As a man Cherubini presented himself in many different aspects.
Extremely nervous, _brusque_, irritable, and absolutely independent,
he was apt to offend and repel. But under his stern reserve of
character there beat a warm heart and generous sympathies. This is
shown by the fact that, in spite of the unevenness of his temper, he
was almost worshipped by those around him. Auber, Halévy, Berton,
Boïeldieu, Méhul, Spontini, and Adam, who were so intimately
associated with him, speak of him with words of the warmest affection.
Halévy, indeed, rarely alluded to him without tears rushing to his
eyes; and the slightest term of disrespect excited his warmest
indignation. It is recorded that, after rebuking a pupil with
sarcastic severity, his fine face would relax with a smile so
affectionate and genial that his whilom victim could feel nothing but
enthusiastic respect. Without one taint of envy in his nature,
conscious of his own extraordinary powers, he was quick to recognise
genius in others; and his hearty praise of the powers of his rivals
shows how sound and generous the heart was under his irritability. His
proneness to satire and power of epigram made him enemies, but even
these yielded to the suavity and fascination which alternated with his
bitter moods. His sympathies were peculiarly open for young musicians.
Mendelssohn and Liszt were stimulated by his warm and encouraging
praise when they first visited Paris; and even Berlioz, whose
turbulent conduct in the Conservatory had so embittered him at various
times, was heartily applauded when his first great mass was produced.
Arnold gives us the following pleasant picture of Cherubini:--
"Cherubini in society was outwardly silent, modest, unassuming,
pleasing, obliging, and possessed of the finest manners. At the same
time, he who did not know that he was with Cherubini would think him
stern and reserved, so well did the composer know how to conceal
everything, if only to avoid ostentation. He truly shunned brag or
speaking of himself. Cherubini's voice was feeble, probably from
narrow-chestedness, and somewhat hoarse, but was otherwise soft and
agreeable. His French was Italianised.... His head was bent forward,
his nose was large and aquiline; his eyebrows were thick, black, and
somewhat bushy, overshadowing his eyes. His eyes were dark, and
glittered with an extraordinary brilliancy that animated in a
wonderful way the whole face. A thin lock of hair came over the centre
of his forehead, and somehow gave to his countenance a peculiar
softness."
The picture painted by Ingres, the great artist, now in the Luxembourg
gallery, represents the composer with Polyhymnia in the background
stretching out her hand over him. His face, framed in waving silvery
hair, is full of majesty and brightness, and the eye of piercing
lustre. Cherubini was so gratified by this effort of the painter that
he sent him a beautiful canon set to words of his own. Thus his latter
years were spent in the society of the great artists and wits of
Paris, revered by all, and recognised, after Beethoven's death, as the
musical giant of Europe. Rossini, Meyerbeer, Weber, Schumann--in a
word, the representatives of the most diverse schools of
composition--bowed equally before this great name. Rossini, who was
his antipodes in genius and method, felt his loss bitterly, and after
his death sent Cherubini's portrait to his widow with these touching
words--"Here, my dear madam, is the portrait of a great man, who is as
young in your heart as he is in my mind."
A mutual affection between Cherubini and Beethoven existed through
life, as is shown by the touching letter written by the latter just
before his death, but which Cherubini did not receive till after that
event. The letter was as follows:--
Vienna, _March 15, 1823_.
Highly esteemed Sir--I joyfully take advantage of the
opportunity to address you.
I have done so often in spirit, as I prize your theatrical
works beyond others. The artistic world has only to lament
that in Germany, at least, no new dramatic work of yours
has appeared. Highly as all your works are valued by true
connoisseurs, still it is a great loss to art not to possess
any fresh production of your great genius for the theatre.
True art is imperishable, and the true artist feels
heartfelt pleasure in grand works of genius, and that is
what enchants me when I hear a new composition of yours; in
fact, I take greater interest in it than in my own; in
short, I love and honour you. Were it not that my continued
bad health stops my coming to see you in Paris, with what
exceeding delight would I discuss questions of art with you!
Do not think that this is meant merely to serve as an
introduction to the favour I am about to ask of you. I hope
and feel sure that you do not for a moment suspect me of
such base sentiments. I recently completed a grand solemn
Mass, and have resolved to offer it to the various European
courts, as it is not my intention to publish it at present.
I have therefore asked the King of France, through the
French embassy here, to subscribe to this work, and I feel
certain that his Majesty would at your recommendation agree
to do so.
My critical situation demands that I should not solely fix
my eyes upon heaven, as is my wont; on the contrary, it
would have me fix them also upon earth, here below, for the
necessities of life.
Whatever may be the fate of my request to you, I shall for
ever continue to love and esteem you; and you for ever
remain of all my contemporaries that one whom I esteem the
most.
If you should wish to do me a very great favour, you would
effect this by writing to me a few lines, which would solace
me much. Art unites all; how much more, then, true artists!
and perhaps you may deem me worthy of being included in that
number.
With the highest esteem, your friend and servant,
Ludwig van Beethoven.
Ludwig Cherubini.
Cherubini's admiration of the great German is indicated in an anecdote
told by Professor Ella. The master rebuked a pupil who, in referring
to a performance of a Beethoven symphony, dwelt mostly on the
executive excellence--"Young man, let your sympathies be first wedded
to the creation, and be you less fastidious of the execution; accept
the interpretation, and think more of the creation of these musical
works which are written for all time and all nations, models for
imitation, and above all criticism."
Actively engaged as Director of the Conservatory, which he governed
with consummate ability, his old age was further employed in producing
that series of great masses which rank with the symphonies of
Beethoven. His creative instinct and the fire of his imagination
remained unimpaired to the time of his death. Mendelssohn, in a letter
to Moscheles, speaks of him as "that truly wonderful old man, whose
genius seems bathed in immortal youth." His opera of "Ali Baba,"
composed at seventy-six, though inferior to his other dramatic works,
is full of beautiful and original music, and was immediately produced
in several of the principal capitals of Europe; and the second Requiem
mass, written in his eightieth year, is one of his masterpieces.
On the 12th of March 1842 the old composer died, surrounded by his
affectionate family and friends. His fatal illness had been brought on
in part by grief for the death of his son-in-law, M. Turcas, to whom
he was most tenderly attached. His funeral was one of great military
and civic magnificence, and royalty itself could not have been
honoured with more splendid obsequies. The congregation of men great
in arms and state, in music, painting, and literature, who did honour
to the occasion, has rarely been equalled. His own noble Requiem mass,
composed the year before his death, was given at the funeral services
in the church of St. Roch by the finest orchestra and voices in
Europe. Similar services were held throughout Europe, and everywhere
the opera-houses were draped in black. Perhaps the death of no
musician ever called forth such universal exhibitions of sorrow and
reverence.
Cherubini's life extended from the early part of the reign of Louis
XVI. to that of Louis Philippe, and was contemporaneous with many of
the most remarkable events in modern history. The energy and passion
which convulsed society during his youth and early manhood undoubtedly
had much to do in stimulating that robust and virile quality in his
mind which gave such character to his compositions. The fecundity of
his intellect is shown in the fact that he produced four hundred and
thirty works, out of which only eighty have been published. In this
catalogue there are twenty-five operas and eleven masses.
As an operatic composer he laid the foundation of the modern French
school. Uniting the melody of the Italian with the science of the
German, his conceptions had a dramatic fire and passion which were,
however, free from anything appertaining to the sensational and
meretricious. His forms were indeed classically severe, and his style
is defined by Adolphe Adam as the resurrection of the old Italian
school, enriched by the discoveries of modern harmony. Though he was
the creator of French opera as we know it now, he was free from its
vagaries and extravagances. He set its model in the dramatic vigour
and picturesqueness, the clean-cut forms, and the noble
instrumentation which mark such masterpieces as "Faniska," "Médée,"
"Les Deux Journées," and "Lodoïska." The purity, classicism, and
wealth of ideas in these works have always caused them to be cited as
standards of ideal excellence. The reforms in opera of which Gluck was
the protagonist, and Wagner the extreme modern exponent, characterise
the dramatic works of Cherubini, though he keeps them within that
artistic limit which a proper regard for melodic beauty prescribes. In
the power and propriety of musical declamation his operas are conceded
to be without a superior. His overtures hold their place in classical
music as ranking with the best ever written, and show a richness of
resource and knowledge of form in treating the orchestra which his
contemporaries admitted were only equalled by Beethoven.
Cherubini's place in ecclesiastical music is that by which he is best
known to the musical public of to-day; for his operas, owing to the
immense demands they make on the dramatic and vocal resources of the
artist, are but rarely presented in France, Germany, and England, and
never in America. They are only given where music is loved on account
of its noble traditions, and not for the mere sake of idle and
luxurious amusement. As a composer of masses, however, Cherubini's
genius is familiar to all who frequent the services of the Roman
Church. His relation to the music of Catholicism accords with that of
Sebastian Bach to the music of Protestantism. Haydn, Mozart, and even
Beethoven, are held by the best critics to be his inferiors in this
form of composition. His richness of melody, sense of dramatic colour,
and great command of orchestral effects, gave him commanding power in
the interpretation of religious sentiments; while an ardent faith
inspired with passion, sweetness, and devotion what Place styles his
"sublime visions." Miel, one of his most competent critics, writes of
him in this eloquent strain--"If he represents the passion and death
of Christ, the heart feels itself wounded with the most sublime
emotion; and when he recounts the 'Last Judgment' the blood freezes
with dread at the redoubled and menacing calls of the exterminating
angel. All those admirable pictures that the Raphaels and Michael
Angelos have painted with colours and the brush, Cherubini brings
forth with the voice and orchestra."
In brief, if Cherubini is the founder of a later school of opera, and
the model which his successors have always honoured and studied if
they have not always followed, no less is he the chief of a later, and
by common consent the greatest, school of modern church music.
_MÉHUL, SPONTINI, AND HALÉVY._