812 and 181 3 quintetts, quartetts, 
 and even symphonies testify to the ambitious 
 nature of his tastes. One and all are marked 
 by great independent ability, which every now 
 and then forces its way through the spirit of 
 Haydn and Mozart which still forms the under- 
 lying basis of his compositions. The want of 
 contrapuntal knowledge, which is apparent 
 throughout his career, is pre-eminently so in 
 these first compositions, which show many of 
 the defects one would expect from an auto- 
 didact. 
 
 In 1813, having just completed his sixteenth 
 year, Schubert bids adieu to the Stadtconvict 
 and takes up a post as assistant in his father's 
 school, an occupation for which he was little 
 fitted, and which could not remain permanent. 
 All the time he could spare was devoted to 
 composing and producing his music at the 
 Stadtconvict, with which institution he kept up 
 an unofficial connection. In 1815 a vacancy 
 occurred at a great musical school in Laibach, 
 the disposal of which was mainly dependent 
 
SCHUBERT 205 
 
 on the recommendation of Salieri. This much- 
 honoured musical capacity, whose prfticipal 
 occupation would appear to have been the 
 suppression of real genius, deserves a .passing 
 notice in the history of music. Poor Mozart 
 died under the impression that Salieri had 
 poisoned him ; that accusation in a literal sense 
 is no doubt unfounded, but that the death of 
 Mozart and his utter misery must to a great 
 extent be laid at the door of the Italian is not 
 to be denied. We find him nevertheless in 
 receipt of the greatest honours the Court has 
 at its disposal, and virtually at the head of 
 the musical circles at Vienna for over fifty 
 years, during which Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, 
 Schubert, and Weber were his coevals. The 
 only one to dislodge him in popular favour 
 was Rossini, and this is a clear proof that 
 Vienna as a resort of music was out of touch 
 with the classical school that dwelt within its 
 walls. 
 
 After this digression our readers will not be 
 astonished to hear that Salieri favoured the 
 claims of one Schaufl for the post at Laibach, 
 while pretending all the time to Schubert's 
 face that he was active on his behalf. Never- 
 theless they continued on friendly terms ; 
 Salieri spoke of Schubert as a promising pupil, 
 
2o6 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 by which complimentary term he had also 
 distinguished Beethoven ; and when somewhat 
 later his own jubilee as Hofkapellmeister was 
 celebrated with the greatest klat, he did not 
 hesitate to accept of a composition written in 
 his honour by the composer he had tricked out 
 of a position. 
 
 In 1815 and the following two years Schu- 
 bert struck out in that direction by which his 
 fame has become widest known. The music 
 to Ossian's songs seems to have first led him 
 to devote his attention to the writing of songs, 
 so unique in style and excellence that, whatever 
 we may think of him as an instrumental com- 
 poser, his position as ' Lieder ' composer places 
 him as facile princeps not only as regards the 
 intrinsic value of the matchless gems traceable 
 to his pen, but as originator of a school per- 
 petuated by the more recent creations of Men- 
 delssohn, Schumann, Brahms. 
 
 In judging of Schubert's 'Lieder' we do not 
 know which part to single out for special 
 admiration. Is it the harmonious blending of 
 text and melody, the appropriateness of every 
 sentence, of every word, to the music set for it ? 
 is it the flowing grace of the accompaniment 
 unrivalled by any composer ? is it the thorough 
 understanding of the poet's intention which led 
 
SCHUBERT 207 
 
 Mayrhofer to say that hfe only understood his 
 own poetry when he heard it set to music by 
 his friend? is it the weird tone effects, the 
 solemn and mysterious gliding from one key 
 into another, which calls for greatest praise? 
 We think that each question must be answered 
 in the negative. We, believe that Schubert's 
 charm is the tout ensemble, the welding of all 
 these considerations into one grand master- 
 piece, the utter unsurpassable appropriateness 
 of every particular of the most minute detail, 
 which makes us say to ourselves — Thus and in 
 no other way should this song have been 
 written. 
 
 That a new field was opened up to Schubert, 
 which he was the first to exploit, enhances the 
 merit of his work, which in that particular 
 branch had no previous works to lean on. The 
 old lyric school, as distinguished from the roman- 
 tic and new lyric schools of which Heine was the 
 most pronounced type, had been brought to 
 a rare state of perfection by Goethe and Schiller ; 
 its musical apotheosis was reserved to Schubert. 
 Seventy-four of Goethe's and fifty-four of Schil- 
 ler's poems he set to music in answer to Salieri's 
 advice to avoid these two poets — advice that 
 was quite typical of Salieri ; and judging by the 
 correct interpretation of the sense of the poetry. 
 
2o8 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 and the excellent taste displayed in the selec- 
 tion, people will be inclined to attribute to 
 Schubert literary tastes of the highest order. 
 Unfortunately this position cannot be upheld. 
 It is a remarkable fact that, besides gems of the 
 greatest value, his songs contain specimensof the 
 greatest literary trash imaginable. This applies 
 especially to his operas, which have invariably 
 been written to libretti so inferior that they are 
 in a great measure responsible for the fact that 
 they have not been produced. 
 
 As Schumann justly said, Schubert could 
 have written music for a placard. It is a most 
 astonishing phenomenon, this thirst for words 
 irrespectively of their value, and the capacity 
 to interpret everything into music invariably 
 appropriate and invariably beautiful. 
 
 Some of his most celebrated songs were 
 composed during those years following on 1815, 
 which were, at the same time, years of the great- 
 est indigence and poverty, only to be compared 
 to the sad experiences of Mozart, who, however, 
 we must not forget, was burdened with a family. 
 At last temporary relief was afforded by an 
 engagement on the Hungarian estates of Count 
 Esterhazy. Here, in Zelesz, he finds a tempo- 
 rary haven, and during one happy summer he is 
 spared the pangs of hunger. Here also he 
 
SCHUBERT 209 
 
 learns many Hungarian airs, traces of which are 
 found in his later compositions. But the winter 
 finds him back in Vienna composing, and alter- 
 nating between fitful periods of sudden pro- 
 sperity and just as sudden semi-starvation. 
 
 He was not to return to Zelesz for six years. 
 The daughter of his host. Countess Caroline 
 Esterhazy, had by that time matured into a 
 young lady of the greatest beauty. Much has 
 been written about an unfortunate love affair 
 with her thatns said to have broken his heart, 
 and there is an anecdote to the effect that he 
 met her reproach at not having dedicated any 
 of his compositions to her by the retort : ' Why 
 should I ? everything I write is dedicated to 
 you ! ' Unlike Beethoven, Schubert never seems 
 to have been fascinated by women, and the 
 distance socially between the composer and 
 the Countess was too formidable ever to be 
 bridged over, or ever to have rendered a love 
 affair practicable. 
 
 All during this time, and, in fact, up to the 
 composer's death, he was composing at post- 
 haste. The most beautiful quartetts, the cele- 
 brated octett, the unrivalled symphonies, seem 
 to have developed themselves under his pen 
 with the power of magic, intersected by songs 
 whenever and wherever a text presented itself 
 O 
 
2IO THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 The back of bills of fare, ragged bits of coarse 
 paper rudely lined, served on occasion as 
 receptacles for the most divine melodies. But 
 Schubert never attached the importance they 
 deserved to- his vocal compositions. To be an 
 instrumental composer, and, beyond all, to be 
 a master in opera, was his principal dream. 
 In this latter respect he was never successful, 
 and unless the pains be taken to write appro- 
 priate words to his music, we fear he will never 
 be admitted into the circle of operatic com- 
 posers. The want of discrimination with which 
 he would set to work and compose a long opera 
 on the most impossible libretto would be ludi- 
 crous, were we not compelled to remember the 
 bitter disappointment which was no doubt 
 responsible for his early death. Baraja, the 
 impresario who brought out Rossini, and who 
 subsequently owned two theatres at Vienna, 
 was cruel enough to alternately buoy up and 
 crush the hopes of the unfortunate man. At 
 last the Musikakademie seemed to think well 
 of one of his works. A rehearsal was granted, 
 and everything depended on the opinion of 
 Madame Schechner, the prima donna. This 
 lady, by no means antagonistic to Schubert, 
 suggested a slight change in a passage that 
 tried her voice very much ; but he, though 
 
SCHUBERT 211 
 
 nearly starving, would not alter a note of his 
 music, and on this obstinacy, which is perhaps 
 blamable, the whole matter suffered shipwreck. 
 Most touching was the reverential awe in 
 which he. held Beethoven, and this is to be 
 wondered ax the more as his music, wherever 
 it is not strictly Schubert, has more in common 
 with Mozart. While he made no secret of his 
 personal leaning towards Beethoven, he often 
 regretted that his music should be far-fetched 
 and coupling together emotions that had no- 
 thing in common. For a long time he was 
 content to go to restaurants which the great 
 man frequented, and watch him from afar, 
 content to breathe the same air. At last, 
 however, greatly encouraged by Schindler. and 
 the publisher Diabelli, who probably thought 
 the approval of Beethoven would create a better 
 sale for Schubert's compositions, he resolved to 
 app'roach him in person. We can imagine the 
 trepidation in which Schubert, ever modest and 
 extremely bashful, approached the Olympian, 
 and tendered him the variations inscribed with 
 a most flattering dedication. Beethoven, in 
 one of his genial moods, handed him the paper 
 and pencil which, alas ! were his only means of 
 communication ; but the courage of Schubert, 
 never a very formidable quantity, had vanished. 
 
212 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 and he stood trembling, not knowing what to 
 write. Beethoven took the music and turned 
 over the leaves until he came to one of the sins 
 against counterpoint from which Schubert's 
 best friends could not exonerate him. The 
 scrupulous Beethoven good-humouredly pointed 
 to the place in question, but that was too much 
 for his visitor. Colouring to the roots of his 
 hair, he beat a hasty retreat, and never stopped 
 until he was in the next street and well out 
 of the reach of his idol. Years afterwards, 
 when the great master was on his deathbed, 
 he pored over some of Schubert's songs ; he 
 asked for more, and when he had looked 
 through them attentively, he sent Schindler 
 to fetch Schubert. ' That man has the divine 
 fire ! I myself would have set these words to 
 music if I had had them ! ' was the somewhat 
 questionable compliment of the dying lion. 
 When they saw one another it was already 
 too late. What might the world not have seen 
 if these two prodigies had suffered their genius 
 to amalgamate, as did their literary coevals, 
 Schiller and Goethe. In a few days Beethoven's 
 remains were carried out to the Wahring ceme- 
 tery, Schubert following in the procession. On 
 the way back he turned into a restaurant with 
 two friends, and asked for two glasses of wine. 
 
SCHUBERT 213 
 
 One he drank off to the memory of Beethoven, 
 the other to that one of the three who should 
 be the first to follow hith. It proved to be 
 himself.' 
 
 The last year broke in when the bells tolled 
 the new year of 1828. As if there had been 
 foreknowledge, he worked with more feverish 
 energy than ever. Some of his most sublime 
 works, including his finest symphony and the 
 touching songs comprised in the Schwanen- 
 gesang — every word of which foretells death 
 — must have added to the sadness overcast by 
 physical distress and privation, which was never 
 worse than in that year. 
 
 The death-hour came at three o'clock of the 
 19th November. He had only been ill for a 
 short time ; but of late it had occurred to him 
 that the end was near, and he said as much 
 to his brother Ferdinand, who sealed the affec^, 
 tions of a lifetime by ministering to his last 
 wants. At the last he was unconscious and 
 delirious ; but the name of Beethoven was ever 
 on his lips, and his wish to be buried near him 
 was religiously fulfilled. The inspiring strains 
 of Mozart's Requiem which had been sung 
 over Beethoven's ashes were also sung over 
 Schubert's — a fitting tribute to the three im- 
 mortal masters. 
 
214 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 An inventory of Schubert's possessions enu- 
 merates a number of clothes and wearing 
 apparel, and money to the value of sixty-three 
 florins ; it includes ten florins for ' a lot of old 
 music' This must include over three-fourths 
 of Schubert's total compositions — gems of the 
 first order, unknown to humanity until long 
 after his death. 
 
 It was reserved to Schumann to unearth 
 these priceless possessions. As he was one 
 of the few who knew and admired such of the 
 few works of Schubert which had during his 
 lifetime penetrated beyond a small circle, as 
 he was among the small number of people to 
 whom the death of the comparatively unknown 
 man came as a severe shock — so it was only 
 fitting that to him should be reserved the glory 
 to procure for the manes of the divine master 
 that worship which had been denied during a 
 brief lifetime. 
 
 The name of Schubert soon became as cele- 
 brated as it had been obscure while he walked 
 the earth. Mendelssohn, the all - important 
 wielder of the biton at the Leipzig Gewand- 
 haus, brought his symphony in C into deserved 
 prominence, and other instrumental pieces and 
 Lieder were in the greatest request. Quite 
 recently pieces have been rescued from oblivion. 
 
SCHUBERT 215 
 
 and there is no lack of devoted hands to carry 
 on the search until all hope of adding to the 
 list of his works is at an end. 
 
 Characteristic is a notice in a Paris paper 
 which appeared in 1839. Referring to the 
 great number of posthumous works that were 
 constantly being brought forward under the 
 authorship of Schubert, it pointed to the 
 evident abuse of this name, as it appeared quite 
 impossible that this composer should have left 
 so many works unpublished. The argument 
 is pardonable ; at that time the life of Schubert 
 was wrapped in obscurity, and few people 
 were aware of the sad circumstances which 
 rendered by far the greater portion of his works 
 posthumous. 
 
 C^lriously enough, the British public, generally 
 laudably docile in the matter of music, refused 
 at first positively to listen to Schubert's music. 
 ' A vastly over-rated man,' ' no music,' ' wild 
 trash,' were some of the arguments used freely. 
 This injustice has been long condoned, and at 
 the present time some of his most fervent ad- 
 mirers dwell in 'the foggy island ! 
 
 In appearance Schubert was insignificant ; 
 his height, scarcely over five feet, was further 
 encroached upon by a continual stoop, round 
 shoulders, fat arms, and stumpy fingers; his 
 
2i6 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 features were broad and unimposing ; his hair, 
 wild and shaggy, environed a pasty pale com- 
 plexion ; but the eyes were very fine and seemed 
 to penetrate the glasses which he always wore, 
 and they alone bear outward witness to his 
 sublime soul. 
 
 In language and inclinations he was essen- 
 tially Viennese : gay and good-humoured and 
 generous to excess. Unlike Beethoven, whose 
 rugged nature exacted the homage even of 
 those whom it offended, Schubert was retired 
 and self-effacing. Instead of making friends 
 in the better circles, he surrounded himself 
 with a number of good-hearted but moneyless 
 young men who could not appreciate him 
 according to his merits, and, unaware of his 
 own needy circumstances, which he disguised 
 as much as possible, lived on his pocket and 
 drained his resources. To a great extent his 
 poverty was due to improvidence. While 
 money was procurable he literally threw it 
 away, and never stopped until the last copper 
 was gone. Then he set about to procure more ; 
 and publishers, who seem to have been in all 
 ages remarkably good business men, traded on 
 his needs and doled out their money in a very 
 cautious way, and against a fair equivalent in 
 brain-work. Thus many of his immortal songs 
 changed ownership at io|d. 
 
SCHUBERT 217 
 
 Perhaps this absence of the sense of ' manage- 
 ment,' which is such a constant concomitant of 
 musical genius, points to the fact that the 
 essentially inward direction which the thoughts 
 of musicians must take is incompatible with the 
 exigencies of the outer world, simple though 
 they may seem to us more worldly individuals. 
 
SCHUMANN 
 1810-1856 
 
 THERE is an inexorable law which applies 
 to all matters within the range of our 
 understanding, and from which no institution, 
 social or political, no branch of art and no field 
 of human action is exempt. It decrees that 
 every period of abnormal activity should be 
 followed by one of lassitude and inactivity, and 
 that the depression thereby caused becomes 
 stagnant in proportion to the activity of the 
 preceding era of reform and upheaval. 
 
 The lustrum closing with the death of Beet- 
 hoven and Schubert had been like none other 
 productive of giants in the musical world. Com- 
 mencing with Bach and Handel, it had gradu- 
 ally produced Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Beet- 
 hoven, Schubert, following on one another in 
 such rapid succession that the less , perceptive 
 capacities of the music-loving public may be 
 well excused for desiring an age of comparative 
 repose after one of incomparable excitement. 
 
 The last great men of the preceding genera- 
 
 218 
 
SCHUMANN 219 
 
 tion had been hardly carried to their graves 
 when a reaction, as decisive and irresistible 
 as had been the storm which swept away the 
 old prejudices, declared itself. For years the 
 classical masters were consigned to oblivion. A 
 small and select band of adherents, indeed, never 
 relaxed in their allegiance and kept the lamp 
 of incense aflame, but the general public clam- 
 oured for simple melody combined with the 
 meretricious effect of empty fireworks requiring 
 executive skill without the fire of genius. A 
 school of pianists sprang up in obedience to 
 the public call, and performed before admiring 
 audiences a plethora of operatic airs, never 
 meant for their instrument, hidden by varia- 
 tions and brilliant accompaniments, well exe- 
 cuted, but calculated rather to show the indi- 
 vidual accomplishment of the player than the 
 intrinsic value of the piece. Scores of composers, 
 or rather adapters, of this class of music rose 
 up and took possession of the public fancy, as 
 if no music had been written for the pianoforte, 
 and lovers of this instrument were compelled 
 to borrow music from operatic scores, and thus 
 declare their incapacity to appreciate original 
 creations. 
 
 Two men arose to combat this unnatural 
 development. They succeeded, by works of 
 
220 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 their own, in leading back the public taste into 
 healthier grooves and in restoring to their legiti- 
 mate position the old classical masters on whose 
 teachings their own works were largely based, 
 and of whom they were worthy followers. 
 These two men, whose influence is still in the 
 ascendant, are Mendelssohn and Schumann. 
 We have already seen how the former purified 
 the romantic school and paved the way for his 
 younger contemporary, who, incomparably more 
 vigorous, more daring, -and more radical — 
 not content to reform existing abuses, but 
 braving public opinion in the face of con- 
 tinued disapproval — struck out a path eminently 
 diff'erent from anything hitherto seen, and des- 
 tined to be appreciated only after the untimely 
 demise of its originator. 
 
 Schumann was born at Zwickau of well-to- 
 do parents. At a very early a:ge he showed 
 musical talents, which were encouraged to a 
 degree, although both father and mother, but 
 especially the latter, did not wish their son to 
 adopt music as a vocation. When the father 
 died, in 1820, Robert gave up for the nonce 
 all hopes to make his inclinations prevail over 
 the determination of the mother. He was in- 
 tended for a legal career, and for this purpose 
 entered the Leipzig University in 1828, when 
 
SCHUMANN 221 
 
 eighteen years old. A worse place to damp 
 his musical ardour could not well have been 
 chosen. Leipzig had just been raised by the 
 genius of Mendelssohn to the foremost rank 
 in musical Germany. The celebrated Gewand- 
 haus concerts, presided over by the baton of 
 that master, exercised' a supremacy which was 
 felt far beyond the confines of Saxony, and the 
 atmosphere was so heavily laden with music of 
 the best kind that enthusiasm was kindled in 
 the souls of musicians far less inspired than the 
 excitable Schumann. To say that his legal 
 studies were neglected would be a very mild 
 term indeed ; we have it on his own admission 
 that when he left the next year for Heidelberg 
 he had made considerable progress in piano- 
 forte practice, but that as regards law'his mind 
 was a blank. In Heidelberg things were not 
 much better. From time to time he seems 
 to have felt some remorse at the neglect of his 
 . duties ; this led to his taking a refectorium, by 
 which is meant a course of repetition to acquire 
 the knowledge he had so far neglected to acquire ; 
 but the attempt ended in a failure, and he came 
 to the conclusion that he would never qualify 
 for the law. The opposition of the mother, 
 when approached on the subject, was as strong 
 as might be expected. To discard all dreams 
 
222 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 of ambition culminating in a government ap- 
 pointment for her son, and to see this hope of 
 her dedining age ' deteriorate ' into a musician, 
 was a hard nut for the obstinate old lady. But 
 Robert, though not the most determined of 
 beings, and as a rule easily swayed, was equally " 
 firm. He was now twenty years of age, and 
 could ill afford to waste further time if he 
 wanted to follow the profession of his choice. 
 At last he prevailed, and settled down to a 
 course of study at Leipzig under Wieck, his 
 future father-in-law. 
 
 For a long time he doubted his capacity to 
 become a composer, and perhaps it was only 
 to an accident that the repertory of music owes 
 some of its brightest gems. This accident — a 
 source of great regret at the time — consisted 
 in nothing less than a strain to the third finger 
 of the fight hand, brought about by incessant 
 playing. Though partially healed later on, this 
 settled at once all possibility of his becoming 
 a soloist. He had written several small pieces, 
 regarding the value of which he felt by no 
 means sanguine ; but, now driven to his pen, 
 he put all his energy into the composition of 
 a symphony which he fondly hoped would 
 meet with success. The first part had already 
 been performed at Zwickau, young Clara Wieck, 
 
SCHUMANN 223 
 
 at that time a girl of thirteen, taking the solo 
 part, and, as Schumann aptly said, 'firing 
 Zwickau for the first time in its existence with 
 enthusiasm ; ' but a performance of the entire 
 symphony resulted in something very like a 
 failure, and the work has never been printed. 
 
 . This repulse was no doubt the cause of his 
 decision to embark in musical journalism. The 
 Neue Zeitschrift, started with a few friends, soon 
 took a commanding position among its com- 
 peers. The age, too, was ripe for criticism of a 
 searching nature ; few papers existed, and among 
 those none were sufficiently independent to break 
 with the powers of the day. The attack upon 
 prevailing abuses with a pen both able and 
 impartial has been one of the principal merits 
 of Schumann. As a writer, his works take a 
 high degree, and as a critic he deserves the rare 
 praise of combining fearless exposure of char- 
 latanism with frank appreciation of real worth. 
 Schumann was nothing if not mystical. His 
 leaning towards Jean Paul, the archetype of 
 that exaggerated school of emotion, apt to 
 become morbid in its intensity, for which the 
 German mind seems to be more receptive than 
 less metaphysical nationalities, characterises the 
 man. 'Jean Paul has often brought me to the 
 verge of desperation,' was one of his frequent 
 
224 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 sayings, and yet he remained constant to his 
 ideal until his reason became obscured, partly, 
 perhaps, through the gloomy teachings of an 
 occult symbolism. Taking this circumstance 
 into account, it is surprising that a brisk wave 
 of freshness proceeds not only from his terse 
 and vigorous pen, but also from his music, which 
 often alternates in crisp sharpness and dreamy 
 mysticism. But one element at least bears 
 witness to the influence of Jean Paul, and is 
 of frequent recurrence, not only in the broad- 
 sheets of his paper, but in the music which at 
 that period was given to the world. We refer 
 to the mysterious introduction of Florestan, 
 Eusebius, and the Davidsbundlers, which tra- 
 verse his whole activity like marionettes paraded 
 across the stage. With regard to the two former 
 denominations, they were doubtless meant to 
 represent two tendencies in his own individu- 
 ality, and are introduced as arguing against one 
 another, while the Davidsbiindler is a mys- 
 terious supposed combination of the real talent 
 ■fighting against the Goliath of stupidity and 
 pedantry. 
 
 But while hard at work on this paper, Schu- 
 mann was composing vigorously all the time, 
 and a number of his best compositions are 
 found among these first productions of his 
 
SCHUMANN 225 
 
 pen. It is noticeable that the critics were from 
 the outset favourable to his style, while the public 
 failed to comprehend forms so revolutionary 
 and melodies so fantastically wild and original. 
 
 In 183s Mendelssohn arrived at Leipzig, and 
 a devoted friendship springs up almost immedi- 
 ately between the two men. While Schumann, 
 however, idealised the elder master and looked 
 up to him as one far beyond what he could 
 ever aspire to, Mendelssohn did not at first 
 appreciate Schumann as a composer, though 
 afterwards he was the first to confess his mis- 
 take. 
 
 In 1837 the mutual love which united him 
 to Clara Wieck reached a climax. He pro- 
 posed, but the father, possibly having higher 
 aspirations for the gifted girl, refused, alleging 
 the uncertain position of Schumann. To satisfy 
 .this demand he determined to transfer his paper 
 to Vienna, hoping to find a good field in that 
 city, which still preserved its musical halo. The 
 result was not encouraging, and so many diffi- 
 culties were placed in his way that, in 1839, he 
 returned to Leipzig and renewed his suit for 
 Clara's hand. Again the father objected, and 
 forced the lovers to invoke the decision of the 
 law, which pronounced in favour of the marriage. 
 
 Though sorely tried by these obstacles, which 
 
226 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 had a most distressing effect on the susceptible 
 mind of the composer, he found a sweet recom- 
 pense in the era of unmixed happiness which 
 followed on his marriage. His activity re- 
 doubled, and some of his most inspired songs, 
 some of his finest pieces for piano and orchestra, 
 were written under the stimulating influence of 
 a happy love, which until his death united those 
 two gifted beings. 
 
 In 1 841 he made a second trip to Vienna, 
 where he composed the Faschingsschwank. As a 
 protest against the official obstruction he had met 
 with in this city he inserted in this piece several 
 bars of the Marseillaise, an air strictly pro* 
 hibited by the anti-revolutionary government. 
 On visiting Beethoven's grave he found a steel 
 pen on the tombstone, which he appropriated. 
 We can imagine the importance a man of his 
 impressionable nature would attach to such an 
 incident. The pen was treasured up as never had 
 been steel pen before ; only on the most impor- 
 tant occasions was it uesd. His own syniphony 
 in E and the enthusiastic report on Schubert's 
 C major symphony were among the few privi- 
 leged writings to which it was to give effect. 
 
 In 1 844 he left Leipzig for Dresden. A mental 
 affection, which wa^s to ripen into insanity later 
 on, had been brought on by over-work, and the 
 
SCHUMANN 227 
 
 doctors insisted on his leaving the nausic-loving 
 town. Schumann had always been of a silent 
 disposition, but at times his apathy became 
 so alarming that his friends were most anxious. 
 In his favourite restaurant he would sit for hours 
 turning his back to the company and humming 
 melodies without heed to questions addressed 
 to him. Later on matters became worse ; a 
 fixed idea gained hold on him that he was 
 always hearing one note or one harmony, and 
 gradually his intercourse with his family would 
 be saddened by that grave, uncanny, silence. 
 
 For a long time he lived in Dresden incap- 
 able of work, limiting his activity to the 
 leadership of a choral union, until at 1849 he 
 felt quite recovered from his disease, having 
 remained for five years as if obscured from the 
 world of music. His last appointment as 
 Kapellmeister at Diisseldorf was unsuccessful. 
 Schumann was not fitted for that post ; in fact 
 it is difficult to imagine a composer of his rank 
 who was a worse conductor. His works met 
 with great success and were rapturously ap- 
 plauded in the Rhenish city, but the autho- 
 rities arrived at the conclusion, which might 
 have been postponed but never obviated, that 
 they could not retain the master in his position. 
 We cannot say whether this decision might 
 
228 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 have been communicated in a way less calcu- 
 lated to hurt the feelings of one so sensitive, 
 but as a fact it may have contributed largely 
 to intensify the gloom which was already 
 spreading over his diseased imagination. The 
 last years of his life were unconsciously ap- 
 proaching. Voyages to Switzerland and Hol- 
 land were productive of some short spells of 
 satisfaction, and a cool reception at Leipzig did 
 not produce the evil effects his friends dreaded ; 
 but in reality he was fast declining, and his 
 apathy was due to a general breaking up of the 
 whole system. 
 
 All his worst eccentricities were in full bloom 
 since 1852. His wife and daughters, unable to 
 alleviate his mental sufferings, were compelled 
 to look on inactively while this splendid genius 
 was going to rack and ruin. There were indeed 
 some lucid intervals, but these only sufficed to 
 accentuate the contrasting periods of desponding 
 absence of mind which increased in frequency 
 and intensity as time went on. 
 
 . Once more Schumann took up the pen for 
 his newspaper after a silence extended over 
 years. The article was entitled ' Neue Bahnen ' 
 (new paths), and hailed the advent of a new 
 musical Messiah in the person of Brahms, who, 
 the master said, had come into the world in 
 
SCHUMANN 229 
 
 the full maturity of a composer worthy to be 
 styled the successor of Beethoven. Many were 
 the tongues at the time who characterised this 
 praise as fulsome and not warranted by facts. 
 But the world is now .alive to the value of 
 Brahms, and gives Schumann credit for his per- 
 spicacity and sound judgment. 
 
 On the 27th February 1854, without previous 
 warning, Schumann quitted his house and 
 jumped into the Rhine, and, though rescued by 
 some boatmen, the shock had been too violent ; 
 insanity declared itself, and he had to be taken 
 to an asylum near Bonn, in which, with 
 occasional lucid intervals, he passed the re- 
 mainder of his days, On the 29th of July 
 1856 he breathed his last in the arms of his 
 devoted wife, whose love had never failed him. 
 Though death had been imminent since his 
 melancholy had induced him to seek a watery 
 grave, the news came as a severe shock on the 
 musical world, which could not be insensible to 
 the immense services the dead master had 
 rendered to his art. The worship of Schumann, 
 only partial during his lifetime, is still increas- 
 ing. Of all composers he is the most strikingly 
 original, and his excellence has been proved in 
 every branch of the art which he has essayed. 
 
 As oratorio, Paradise and the Peri ranks with 
 
230 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 the best productions of all ages ; his own opera 
 Genoveva bids fair to secure a lasting place 
 on the German stage ; his symphonies and 
 orchestrated pieces are the best since Beethoven, 
 and for the piano, the only instrument he could 
 play, he has opened up a delightful variety of 
 possibilities, ranking from the height of gaiety 
 to the depth of emotional feeling. A special 
 word remains to be said about his songs. He 
 is a fitting cornerstone in the triumvirate of 
 which the other two participants are Mendels- 
 sohn and Schubert. The latter is perhaps his 
 superior in melody and the former in finish, but 
 Schumann leaves the other two behind him in 
 depth of emotion and vigour. 
 
 In fact we think a comprehensive digest of 
 his music would establish his pre-eminence 
 over many of his compeers in the matter of 
 vigour and emotion, two qualities very dif- 
 ferent and rarely found together, but in him 
 happily blended in a state of ideal perfection. 
 
 And of these same qualities Schumann was 
 a physical representative. Full and strongly 
 built, with square massive features, broad jaw 
 and firm-set mouth, his frame seemed cast in 
 iron. Unluckily it was set off by a highly 
 nervous and irritable temperament, a tendency 
 towards melancholy, and a sensitiveness to 
 
SCHUMANN 231 
 
 opposition and disagreeable matters which 
 amounted to an anguish nearly mortal and a 
 helplessness rare of its kind. 
 
 Let us add that his nature was of the noblest. 
 No particle of that envy which is frequently 
 inherent even in artistic greatness can be traced 
 to his pen. His criticisms on all contemporary 
 musicians are models of clear conciseness, and 
 show ample appreciation even where it was not 
 returned. 
 
WAGNER 
 
 1813-1883 
 
 THERE are those who believe in an un- 
 written law, according to which genius, 
 however oppressed, however obscured it may 
 be by surrounding circumstances, must, like 
 the rays of the sun, eventually penetrate the 
 densest of clouds and wax victorious above its 
 late enemies. These people allow no credit to 
 adventitious circumstances, none to the timely 
 appearance on the battle-field of a deus ex 
 machind, without whose generous aid it is 
 difficult to see how genius could have procured 
 that crust of bread which even the most gifted 
 of mankind cannot dispense with. 
 
 As a true knight militant of his vocation, a 
 hero of energy, a fighter whom defeat could 
 only render more obstinate, Wagner cannot be 
 easily matched, and yet it is hard to imagine 
 that his name would have emerged from the 
 heap of obloquy, ridicule, and censure which 
 buried it out of sight, had not a mighty friend 
 arisen for him, a man comparable only to his 
 
WAGNER 233 
 
 own impersonations of Lohengrin and Tann- 
 hauser. A figure of mediaeval chivalry, eccen- 
 tricity, romance, a veritable Don Quixote — 
 perhaps the only one that has existed in our 
 days — that belated Minstrel-King came into 
 the world seven hundred years behind his time, 
 and was placed by a satirical freak of nature on 
 a throne of the realistic, practical, business-like, 
 anti-sentimental wane of the nineteenth century. 
 Poor, generous, poetic Ludwig of Bavaria ! 
 You were not born to review battalions, to 
 receive frock-coated ambassadors, to have 
 your actions bespattered by the venom oi fin 
 de Steele papers ; your place was among the 
 Minnesingers of old, the warriors of the lyre, 
 the bidders for the grace of 'ladye faire,' the 
 knightly order of the Holy Graal. He knew it 
 well ; there Was self-conscious significance in 
 those princely edifices which arose like magic 
 on lofty crags, inaccessible save to a trusted 
 few, secluded from the vulgar gaze, where, at 
 the witching hour of night, the royal hermit 
 would disport himself on lonely lakes, clad in 
 the long forgotten garb of a mythical age. He 
 knew it well when in the limpid mountain lake 
 he sought a watery grave rather than give up 
 his enchanting dream, true to the last to ro- 
 mance, true to the last to his r61e as troubadour. 
 
234 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 that idealistic fiction to which the vitiated air 
 of our world would be as subtle poison. 
 
 Was Ludwig mad ? There are many still 
 who think otherwise. But whether mad as a 
 man and as a sovereign, as an artist he was 
 sublime, and by the world of music his name 
 will ever be revered as the preserver of 
 Wagner ! , 
 
 For now at last it is acknowledged on all 
 hands that the preservation of Wagner is a 
 meritorious act. The fight against him has been 
 long and bitter. In its intensity nothing can be 
 found to equal it. Rival factions have inten- 
 sified their strife with all the venom of spiteful 
 animosity. ' There is no one to approach the 
 master' is the cry of his adherents, proudly 
 dubbing with this exclusive title the object of 
 their affection. 'Wagner is nothing but a 
 charlatan, totally devoid of genius, totally 
 devoid even of the sense of music' is retorted 
 by assailants every whit as fierce. Even an 
 authority usually calm and impartial, the 
 weighty and judicial Fdtis, pronounces in 1864 
 that Wagnerism is dead and buried, and that 
 the operas of Tannhduser and Lohengrin are 
 already forgotten. We in 1892 know better 
 than that. Whatever may be the fate of the 
 master's later works — and in regard to them 
 
WAGNER 23S 
 
 the smoke of the battle has not yet cleared — 
 we know that few operas are more popular than 
 the ones known. We know also that even 
 Paris, unbelieving Paris, prejudiced against 
 Wagner as a German among Germans, after 
 first making the performance of his music a 
 subject of political dissension, now listens with 
 rapture to the strains, and unequivocally admits 
 their overwhelming merit. 
 
 To decry the productions of a composer who 
 has worked his way to the front in the teeth of 
 universal opposition, as senseless trash, is 
 ridiculous ; on the other hand, those who 
 elevate Wagner to the situation of first of all 
 the great are probably equally wide of the 
 mark. Because Wagner is a great musician 
 there is no need for Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, 
 and others to abdicate. Because he is a radical 
 reformer, it does not follow that the whole 
 school of opera will follow in his wake ; indeed, 
 there are serious reasons against it, reasons of 
 cost, reasons of time, and finally, reasons of 
 popular taste. Yet, had he done nothing 
 beyond giving to us Lohengrin and Tannhduser, 
 the name of Wagner would shine as a star of 
 the first order in the musical firmament. 
 
 Many are coming round to that opinion. 
 ' He possesses genius,' they say ; ' the pity is 
 
236 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 that it is employed in the wrong cause.' But 
 is there not something like divine inspiration 
 required to produce that dogged determination, 
 that invincible fixity of purpose, that fierce 
 obstinacy, only intensified by maddening re- 
 verses and the bitter condiment of pecuniary 
 adversity, for which his equal cannot be found ? 
 Ought the work of a man to be condemned 
 beforehand — who, hunted down by creditors, 
 belittled by critics, hooted out of theatres, 
 and pursued by that most galling of scourges, 
 ridicule, sits down to compose that trilogy? 
 This, the most attacked of all his works, is a giant 
 conception, which, as he sadly writes, he knows 
 he can never hope to hear during his life- time, 
 a work which necessitates a special theatre and 
 other expenses, before which even the admirers 
 of his most successful competitor, Meyerbeer, 
 might have stood aghast, while he, ill-starred 
 enthusiast, cannot obtain a hearing for his less 
 pretentious works. 
 
 The master has been so recently among us, 
 his name and exploits have been so much a 
 matter of our own generation, that we find it 
 difficult to realise that he was only a few years 
 younger than Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin, 
 all of whom long dead, appear to us in the light 
 of history far removed. Born at Leipzig in 
 
WAGNER 237 
 
 1813, he inherited theatrical and literary tastes 
 from his father, who was fond of disporting 
 himself on the amateur stage. Several of his 
 brothers and sisters adopted the stage as a 
 profession, and at least two of them attained to 
 a high degree of excellence. To complete the 
 character of these surroundings, his step-father, 
 Geyer, of whom Wagner always spoke with the 
 greatest affection, was also an actor. It does 
 not appear that the boy, though otherwise 
 exceptionally gifted, had a talent for painting ; 
 and yet this was the vocation which for a short 
 time was selected for him. At school, in 
 Dresden, whither the family soon emigrated, 
 his progress in classics, and especially in 
 German composition, was so remarkable that 
 it was thought he would become a poet. And 
 here it may be remarked that the literary 
 abilities of Wagner are somewhat unjustly 
 overshadowed by his more brilliant achieve- 
 ments as' a musician. Yet these are so con- 
 siderable that, had he elected literature as a 
 calling, he would no doubt have made a mark. 
 As it is, some of his extant writings show 
 considerable merit. 
 
 There are the usual traces of immature, early 
 work. A grand tragedy has been preserved from 
 his fourteenth year ; it contains forty-two deaths, 
 
238 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 and, as he laughingly said, some of the dead 
 had to come back as ghosts in the fifth act to 
 keep it going. But a removal from Dresden to 
 Leipzig, in consequence of the death of Geyer, 
 led to an entire change in his vocation. The 
 performance of Beethoven's symphonies at the 
 Gewandhaus drove him irresistibly into the 
 path of music. He had always been partial to 
 Weber's compositions, but it had never before 
 occurred to him that music should become the 
 absolute mistress of his soul. He now borrowed 
 a work on ' thorough bass,' and commenced to 
 study in order to write the music for his own 
 tragedy. Luckily this remained in embryo ; 
 another overture proved to him that he was 
 anyhow not yet a Beethoven. The drum had 
 to give a tap fortissimo every four bars, and the 
 public grew fairly bewildered and considered it 
 a joke. ' This was the height of my absurdities,' 
 Wagner remarks in his autobiography, and we 
 can well believe it. 
 
 Soon, however, he received able tuition from 
 Weinlig, whose methodical knowledge proved 
 of the greatest value. He studied very hard 
 and acquainted himself thoroughly with all the 
 greater works of Beethoven, most of which he 
 copied out in score. In 1832 he wrote a 
 symphony framed on Beethoven and Mozart's 
 
WAGNER 239 
 
 music. With this work he hoped to take 
 Vienna by storm, but he found that capital so 
 absorbed by Harold's Zampa and Strauss's 
 waltzes that he returned immediately. It was 
 afterwards submitted to Mendelssohn, but the 
 matter quite escaped his memory, and the 
 young composer was too proud to remind him. 
 At Prague in 1832 he wrote his first libretto, 
 Die Hochzeit, but money was becoming scarce, 
 and he was only too glad to obtain an appoint- 
 ment at Wiirzburg as chorus-master at the 
 beggarly salary of 10 florins per month. Back 
 in Leipzig in 1834, he saw for the first time 
 the celebrated singer Wilhelmine Schroder- 
 Devrient, whose magnificent acting and singing 
 had a commanding influence on him. For 
 several years he was associated with her in 
 Dresden in daily communication. When com- 
 posing or writing she was in his mind's eye 
 whenever he conceived a new character, and 
 there is no doubt that her imposing talent 
 induced in him that craving after the closest 
 possible combination of acting and music which 
 he carried to the greatest known extreme. 
 
 At Magdeburg, where his footsteps next led 
 him, an attempt was made to produce his first 
 opera. Das Liebersverbot, founded on Shake- 
 speare's Measure for Measure ; but so little time 
 
240 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 was allotted to the rehearsals that the perform- 
 ance resulted in a perfect chaos. 
 
 Unsuccessful attempts to stage the opera in 
 Leipzig and Berlin, and increasing pecuniary 
 troubles, drove the composer to take up a 
 situation at K5nigsberg, and thence, after the 
 director had become bankrupt, at Riga, where 
 he was enabled to make sufficient money to 
 pay off his most pressing debts. At Konigs- 
 berg he married his first wife. Miss Planer, 
 whom he had met at the theatre. But the 
 Eldorado for operatic composers of that day 
 was Paris. The enormous profits made by 
 Meyerbeer could not fail to dazzle the eyes of 
 musicians with whom life at the best was a 
 kind of semi-starvation. Sketches of an opera. 
 Die hohe Braut, were sent to the all-powerful 
 Scribe, but of course an obscure composer writ- 
 ing from a provincial town on the Baltic was 
 not deemed worthy of an answer. At Riga 
 the novel Rienzi, by Bulwer, suggested the opera 
 of that name ; Wagner worked hard at the 
 libretto, determined to try his luck with this 
 opera personally in Paris. 
 
 At last he left in 1839 by ship via London, 
 accompanied by his wife and a large Newfound- 
 land dog. The voyage was memorable and full 
 of dangerous incident. For three weeks the 
 
WAGNER 241 
 
 passengers were tossed about, and the angry 
 waves suggested ideas in him which afterwards 
 took shape in the Flying Dutchman. At Bou- 
 logne he made the acquaintance of Meyerbeer, 
 to whom he was recommended. Whether 
 Wagner was indebted to Meyerbeer for intro- 
 ductions which came to nothing, or whether, as 
 has been suggested, the latter designedly re- 
 frained from helping him in the right quarter, 
 will probably never be known. Impartial 
 judges, among whom Heine is best known, have 
 expressed sai'castic doubts as to Meyerbeer's 
 disinterestedness. On the other hand, Wagner 
 has been profusely blamed for the very vigor- 
 ous onslaught he made in the press on the 
 maestro's music. That Wagner honestly dis- 
 agreed with the tendency of the composer of 
 the Huguenots cannot be doubted, and that a 
 critic as such should not be swayed by reasons 
 of personal gratitude, supposing them to exist, 
 stands to reason. 
 
 The three years, 1 839-42, passed in Paris are 
 among the most miserable of his life. Every- 
 thing seemed to go wrong, with the irritable 
 man, whose idiosyncrasies were diametrically 
 opposed to the French world he was living in. 
 Even Liszt, his most devoted apostle of later 
 years, came in for the biting satire of his pen. 
 Q 
 
242 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 His only friends were among the crowd of warm- 
 hearted but poor German artists and Bohemians 
 who swarmed in Paris. ' Were it not for manjr 
 friends,' he wrote, 'I and my little wife would 
 starve.' It is worth noting that some literary 
 trifles, favourably commented on, served to add 
 a meagre trifle towards his very meagre income. 
 The Flying Dutchman, written in the days of his 
 greatest adversity, pleased Pillet, the director of 
 the Varidt^s so much that he proposed to buy 
 the libretto and entrust it to another composer. 
 We need hardly mention that Wagner rejected 
 this proposal with great scorn. Before leaving 
 Paris he commenced the libretto of Tannhduser, 
 which struck him at once as a suitable legend 
 whereon to construct a popular opera. He did 
 not however undertake this task without a 
 preliminary course of severe historical study, 
 which also led to the elaboration of the plot of 
 his later opera, Lohengrin. In the midst of this 
 work the unwelcome news arrived from Leipzig 
 and Munich that the Dutchman had been 
 rejected as unsuitable for the German stage. 
 'I had hoped it would touch chords that 
 respond quickest with Germans ! ' were his sad 
 words on receipt of this news. 
 
 When matters were at the lowest ebb a 
 stroke of fortune came to the composer which 
 
WAGNER 243 
 
 bade fair to place him beyond want for the 
 remainder of his days. Not only was he 
 appointed Kapellmeister at Dresden, but the 
 complete success of his opera Rienzi placed his 
 name on a pinnacle which only a short time 
 before had seemed quite beyond his reach. 
 The excitement in the musical world must 
 have been remarkable. Wagner was spoken of 
 as the new musical Messiah ; so great was the 
 enthusiasm that Tichatschek, the celebrated 
 tenor, refused point blank to have a trifling 
 excision made from his part. The Flying 
 Dutchman was now vociferously demanded, but 
 to the general surprise of the public it fell flat. 
 The composer, greatly mortified, was consoled 
 by, a letter from Spohr, who alone of his great 
 contemporaries wrote of the opera in terms of 
 unstinted praise. It was well for Wagner's 
 pecuniary prospects that the success of Rienzi 
 outbalanced this comparative failure; had it 
 been otherwise, the confirmation of his post as 
 Kapellmeister might have been withheld. As 
 it is, he seems to have accepted the post with 
 some misgivings. His republican nature chafed 
 at royal protection ; ,art, he rightly argued, 
 ought to be independent ; in the end, however, 
 more sage counsels prevailed, and the seven 
 years of comparative quietude which now 
 
244 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 followed must have compared to advantage 
 with the Kunstlers Erdenwallen of Kohigsberg 
 and Paris. 
 
 Tannhduser soon absorbed him so entirely 
 that not only was the failure of the Dutchman 
 for the time forgotten, but also his resolution to 
 seek the approval of the few and not appeal 
 again to the fickle favours of the hydra-headed 
 crowd. Tannhduser he thoiight would do what 
 the previous opera had failed in : it would 
 electrify the masses and be a repetition on a 
 larger scale of the success of Rienzi. But, 
 strange to say, the first performances bewildered 
 not only the audience but the singers. 'You 
 are a man of genius,' said his friend, Madame 
 Schroder-Devrient, 'but you write such eccentric 
 stuff it is hardly possible to sing it.' The 
 critics took up the refrain, and for a time the 
 vain and self-opinionated master was'the best 
 abused man in the musical world. ' No melody,' 
 ' distressing, harassing music,' ' nerve killing,' are 
 some of the judgments scattered broadcast by 
 writers who thus took revenge for many 
 personal slights they may have experienced in 
 their personal intercourse. The master, much 
 chagrined, responded in a characteristic way by 
 commencing' forthwith on Lohengrin. Not for 
 a moment did he. doubt the public was at 
 
WAGNER 245 
 
 fault ; theirs was the blame and theirs the 
 misfortune if they could not appreciate his 
 music. Mendelssohn is so faint in his praise 
 that it amounts to censure, Spohr qualifies his 
 approval, but Schumann is more appreciative. 
 Liszt was the first to reproduce the opera at 
 Weimar, and other cities followed at long 
 intervals. Berlin refused for a long time to 
 place the opera on the boards, and the King, 
 who was approached on the subject, made the 
 characteristic proposal that some of the music 
 should be set to military instruments so that he 
 might form an idea of its value. It is needless 
 to describe Wagner's feelings on receiving this 
 proposal. 
 
 In 1848 the instrumentation of Lohengrin 
 was finished, and the master was already 
 sketching out the plan of the trilogy which 
 was destined to become his most important 
 work. Revolutionary troubles soon absorbed 
 the mind of the public. Though Wagner's 
 sympathies were undoubtedly on the popular 
 side, the position he took up does not ap- 
 pear to have been otherwise than moderate, 
 and certainly not sufficiently aggressive to 
 warrant the severe measures of which he was 
 soon to be made the subject. His principal sin 
 seems to have been the expression of a hope 
 
246 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 that political reforms would lead to a better 
 state of things in musical and theatrical matters. 
 The premature plan of a ' national theatre ' was 
 ample reason to stamp him a dangerous 
 character, and he was none too soon in putting 
 the French boundary between himself and the 
 Saxon police. 
 
 There commenced now a period of twelve 
 years, 1 849-1861, during which Wagner was 
 expatriated from the country of his birth. 
 After a short stay in Paris he settled down in 
 Zurich, the favourite dwelling-place of many 
 German refugees. With no immediate prospect 
 of earning a living by his art, he launched into 
 a feverish literary activity. His works prin- 
 cipally touched on the state of music ; they 
 contain a complete exposd of his artistic aims, 
 and form a commentary on his compositions 
 which is of the greatest value to the student of 
 their history and meaning. From this time 
 dates the pamphlet, Hebraism in its Relation to 
 Music, which has made much noise, and cannot 
 perhaps be defended from all points of view, 
 though it was not intended as an indictment 
 against the Jewish race, but rather as a protest 
 against those composers and critics who, at that 
 time, were most antagonistic to him, and who, 
 headed by Meyerbeer, happened to belong to 
 
WAGNER 247 
 
 the Jewish faith. No doubt Wagner, never 
 quite just, and at that moment smarting under 
 the most cruel reverses,, chiefly undeserved, was 
 less than ever disposed to bridle his tongue 
 when contrasting his position as an exile with 
 the princely honours rendered to Meyerbeer. 
 
 But though, absent from Germany, his final 
 recognition in that country as a master of 
 music was soon to come. On 28th August 
 1850, Liszt produced Lohengrin at Weimar. 
 The success was enormous. A large concourse 
 of musical and literary authorities had been 
 gathered together, and the sacred date of 
 Goethe's birth gave additional lustre to a 
 phenomenal performance. From this date, 
 though the income of the composer remained 
 problematical, his fame among a large section 
 of German musical opinion was firmly estab- 
 lished. 
 
 The next years passed without much incident. 
 A trip to London, and a memorable connection 
 with the Philharmonic Society, is still green in 
 the memory of English contemporaries. But 
 in the intervals Wagner was hard at work. 
 Siegfried, Rheingold, WalkUre take shape in 
 his active brain, and already the plans for 
 Tristan and Isolde, and Parsifal, are nearly 
 matured. In 1857 he resolved to devote all 
 
248 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 his energies to Tristan. For one' brief moment 
 a fit of discouragement seized him. Why 
 continue this hopeless work on the Nibelungen ? 
 Would it ever be performed, and, anyhow, 
 could he ever live to see it? In 1859 Tristan 
 was finished, but to get it performed was one 
 of the greatest difficulties Wagner ever had 
 to contend with. The King of Saxony was 
 inexorable ; even the personal intercession of 
 several German princes could not procure his 
 permission to return to Dresden, and negotia- 
 tions to produce the opera elsewhere led to 
 nothing. 
 
 Heartbroken, the composer went to Paris, 
 bent on the apparently hopeless task of getting 
 Tannhduser performed. The difficulties seemed 
 so insurmountable that he had already made 
 up his mind to return to Switzerland, when the 
 influence of the Countess Metternich with the 
 Emperor broke down all barriers. The greatest 
 preparations were made, celebrated singers 
 engaged, and no expense spared, but the cabal 
 of Wagner's enemies was too powerful, and the 
 performance resulted in the most serious defeat 
 he had ever experienced. After three perfor- 
 mances, to an audience turbulent in their 
 discontent, the attempt to force Tannhduser 
 on the Paris public had to be abandoned, the 
 
WAGNER 249 
 
 Opera Company having spent over ;^8oc)0 to 
 no purpose. 
 
 Now at last the interdict banishing Wagner 
 from Germany was removed ; he re-entered 
 that country in 1861, and was everywhere well 
 received, the bad treatment he had experienced 
 in Paris being a point in his favour. Every- 
 where his operas were performed to enthusiastic 
 houses, but it was due to the peculiar copyright 
 laws of Germany that he reaped next to 
 nothing from this success, -and his pecuniary 
 position had seldom been worse than during 
 the three years now ensuing. 
 
 Then at last came the turning-point in his 
 life. The young King Ludwig II. of Bavaria, 
 who had just succeeded to his father's throne, 
 sent for Wagner and offered him a stipend out 
 of his private purse. From this time onward 
 life passed for the composer as a beautiful 
 dream, hard to realise after the ample share of 
 hardships and misfortunes that had fallen to 
 his lot. Enemies still emptied the vials of 
 their wrath over him ; even at Munich the 
 cabal was so strong that he had to give up his 
 residence there, but the favour of the King 
 triumphed over all difficulties, and to the 
 end his gracious patronage was never with- 
 drawn from his most celebrated subject. The 
 
2SO THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 Meistersinger, commenced 1846, was rapidly 
 completed and performed at Munich in 1868. 
 Now that care no longer dictated his movements, 
 the Nibelungen were rapidly drawing towards 
 their completion. In 1870 the score was in 
 the - printer's hands, and in August of that 
 year, while Germany was in the midst of her 
 victorious career in France, he married his 
 second wife, Cosima von Biilow, the daughter 
 of his tried friend Liszt. 
 
 Wagner societies were now formed all over 
 Germany. Money flowed in from all sides. 
 Even from abroad considerable sums found 
 their way to the central office. Places so 
 widely distant from one another, both as re- 
 gards space and sympathies, as St. Petersburg, 
 Paris, Warsaw, New York, Amsterdam, Cairo, 
 Stockholm, London, vied with the composer's 
 own country in finding the funds towards that 
 architectural dream which soon became reality 
 in the little town of Bayreuth. Unable in the 
 prime of his life to obtain a hearing on any 
 condition, the master ended by imposing his 
 own ideas on followers only too glad to obey 
 blindly the most unusual dictates of his 
 fancy. 
 
 With regard to his later music, which in and 
 after 1876 has drawn thousands to the quiet 
 
WAGNER 251 
 
 Frahconian town, opinions vary pro and contra. 
 ' No melody ' is the war-cry of opponents, but 
 then the same had' been the original verdict 
 of people who now wax enthusiastic over 
 Tannhduser. The advent of Wagner is too 
 recent to admit of a calm judgment. In later 
 years, when the smoke of the battle has cleared 
 away, the verdict will be more valuable, because 
 more impartial. It will then probably be found 
 that supporters have been too fulsome and 
 detractors too acrid, and that the true position 
 of the composer must be sought between the 
 extremes. Nevertheless, we think it will be 
 then admitted on all hands that he deserves 
 to rank among those who shine as bright 
 particular stars in the musical world. 
 
 The last years of his life were passed in full 
 contentment at Bayreuth, and when he died 
 quite suddenly on 13th February 1883 at 
 Venice, the progress of his coffin through 
 Austria and Germany was a triumphal pro- 
 cession. In an ivy-covered vault constructed 
 by himself near his villa, Wahnfried, the 
 remains of the master still are a shrine of 
 pilgrimage to the increasing thousands that 
 gather yearly at Bayreuth to listen to his music. 
 No greater triumph could be vouchsafed to 
 Wagner's manes than the applause which is 
 
252 THE GREAT COMPOSERS 
 
 tardily bestowed on his works ■ in inimical 
 Paris. 
 
 A man of strong affinities and prejudices, he 
 more than any other gloried over the disasters 
 that overtook the French nation, he more than 
 any other incurred their hatred and prejudice. 
 That the creations have overcome the repug- 
 nance inspired by the man is a homage which 
 his detractors cannot easily explain away. 
 
 Though vain (if the consciousness of merit 
 can be called vanity) and hot tempered, Wagner 
 was adored by those people who knew him 
 best. At Bayreuth not a labourer can be 
 found who will not tell of some proof of his 
 good-nature, and when his coffin was lowered 
 into its resting-place the population of a town 
 shared in the grief of those more nearly affected. 
 
 The traits of features are well known : the 
 keen eye, the Roman nose, and the thin 
 compressed lips give token of great intelli- 
 gence ; the long flowing hair reminds one of the 
 artistic era of Paolo Veronese and Titian, even 
 if this impression were not heightened by the 
 velvet cap which in one of his best-known 
 pictures crowns his head. His figure was of 
 middle height and strong build, his movements 
 of that rapid activity which is in keeping with 
 his abnormal energy. An indefatigable reader, 
 
WAGNER 253 
 
 and a shrewd observer and keen thinker, his 
 yterary efforts are of no ordinary merit. In 
 literature, or in fact in any of the walks of life 
 that he might have chosen to take up, it is 
 probable that his vigorous intellect and striking 
 personality would have made its mark. 
 
 And now that we have dipped not too 
 deeply into the history, the lives, and struggles 
 of those sons of Music who have emblazoned 
 their names on the scroll of Fame, what more 
 fitting than the final words should be a tribute 
 to the nation whose rugged simplicity, profound 
 philosophy, and poetic ideality have given to 
 the world a Bach, a Beethoven, a Handel, a 
 Mozart, and a Wagner — the grand old Father- 
 land — Germany, out of whose bosom have 
 arisen the glorious pillars supporting the sacred 
 Temple of Music ! 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty, 
 at the Edinburgh University Press. 
 

 
 
 
 i