BACH, HÄNDEL, HAYDN, MOZART, BEETHOVEN, SCHUBERT, SCHUMANN,
MENDELSSOHN, WEBER, CHOPIN, AND WAGNER: THE INFLUENCE OF WOMAN
UPON THEIR MUSICAL PRODUCTIVITY.
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[Illustration]
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH.
I, my Fabius, who am in other respects an admirer of antiquity, am of
opinion that my Bach, and others like him, unite in their own persons
many Orpheuses and twenty Arions.—GESNER.
To thoroughly appreciate the influence of woman upon Sebastian
Bach in his musical development and creations, it is necessary to
regard the modest and God-fearing cantor of St. Thomas not only as
a musician but also as a man. He has left an imperishable name, and
his musical creations are the very foundations of the art; and yet
his life was mainly spent within the family circle, where, in the
true patriarchal spirit, he ruled over his numerous progeny. This
domestic characteristic distinguished all the Bachs, from the time when
Veit Bach, the old baker who played his zither while his mill was
running, and the founder of the family, travelled into Thuringia from
Hungary, that he might be free to worship God as he pleased. They were
all musicians; and their love of music, as well as their remarkable
purity of sentiment and strength of family affection, bound them
closely together. At one time there were no less than thirty Bachs who
were organists in Thuringia, Franconia, and Saxony. Nothing is more
beautiful in the records of music than their anniversary meetings, upon
which occasions they gathered together from all parts of Germany, and
enjoyed a genuine feast of music in singing chorals and folk-songs, and
improvising. No jar or disagreement ever disturbed these meetings. They
were as calm and peaceful as the movement of the chorals which opened
and closed them. They were simple, unaffected, pious people, remarkably
gifted in musical knowledge,—in fact, renowned all over Germany for
their skill,—and yet to a large extent living within themselves, and
depending upon their homes for their enjoyment.
Of this constellation, Johann Sebastian Bach was the very sun
and centre. He seems to have had none of the contrarieties or
eccentricities which have characterized so many other musical
geniuses. His mother died shortly after he was born, and his father
when the boy was but ten years of age. His youth was spent in the home
of his elder brother, Johann Christoph, an organist and music-master,
who brought him up with an austerity of discipline which seems very
harsh, and which particularly manifested itself, for some unaccountable
reason, in the apparent determination to crush out his musical impulses
and ambitions. His severe training, however, gave him self-reliance.
He grew up to be a self-sustained, evenly poised man, simple and
unostentatious in his bearing, strictly honorable in his intercourse
with men, strong and unvarying in his home love, and guided in every
event of life by a strict morality born of sincere religion. The spot
where Luther translated the Bible into German overlooked his native
place, and on the same spot the minnesingers had fought their romantic
battles of song; and the religion of the one and the romance of the
other affected his life until its close. He was an affectionate father,
laboring manfully and incessantly to support his large family; a good
citizen, faithfully fulfilling all his duties and commanding universal
respect; a plain, humble man, despising rank and show, making no boast
of his grand achievements, and yet recognized in the court of Frederick
the Great as above courtiers and nobility, by the title of his genius.
Such a man, domestic by nature, spending most of his time and doing
most of his work at home, and, more than all, doing this work for what
seems now a beggarly pittance, needed for a companion a sensible,
practical, industrious, and economical woman, capable of administering
the affairs of the family in such manner that his musical labor, which
was incessant, might not be disturbed by household cares, or solicitude
as to the ability of the lean family purse to meet the demands upon it.
Such a woman he found in his cousin Maria Barbara Bach, the youngest
daughter of Johann Michael Bach, of Gehren, himself a composer of
no mean ability. He made her acquaintance in Arnstadt, where he was
appointed first organist of the new church in 1703. He was at that
time too poor to marry; but the attachment between them was so strong
that they mutually agreed to wait until a position lucrative enough
to support them should offer itself. They did not have to wait long.
In 1706 he was successful in obtaining the position of organist of
St. Blasius Church, at Mühlhausen, and was left free to fix his own
salary. Although upon the verge of marriage, the contract made with
the town authorities shows that his requirements for establishing a
family and founding a home were modest in the extreme. The contract
reads: “Eighty-five guldens (a little more than thirty-five dollars),
three malters of corn, two clafters of wood (one of beech and one
of other wood), and six schock of small firewood, to be brought to
his door.” He also requests that he may be helped “with the loan
of a cart in bringing his furniture from Arnstadt.” He assumed his
duties at Mühlhausen in 1707; and in October of that year he and
Maria Barbara were married, starting in life with the modest outfit
already mentioned. Very little is known of her, except that she was an
affectionate and dutiful wife, of even temper and sunny disposition,
contented with her lot, and so prudent and thrifty in her management
that the home of Johann Sebastian was always a happy one, and his
musical labors were never disturbed by the interposition of household
troubles and annoyances. She died in 1720, during Bach’s absence at
Carlsbad with Prince Leopold, and so suddenly that no news of it
reached him until after she was buried. She bore him eight children,
five sons and three daughters,—Caroline Dorothea, born in 1708; Wilhelm
Friedemann, born in 1710, died at Berlin in 1784; Carl Philipp Emanuel,
born in 1714, and commonly known as the “Berlin Bach,” who died at
Hamburg in 1788; Johann Gottfried Bernhard, born in 1715; and Leopold
August, born in 1718. In addition to these, there were a pair of twins,
who died before they were a year old; and a daughter, who died very
young.
There is no record to show that his first wife was a musician, or that
she had musical taste or feeling; but it is on record that the thirteen
years of hard labor and of incessant struggle with the necessities of
life were years of mutual happiness, respect, and affection. She was
thrifty, contented, industrious, and withal unselfish,—qualities which
are very essential to happiness in life on an income of less than fifty
dollars a year and perquisites of the most meagre description. We may
therefore conclude that Sebastian Bach sincerely mourned the loss of
the companion so suddenly snatched away from him. His situation in life
was such, however, that he could not sorrow long. The necessities of
constant labor, the daily recurrence of multifarious household duties,
and the pressing cares of his little flock of children, all appealed
to him to supply the place of her who had gone, so that he might be
relieved of these exacting and worrying household cares, and give his
sole attention to his art. A year and a half after her death, in the
year 1721, he married Anna Magdalena Wülkens, the youngest daughter of
a trumpeter, court musician to the Duke of Weissenfeld. He was then
thirty-six years of age, and she was fifteen years his junior. This
disparity of years, however, never threw a shadow upon the affections
of the two, which remained beautiful and undisturbed until his death.
The union was a perfect one, perhaps more perfect than the first; for,
in addition to her devotion to household duties and her prudent and
economical management of their little income, she was a musician of
exceptional talent and had a very fine voice. His income, although
larger than he had received heretofore, was still small; for two years
after his marriage, when he signed his contracts as cantor of St.
Thomas, at Leipzig, his yearly stipend was eighty-seven thalers and
twelve groschen (about sixty-five dollars); sixteen scheffel of corn;
thirteen thalers, three groschen, for wood and candles; one thaler,
eight groschen, interest on a legacy; lodging and firewood free. This
sum, with certain fees for services at marriages and funerals, was his
only recompense for the arduous labors at the St. Thomas School, and
the equally arduous labor of composing and conducting the music for
four churches. Under her prudent management, however, they lived very
comfortably; and a new element of happiness sprang up in his home,
growing out of her knowledge and love of music. She had a soprano voice
of beautiful quality, and a knowledge of the technique of music of such
a decided character that for five years after her marriage she and the
children studied with Bach in thorough-bass and piano music; the father
finding time in the midst of his many duties to give them the benefits
of his knowledge. He wrote out for her the rules of thorough-bass; and
there still exists a testimonial of his great interest in her musical
progress in the collection of “easy pieces for the piano,” written in
1722, and inscribed with the autograph, “Clavier Büchlein vor Anna
Magdalena Bach.” Three years later he had completed for her a whole
volume of music, containing forty-six preludes, minuets, rondos,
polonaises, etc., thirty-five of which are for the piano; among them
the favorite C major prelude, No. 1 of the “Wohltemperirte Clavier;”
five chorals,—“Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten,” “Gieb dich
zufrieden,” “Schaff’s mit mir Gott,” “Dir, Jehovah, will ich singen,”
and “O Ewigkeit, Du Donnerwort;” and, lastly, seven songs, followed by
a wedding poem, which are not only of peculiar interest because they
were written for his wife, but also because they are the only short
songs, not of a sacred character, which Bach has left. To these songs
Bach probably furnished words as well as music; and one of them, the
“Willst du dein Herz mir schenken,” was inspired by his love for her
in the days of their brief courtship. Nearly all of them are filled
with true and tender devotion, none more so than that which asks the
question so happily answered by a lifetime of love,—the song of their
courtship, which brought them together in a bond of love too strong for
anything but death to sever. In this volume, written in figured basses,
her own handiwork appears, where she has filled in the chords; and his
corrections scattered through them leave an interesting and touching
souvenir of the great master, and the pupil who was to him the nearest
and dearest of all.
Bach died on the 28th of July, 1750, after long and keen suffering,
during the midst of which he did not cease work. Only a short time
before his death, he dictated his last work, “Wenn wir in höchsten
Nöthen sein,”—a choral born of his suffering and inspired by his
religion, a touching reflex of his own pitiable condition. He died
in his sleep, and no stone marks the spot in the Leipzig churchyard
where his body rests. The only record which is left is to be found in
the register of deaths, which thus affirms: “A man, age 67, M. Johann
Sebastian Bach, Musical Director and Singing-Master at the St. Thomas
School, was carried to his grave in the hearse, July 30, 1750.” His
widow survived him seven years, supporting herself as she best could
upon the scanty pension granted to cantors, and by the sale of her
husband’s manuscripts. She bore him thirteen children, but six of whom
survived their father’s death,—among them, Johann Christoph Friedrich,
born in 1732, known as the “Bückeburger Bach;” and Johann Christian,
born in 1735, who became famous as the “London Bach.” Only one
daughter, Regina Susanna, survived the mother, whose extreme poverty
aroused a widespread feeling of compassion, which took the form of a
public contribution in 1801, and becomes more than usually interesting,
as it allies the name of Beethoven with that of Bach. On the 19th of
May, 1801, Friedrich Rochlitz, one of Bach’s most zealous admirers, and
the editor of the Leipzig “Allgemeine Musikzeitung,” writes:—
“Our appeal for the support of the only survivor of the Bach family,
Sebastian Bach’s youngest daughter, has not been overlooked by the
public.... With deep emotion we received on the 10th of May, through
the Viennese musician, Herr Andreas Streicher, the considerable sum
of 307 Viennese florins, exchanged by the banker Löhr of this city
for 200 Reichthaler from the undersigned persons.
“The collection was made by the musician above mentioned, with
the assistance of Count Fries in Vienna.... At the same time the
celebrated Viennese composer and pianist, Herr von Beethoven,
volunteered to publish one of his newest works, through Messrs.
Breitkopf and Härtel, for the sole benefit of Bach’s daughter, that
the good old woman might from time to time derive benefits from
it, at the same time using all his efforts for the most speedy
publication possible, that she may not perchance die before this
object is attained.”
Destiny ordered kindly for Sebastian Bach in the arrangement of his
domestic life with reference to his musical creations. Notwithstanding
his immense and incessant labors, especially in connection with the
St. Thomas School and the Leipzig churches, the cares and troubles
naturally created by such a large family of children, and the small
compensation received for his work, his life ran smoothly, and the
grand monument he was erecting for posterity never suffered either
in its fair proportions or its complete form. At the outset of his
career, and before he entered upon the really great work of his life,
he needed for a companion a thrifty, prudent woman, of even disposition
and contented nature; and such a one he found in his cousin Maria
Barbara. After her death, and when his name had begun to be known as a
great organist and composer beyond mere local limits, he still needed
a thrifty and prudent and even-tempered woman, but, still more than
this, a woman who could sympathize with him, and encourage, assist,
and inspire him in his musical labors; and such a one he found in
Anna Magdalena. There can be no doubt that the second marriage was
the happier, although she was the wife of his prime, and the romance
of youth had faded away before the realities of life, with so many of
which Bach had to contend. How great that inspiration was his music
shows. It is doubly inscribed. First, like Haydn, he wrote upon his
scores his reverence to God,—S. D. G. (_Soli Deo Gloria_),—and then his
love for his wife.
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GEORGE FREDERICK HÄNDEL.
Remember Händel! who that was not born
Deaf as the dead to harmony, forgets,
Or can, the more than Homer of his age?
COWPER.
It is said by all his biographers that Händel was never a victim of
the tender passion, though many ladies paid homage to his genius
by laying siege to his heart. There was one love, however, in the
manifestation of which he was both ardent and constant; that was
his love for his mother. Händel’s father, George, had studied the
rude surgery of the time, with Christoph Oettinger, the town barber
of Halle, and eventually married his widow, Frau Anna Oettinger,
Feb. 20, 1643, and continued the business of his employer. Frau
Anna gave birth to six children, and died in 1682, at the advanced
age of seventy-two. In less than six months the bereaved husband
contracted a second marriage with Dorothea, daughter of Pastor Taust,
of Giebichenstein, who is described by Rochstro as “a lady equally
respected for the gentleness of her demeanor, her loving submission to
parental and conjugal authority, her earnest piety, and her reverence
for, and intimate acquaintance with, the text and teaching of the
Holy Scriptures,—qualities which were all faithfully reproduced in
the character of her children.” These children were a son who died
at birth; two daughters, Dorothea Sophie and Johanna Christiana; and
George Frederick, the subject of this sketch. Although the family was
not an artistic one in any sense,—indeed, the father was so averse
to music that he declared he would have no such “jingling” in the
house,—his childhood was a happy one. The old surgeon was resolutely
bent upon making a lawyer of his son; but as usual the maternal
instincts apprehended the true bent of the boy’s passion, and we may
well imagine that she found more than one way to encourage him, in
spite of the father’s opposition. The same authority quoted above says
he was “the fondest hope of a mother, to whose tender solicitude he
owed the training which, through all the trials and vicissitudes of a
long and more than ordinarily eventful life, kept him honest and just
and true, and secured him the respect of princes, and the affection of
all who were not blinded by jealousy to the splendor of his genius and
the depth of his moral worth.” She superintended his education, and
prepared him for his life-struggle with tender devotion, even stinting
herself, after his father’s death, to provide him with the means of
continuing his musical studies. Although it has been said of him,
by some of the earlier biographers, that his social affections were
not very strong, he was not lacking in filial piety. In June, 1725,
he writes a very cordial letter from London to his brother-in-law at
Halle, expressing his deep regret that he cannot spare time to visit
his mother. “I cannot be so ungrateful,” he says, “as to pass over in
silence the goodness you have shown to my mother in her advanced age,
for which I offer you my very humble thanks. You know how deeply I am
interested in all that concerns her, and can therefore judge the depth
of the obligation under which you have placed me.” He was always
loyal in his affection for her, and in his numerous journeys never
failed to find time to visit her. While in Venice in 1729, he received
a letter from his brother-in-law, informing him that his mother had
been seized with a paralytic attack. He hurried to Halle with all
possible despatch, and found her sufficiently recovered to be able to
walk about, though she had lost her sight and could only recognize
him by the pressure of the hand. The meeting was a very sorrowful one
to both, though mutual love lightened the pain. A year afterward she
died suddenly, while Händel was in London; and in the funeral oration
delivered over her grave, this love which had so strongly affected
their lives was particularly dwelt upon. In his reply to the letter
informing him of her death, Händel gives still another evidence of his
great love for the mother to whom he owed so much. He says:—
“I cannot yet restrain my tears. But it has pleased the Most High to
enable me to submit with Christian calmness to his holy will. Your
thoughtfulness will never pass from my remembrance until, after this
life, we are once more united, which may the All-good God in his
mercy grant us!”
The loving mother prepared him for his career, and upon its very
threshold he again experienced the beneficence of woman’s influence.
Friedrich, the Elector of Brandenburg, afterward King Friedrich I. of
Prussia, was a generous patron of arts. His consort, the Electress
Sophie Charlotte, who was subsequently styled the “Philosophic Queen,”
was not only a warm friend of artists, but was herself one of the
most accomplished musicians in Europe, and more than once occupied
the conductor’s desk in concerts and at operatic performances. The
Electoral palace was the favorite resort of artists from all parts of
Europe, and thither Händel was sent as a child. He was most kindly
received by the Electress. She was delighted with his performances,
introduced him to prominent artists who gave him many valuable
hints,—among them, Ariosti and Buononcini,—and at last offered to take
him into the service of the Court, send him free of expense to Italy to
complete his education, and upon his return to give him an important
position. His father, however, declined the offer. Hamburg meanwhile
was rapidly competing with Berlin as an art centre; and after the death
of the generous Electress, thither went Händel to continue his studies.
About this time an odd experience befell him, and all the more comical
when his aversion to matrimony is considered. Buxtehude, the veteran
organist at Lübeck, was about to retire from his position, and the
place was offered for competition. Händel, in company with Mattheson,
the principal tenor of the Hamburg Theatre, went to Lübeck to compete
for it. Mattheson himself relates their experiences:—
“We played on almost every organ and harpsichord in the place, and
with regard to our performances, agreed between ourselves that he
should play only upon the organ and I upon the harpsichord. We
listened also to the veteran performer, in the Marienkirche, with
deep attention. But because the question of succession involved also
that of a marriage contract, into which we neither of us had the
slightest desire to enter, we left the place, after receiving many
compliments, unusual honors, and very pleasant entertainment. Johann
Christian Schieferdecker afterward brought the affair to a more
satisfactory conclusion; accepted the bride, after the death of her
father, Buxtehude, in 1707, and obtained the coveted appointment.”
The royal ladies of the English Court were the devoted friends of
Händel. He had a handsome pension from the bounty of Queen Anne. When
George I. succeeded to the throne, he and the royal family were regular
attendants at the theatre whenever his operas were given. Eventually
the King added a second pension of £200 a year, and appointed him
music-master to the daughters of the Prince of Wales, afterward George
II., which brought him a third pension of £200 from the private purse
of the Princess, afterward Queen Caroline. Her death, in 1737, deprived
him of one of his most devoted friends. How deeply he was attached
to her is evidenced by the exquisitely beautiful anthem he wrote for
her funeral, “The Ways of Zion do mourn.” He gave lessons to all the
children of the royal family. The Princess Anne was devotedly attached
to him; and when she left England, her last act of kindness to him
was to commend him to the favor of Lord Harvey, a favorite of the
Queen. This royal favor must have been particularly grateful to him,
as it was bestowed at a time when his Italian rivals were organizing
cabals against him and seeking in every way to undermine and ruin him.
And yet, indebted as he was to them, he never restrained his temper
when they violated the proprieties. Schoelcher relates the following
incident:—
“At the concerts which he conducted for Frederick, Prince of Wales,
if the Prince and his wife were not punctual to the stated time, we
are told that the conductor used to be very violent; and the son of
George II.—to his great honor be it said—respected him too much to be
offended. If the ladies of the Princess talked instead of listening,
his rage was uncontrollable, and sometimes carried him to the length
of swearing and calling names, even in the presence of royalty;
whereupon the gentle Princess, who loved him much, would say to the
talkative ones: ‘Hush! hush! Händel is in a passion.’”
Another instance of his terrible temper is related by Rochstro:—
“At the first rehearsal of ‘Ottone,’ Francesca Cuzzoni flatly refused
to sing the lovely aria ‘Falsa immagine,’ which Händel had written
expressly for her. Said Händel: ‘I know, Madame, that you are a very
devil, but I will let you see that I am Beelzebub, the prince of
devils;’ and with that he seized her in his arms and threatened to
throw her out of the window, whereupon she yielded in terror to his
superior will, sang the song in exact accordance with his directions,
and achieved in it one of her most brilliant triumphs.”
In view of his success with refractory songstresses, one is disposed
to wish that the conductors of our own time had an equally healthy
discipline in the ranks of their capricious and moody _prime donne_.
Händel, as has already been said, was averse to matrimony. More than
this, he was not very social by nature and not at all domestic in his
habits. His complete devotion to his art, his impatience with whatever
crossed him, his hot temper, and the peculiar idiosyncrasies of his
nature illy fitted him to make any woman happy; hence it was fortunate
that he was never in love with any of the sex except his mother. In
his long and eventful career he was constantly associated with ladies,
and was much admired by them; but none of them touched his heart. It
is said by his biographers that he spent many of his afternoons at
the organ of St. Paul’s, in the midst of his admirers, and at night
resorted to the Queen’s Arms, a tavern near by, where he played the
harpsichord, smoked his pipe, and drank his beer. As he became more
absorbed in his compositions he cut loose from all society, and only
associated with three intimate friends, not one of whom had musical
tastes. His chief amusement was to visit exhibitions of pictures.
Hawkins says of him:—
“His social affections were not very strong, and to this it may be
imputed that he spent his whole life in celibacy. No impertinent
visits and few engagements to parties of pleasure were suffered to
interrupt the course of his studies.”
He had no passion except for music, and yet the opportunities for
the exercise of the all-engrossing passion were not lacking. While
he was in Italy, being then in his twenty-fourth year, the Prince of
Tuscany, brother of the Grand Duke John Gaston de Médicis, was present
at performances of his operas “Almeria” and “Florinda,” and was so
delighted with them that he gave him an invitation to go to Florence.
When the opportunity came he went there and brought out the opera of
“Roderigo,” written for the occasion, for which he was honored by the
Grand Duke with a present in money and a service of plate. It was
often the custom at that day for the ladies of the Courts to sing in
the works produced in the royal presence; and upon this occasion the
Archduchess Victoria, a beautiful woman, took the principal rôle.
Burney describes her as “a songstress of great talent.” She conceived
so violent a passion for him that she even followed him from Florence
to Venice, and literally demanded that he should marry her, after he
had manifested a repugnance to her approaches. The choleric Händel,
however, repelled her suit with disdain, and she gave up the chase.
His decision, or rather his indifference, fortunately saved him from
disastrous consequences, as the lady who had been so importunate was
the mistress of the Prince who had invited him to Florence.
The author of the “Anecdotes of Händel” also relates the following
incidents, in which he was a party of the second part:—
“When he was young, two of his scholars, ladies of considerable
fortune, were so much enamoured of him that each was desirous of
a matrimonial alliance. The first is said to have fallen a victim
to her attachment. Händel would have married her, but his pride
was stung by the coarse declaration of her mother, that she never
would consent to the marriage of her daughter with a fiddler; and,
indignant at the expression, he declined all further intercourse.
After the death of the mother the father renewed the acquaintance,
and informed him that all obstacles were removed, but he replied
that the time was now past; and the young lady fell into a decline,
which soon terminated her existence. The second attachment was a lady
splendidly related, whose hand he might have obtained by renouncing
his profession. That condition he resolutely refused, and laudably
declined the connection which was to prove a restriction on the great
faculties of his mind.”
It may be remarked that the first story does not comport with the
well-known character of Händel, and as it is not mentioned in any of
his biographies, may be set down as one of those popular romances
which attach to the careers of all geniuses. The second, however, is
characteristic of him, though it is to be regretted that the details
of his refusal are not given. It would be refreshing to know what the
irascible composer would have said to the proposition that he should
exchange his music for a wife. No woman touched him so nearly as to
affect his music; and yet, without his mother’s warm affection and
sympathy for him in his unartistic home, and her determination that
he should follow the course he had marked out for himself, he would
have lost many of his early advantages. Had it not been also for the
devoted friendship and generous support of good Queen Caroline and the
princesses of her Court, he would have fared badly, in England, at the
hands of his Italian rivals.
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[Illustration]
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN.
He lived in the ideal world which Petrarch and Dante described,
and his passion took nothing from his austerity. Unable to marry,
he remained chaste; and he loved as purely as he wrote. He hated
licentious speech, and blamed the “Don Giovanni” of Mozart, because a
thing so holy as art should not so prostitute itself as to serve to
link together so scandalous a story.—M. TAINE.
Lenz says in one of his rhapsodies: “In the arts the animating or
life-giving element is furnished by the sentiment of love.” In music it
finds its highest and truest expression, and in no music more clearly
than in the immortal works of Beethoven. No other creation in tones has
done so much to dignify and ennoble love as his one opera, “Fidelio;”
no song has so expressed its beauty and its ardor as that most perfect
amatory lyric, the “Adelaide.” If the passion of love which is pictured
in these two works and in nearly all the others which he created,
whether song, sonata, or symphony, and the ardent aspiration as well
as profound self-abasement of religion which characterize the Second
Mass and clothe its measures with the divine presence, had been wanting
in his life, it is almost unquestionable that he would have yielded in
the bitter struggle with adverse circumstances, and that he would not
remain to-day as the one composer to whom all the world does homage.
No musician has ever so completely imbued his music with feeling,—that
feeling which implies sympathy with passion in all its heights and
depths, with the inner life of humanity, with the noblest forms of
emotion in man, and with the grandest aspects of Nature,—that feeling
which could not have existed without this great underlying principle of
love, joined with a naturally reverential and devotional habit of being.
Beethoven’s life was a battle with circumstances, commenced in his
boyhood, ending only on his death-bed, and fitly typified by the
fearful thunders and lightnings of the storm that raged about him in
his last moments. The dissipations of his father, a drunken musician,
cast a gloom over his earlier life. The drudgery and the misery of his
home fostered a misanthropic feeling. The want of general and liberal
culture which he might have had under more favorable circumstances
annoyed him all through life. In the midst of the corrupt society of
Vienna he had led a blameless career; but even this could not save
him from feeling the wretched effects of this corruption in his own
family. His nephew Karl was left to his care by his father; but to
secure the boy, whom he loved as if he were his son, he had to prove
that the mother was a dissolute woman. He abandoned his bachelor
habits, and commenced housekeeping on the boy’s account; he hoarded
up his money to educate him; he lavished his affection upon him; and
the graceless wretch requited it all by the most infamous career of
dissipation, making the uncle all the more suspicious and misanthropic.
From this point on, the story is one of the most pitiful kind. Painful
physical troubles set in one after the other, the most painful being
his deafness, which so increased upon him that in the latter years of
his life, during which he produced his greatest works,—the Mass in
D, the Choral Symphony, and the last sonatas and quartets,—he could
hear nothing. “_Miser et pauper sum_,” he writes in his journal at
this time. Over his sonata for violoncello, Op. 59, he writes, “_Inter
lacrymas et luctum_.” Where in all history is there a sadder wail of
despair, a more pitiable outburst of grief, than is to be found in
his utterance: “I have drunk to the dregs a cup of bitter sorrow, and
already earned martyrdom in art”? or in this extract from a letter to
his friend Wegeler:—
“How often have I cursed my existence! Plutarch has led me to
resignation. I will, if possible, set fate at defiance, although
there must be moments in my life when I shall be the most unhappy of
God’s creatures. I entreat you to say nothing of my affliction to any
one, not even to Lorchen.... Resignation! what a miserable refuge!
and yet it is my sole remaining one.”
In the midst of this life, in which this musical colossus was not only
struggling with painful physical ailments and severe mental troubles,
but was also annoyed with a swarm of petty household discomforts
brought upon himself by his love for his worthless nephew, there are
episodes upon which it is pleasant to dwell, growing out of his
relations to the other sex, of whom, most unquestionably, he was a
passionate though very diffusive admirer; and just as his inner life
developed more and more grandly, as his deafness compelled him to
retire within himself, and gave birth to his most sublime creations,
so the influence of woman, previous to this time, had aroused in him a
wonderful sense of beauty and depth of tenderness, which were helping
to prepare the way for the more majestic and enduring works which were
to crown the close of his remarkable career.
Beethoven’s earliest attachment was to the Breuning family in Bonn,
who were held in the highest esteem in that city. They were among his
earliest friends and protectors, and they clove to him to the last.
Frau von Breuning took a deep interest in him, and he regarded her in
the sacred light of a mother. Her son Stephen was one of his warmest
friends; likewise Eleanore, the daughter, who subsequently married Dr.
Wegeler, then his friend, and after his death his biographer. Some
writers, more particularly those of the Rau and “Furioso” class, who
have rhapsodized over the memory of a man in whose life there was not
a trace of romance, have sought to make it appear that Eleanore was
Beethoven’s first love; but there is nothing in his relations to her,
or in his correspondence with her or with the family, that indicates
any sentiment on his part except that of warm and exalted friendship.
After a year’s absence from the family, during which there had been an
estrangement between them, he writes to Eleanore from Vienna (Nov. 2,
1793):—
“Little as I may deserve favor in your eyes, believe me, my dear
_friend_ (let me still call you so), I have suffered and still suffer
severely from the privation of your friendship. Never can I forget
you and your dear mother.”
And with this letter he sends her, as a souvenir, his variations upon
the “Se vuol ballare” of Mozart. Nothing more ardent than expressions
of this kind appear in any of his letters to her. It was in the
Breuning house that he always found shelter from the misery and
squalor of his own home. It was through this family that he first made
acquaintance with German literature and the poets, whose creations
he so often set to music, and whose lofty and majestic spirit is so
clearly reflected in his larger works. All the members of the family
were musical, Frau von Breuning not the least so; and it was her
strong influence that kept him at work, and directed his genius in
the highest and best ways. She understood his eccentric moods, and
could make allowance for them. She knew when to urge him on to his
best endeavor, how to encourage him, and how to manage his restless,
wayward, and gloomy disposition. This woman, more than all others,
helped to lay the broad and strong foundation upon which Beethoven’s
fame now rests; and to her, more than to any other, should be due the
credit for the lofty position he holds in the world of music. He came
to her as a son would come to his mother for aid and counsel; and
she, better than all others, understood him. She foresaw his future,
because she recognized his genius; and she not only urged him on to the
accomplishment of its mission, but she helped to direct it in the right
course by supplying it with the noblest and most dignified examples of
art for study.
While there was no more ardent feeling than that of friendship in
the breast of Beethoven towards the Breuning family, there came one
day into the circle a friend of Eleanore’s who aroused the first
manifestation of love on his part. It was a sudden flame, suddenly
extinguished. The friend was Jeannette d’Honrath, a young lady of
Cologne, who was a frequent visitor at the Breuning house, a beautiful
blonde, a person of amiable disposition, a good singer, and a confirmed
coquette withal. She bestowed her favor so equally between Beethoven
and Stephen Breuning, and yet so deftly, that each believed himself
to be an accepted lover. She laid sportive siege to the infatuated
Beethoven with a well-known song of that day,—
“What! part with thee this very day?
My heart a thousand times says, Nay!”
And when he was away, the same song did good service for Stephen. Thus
each victim was enmeshed in the fair singer’s toils, unknown to the
other; and it was not until she had flitted away, with much feigned
regret, that the two luckless suitors discovered she was affianced
all this time to a young Austrian officer, Major Greth, whom she
afterward married, and who subsequently rose to the rank of general.
The fair Jeannette and her gallant husband passed away in due time,
and, like many other nobodies, have come down to posterity by virtue
of some slight connection with Beethoven. It is to be presumed that
neither Ludwig nor Stephen brooded long over their slight at the hands
of the Cologne beauty, since we find them not long afterward paying
assiduous court in the train of suitors and admirers that thronged
about Barbara Koch, the beauty of Bonn. Her mother, a widow, kept a
coffee-house which was the favorite resort of professors and students.
The fair Barbara herself was a very cultivated person, and she drew
about her those of like character; and in the pleasant evenings at the
coffee-house, art, philosophy, and music were discussed, all having
a direct bearing upon the future development of the young musician.
There is nothing to indicate that the acquaintance left any lasting
impression upon him; though he corresponded with her after he had left
Bonn, as we find, in a letter to Eleanore von Breuning, who was her
friend, his complaint that he had written twice to Barbara and she had
not answered, which may be accounted for by her marriage not long after
to Count Anton von Belderbusch, in whose family she had previously
served as governess.
Wegeler, his biographer, says of him, “Beethoven war immer in
Liebesverhältnissen;” and he himself said that he once loved the same
woman for seven whole months,—not a flippant remark, as would seem at
the first glance, but indicating a mood of his being which may well be
described in his own words:—
“I was born with a passionate and excitable temperament; I am keenly
susceptible to the pleasures of society; my heart and mind were, even
from childhood, prone to the most tender feelings of affection.”
With such a temperament, one may well fancy that the list of his
attachments was a long one; though the most of them were by no means
serious, since it was his fate as a rule to bestow them upon ladies
whose rank forbade any possibility of requital. These must be passed
over lightly, though in the case of some there is a degree of interest
attaching to them that warrants a detailed consideration. They were
nearly all his pupils. Among them was Mlle. de Gerardi, of whom we know
very little, who laid siege to the susceptible Beethoven in verse,
but without any more practical result than, as he says in a letter,
his serious annoyance. The young Baroness von Drossdich, a somewhat
volatile and eccentric person whom he addresses in his letters as “My
esteemed Thérèse,” was a favorite with him. In a letter written in
1809, he urges her not to forget her music, and mentions sending her
several of his compositions. Upon one occasion he paid her a visit at
Mödling, and, not finding her at home, tore a sheet of music-paper
from a book, wrote upon it some music for her, set to a verse of
Matthisson’s, and on the reverse dedicated it “To my dear Thérèse.” The
close of the letter to which I have referred clearly shows the strength
of his regard for her:—
“Farewell, my esteemed Thérèse. I wish you all the good and charm
that life can offer. Think of me kindly, and forget my follies. Rest
assured that no one would more rejoice to hear of your happiness,
even were you to feel no interest in your devoted servant and friend.”
After his rupture with Thérèse, another intimate affection consoled
him for her absence. In 1811 his pecuniary troubles and physical
ailments influenced him to quit Vienna for a time. His first thought
was to go to Italy; but by the advice of his physicians he changed his
intentions, and selected Teplitz, the little Bohemian town, where two
years later the King of Prussia and the Emperors of Austria and Russia
signed the treaty of the Holy Alliance. It was always a favorite resort
with artists and the aristocracy. In the select society to which
he had the _entrée_ he met many old acquaintances and made some new
ones,—among them, the poet Tiedge. There was one, however, who made a
deeper impression than all the rest. It was Amelia de Sebald, a young
and beautiful concert-singer, who cultivated music as an amateur, but
had, it is said, a very sympathetic voice and genuine talent. When the
fair singer left Teplitz, the master first became aware of the real
impression she had made upon him, and in a letter to Tiedge he thus
unbosoms himself:—
“Two affectionate words for a farewell would have sufficed me; alas!
not even one was said to me! The Countess von der Recke sends me a
pressure of the hand; it is something, and I kiss her hands as a
token of gratitude; but Amelia has not even saluted me. Every day I
am angry at myself in not having profited by her sojourn at Teplitz,
seeking her companionship sooner. It is a frightful thing to make the
acquaintance of such a sweet creature, and to lose her immediately;
and nothing is more insupportable than thus to have to confess one’s
own foolishness. I propose to remain here until the end of the
month of September. Write me as to how long you reckon to remain in
Dresden; it is not impossible that I may take a run to the Saxon
metropolis.... Be happy, if suffering humanity can be. Give, on my
part, to the Countess a cordial but respectful pressure of the hand,
and to Amelia a tender kiss—if nobody there can see.”
The next year Beethoven again visited Teplitz, with the hope of seeing
her; but the fair vision had vanished. His only consolation, if
consolation it can be called, was the opportunity it gave him of making
the acquaintance of Goethe. Except in so far as this acquaintance led
to the friendship between himself and the wonderful child Bettina,
of which more hereafter, his relations to the great poet were of no
special value to him. Goethe had too little music in his composition
to appreciate him at his true value, and he was too much of a
king-worshipper to suit such a red republican as Beethoven.
The Baroness Dorothea Van Ertmann was another titled pupil whom he held
in affectionate esteem, who inspired his wonderful sonata, Op. 101, and
who was afterward a warm friend of Mendelssohn. She was the wife of an
Austrian captain at eighteen, who died subsequently as a field-marshal
at Milan. She commenced her musical studies at a very early age, and
made the acquaintance of Beethoven by chance, while playing some of his
sonatas for the first time. He accidentally overheard her, and was so
captivated with her style that he offered to teach her, and soon became
a daily visitor at her house. As a teacher he was severe with her; as a
friend, affectionate; and when she had lost the last of her children,
he shared her grief and gave expression to it by extemporizing upon
the piano in her apartments for her. It is said that when he ended his
fantasie, her eyes were filled with tears so that she could not speak
to him. Among others who captivated him during his orchestral career in
Bonn, was a fair and brilliant singer, Magdalena Willmann, filling at
that time an engagement in the Court Opera at Vienna, to whom, it is
intimated, he offered his hand in marriage. It would appear that his
offer was a serious one; but the repulse was prompt and merciless, the
great songstress, afterward Mrs. Galvani, declaring that she rejected
him because he was “so ugly and half cracked.”
Mlle. Marie Koschak, who subsequently married Dr. Pachler, an
advocate in Gratz, a very beautiful woman, and an amateur musician of
extraordinary merit, inspired in Beethoven a glow warmer than that of
friendship, or even affection. In one of his letters he writes:—
“Love alone, yes, love alone, can make your life happier. O God!
grant that I may at last find her who can strengthen me in virtue,
whom I can legitimately call my own. On July 27, 1812, when she drove
past me in Baden, she seemed to gaze at me.”
“She” was Marie Koschak. It was an unhappy love. In 1816 he writes to
Ries:—
“My kind regards to your wife. I, alas! have none. One, alone, I
wished to possess but never shall I call her mine.”
In this connection a statement made in the “Grenzboten,” by Fraulein
del Rio, of a conversation between her father and Beethoven, confirms
the unhappiness of his attachment for the beautiful Marie. She writes:—
“My father’s idea was that marriage alone could remedy the sad
condition of Beethoven’s household matters; so he asked him whether
he knew any one, etc. Our long existing presentiment was then
realized. His love was unfortunate. Five years ago he had become
acquainted with a person with whom he would have esteemed it the
highest felicity of his life to have entered into closer ties; but it
was vain to think of it, being almost an impossibility, a chimera;
and yet his feelings remained the same as on the very first day he
had seen her. He added that never before had he found such harmony;
but no declaration had ever been made, not being able to prevail upon
himself to do so.”
Marie Pachler and her husband were also friends of Franz Schubert, and
to her he dedicated a number of his songs as a token of his esteem and
friendship. It is touching to think that Beethoven, who had never made
the acquaintance of Schubert, though living near him, did not really
appreciate or recognize the beauty of his music until he was on his
death-bed, when the songs dedicated to Marie were handed to him. He
examined them, and exclaimed, “Truly, Schubert is animated by a spark
of the sacred fire!” One year later Schubert passed away, almost his
last words being the expression of a desire to be buried by the side of
Beethoven. And now the world’s greatest musician and Germany’s greatest
song-writer, strangers in life, sleep side by side.
There were two other attachments of Beethoven’s which unquestionably
exercised a strong influence upon his creative power. The first of
these was for Bettina von Arnim, _née_ Brentano, the wonderful child
whom Goethe has immortalized no less than Beethoven. She it was
who brought these two giants together. She keenly and thoroughly
appreciated and understood the great master; and to her he explained,
not only his own music, but all music, with an enthusiasm of manner,
as well as closeness of analysis, that have never been excelled. One
cannot read that extraordinary letter written by Bettina to Goethe,
in which she prepares the way for a meeting between them, without
feeling how closely Beethoven penetrated to the very soul of music,
and how sacred his art was to him. The real meaning and character of
music are better set forth in the few lines of this letter than in
many volumes that have been written. Bettina, with a genius akin to
that of Beethoven’s, clearly comprehended him, and laid his very soul
before Goethe with her glowing and enthusiastic eloquence, so that he
was ready to embrace it, though the difference between the spiritual
nature of the composer and the sensual nature of the poet was a radical
one. Beethoven’s attachment to Bettina was purely Platonic, and yet it
was strong. His three celebrated letters to her furnish proofs of its
strength, and equal proofs of the great influence she exerted upon him.
On the 11th of August, 1810, he writes to her:—
“Art! Who comprehends it? With whom can I discuss this mighty
goddess? How precious to me were the few days when we talked
together, or, I should rather say, corresponded! I have carefully
preserved the little notes with your clever, charming, most charming
answers; so I have to thank my defective hearing for the greater part
of our fugitive intercourse being written down. Since you left I have
had some unhappy hours,—hours of the deepest gloom, when I could do
nothing. I wandered for three hours in the Schönbrunn Allée after you
left us; but no angel met me there to take possession of me as you
did.”
In 1811, about the time she was married, he writes:—
“I carried your letter about with me the whole summer, and it often
made me feel very happy. Though I do not frequently write to you,
and you never see me, still I write you letters by thousands in my
thoughts. I can easily imagine what you feel at Berlin in witnessing
all the noxious frivolity of the world’s rabble, even had you not
written it to me yourself. Such prating about art, and yet no
results!”
In still another letter, written to her a year later, he bears direct
testimony to her power over his musical creative ability:—
“Heavens! if I could have lived with you as _he_ [Goethe] did,
believe me, I should have produced far greater things. A musician is
also a poet; he, too, can feel himself transported into a brighter
world by a pair of fine eyes, where loftier spirits sport with him
and impose heavy tasks upon him. What thoughts rushed into my mind
when I first saw you in the observatory, during a refreshing May
shower, so fertilizing to me also! The most beautiful themes stole
from your eyes into my heart, which shall yet enchant the world when
Beethoven no longer directs.”
Elsewhere in the same letter he says:—
“Spirits may love one another, and I shall ever woo yours. Your
approval is dearer to me than all else in the world.”
The second attachment was for the beautiful Countess Guiletta
Guiccardi,—one of his pupils, around whom popular fancies of all sorts
have clustered, and several writers have woven very pretty romances.
Mr. Thayer, in his biography, has done much to divest this attachment
of its romance with his merciless dates and hard facts; but so long
as it has probability on its side, and it has been believed for years
without question, even as it was during his own life, let us still
believe that she was the “Immortal Beloved” to whom he addressed such
passionate letters, and of whom he writes to Wegeler:—
“I am leading a more agreeable and less misanthropic life. This
change has been wrought by a lovely, fascinating girl who loves me,
and whom I love. It is the first time I ever felt that marriage could
make me happy. Unluckily, she is not in my rank in life; and indeed
at this moment I can marry no one.”
His feelings towards her admit of no question, as the following extract
from one of the letters will show, which, Mr. Thayer to the contrary
notwithstanding, we will assume was written to the Countess:—
“MY ANGEL, MY ALL, MY SELF,—A few words only to-day in pencil—your
pencil [_mit Deinem_, the _Du_ being used throughout the original]:
only till to-morrow is my lodging fixed; what miserable waste of
time! Why this deep grief when necessity speaks? Can our love exist
except by sacrifice, by not demanding all? Can you help not being
quite mine, I not quite yours? Ah, God! look into beautiful Nature,
and calm your mind over what must be. Love demands all, and justly;
so it is from me to you, from you to me; only you forget too often
that I must live for myself and for you. If we were quite united, you
would feel this grief no more than I.... My journey was terrible;
I did not arrive till four in the morning: for want of sufficient
horses the mail-coach chose a different route; and what a terrible
road! At the last station they warned me not to travel at night,
and frightened me with a wood; but that only tempted me, and I was
wrong. The carriage could not but collapse in the terrible road,
bottomless, a mere country road; but for my postilions I should have
stuck there.... Now quickly from the external to the internal. We
shall probably see one another soon; and to-day I cannot tell you
the thoughts I had regarding my life during these few days. Were our
hearts but always close together, I should have none such. My heart
is full: I have much to say to you. Oh! there are moments when I
find that language is nothing. Be cheerful; remain my faithful sole
treasure, my all, as I am yours; the rest the gods must send, what
shall be and must be.
Your faithful
LUDWIG.
Incoherent eloquence; but could there be a surer proof of love than
its very incoherence? When Beethoven first knew the Countess, she
was a lovely girl of seventeen, his pupil, and an excellent musician
as well as a skilful linguist. She was possessed of every quality to
attract him,—exquisite personal beauty, rare intellectual ability,
irreproachable character, and withal was proud of his admiration,
or rather adoration, of her. Beethoven then was twice her age; but
disparity in years did not occur to him as an obstacle to their union,
any more than disparity in rank, though he afterward discovered the
effectual bar in the latter. There is every reason to believe that he
offered her his hand, and that she would have accepted it had it not
been for her father’s opposition. She yielded to his remonstrances,
and, at his solicitation, two years later married Count Gallenberg,
an impresario and very prolific writer of very poor dance-music.
The affair, therefore, was mortifying to Beethoven in a double
sense,—first, that he should have been rejected at all; and, second,
that he should have been rejected in favor of such an insignificant
rival. It is said that upon her refusal he fled to the villa of her
friend, the Countess Erdödy, then disappeared for two days, and was
eventually found, exhausted with exposure and fasting, in a distant
part of her grounds. Certain it is that he never entirely recovered
from the pain and mortification of the rejection. He always spoke of
her with tenderness; and nearly twenty years after, in a conversation
with Schindler, alluded to his discomfiture with a sort of subdued
bitterness. Of her influence upon him in his music there remains no
question. If no other proof were at hand, the exquisite C sharp minor
sonata, so familiarly known as the “Moonlight,” which she inspired,
and which he dedicated to her, would be sufficient testimony, in its
wealth of beauty, tenderness, and passion, to the magic power of this
woman’s love over him. It is not unfair to assume that all he wrote
during this period was made brighter, purer, and more majestic by her
memory. Lost from his home and his heart, she shone resplendent in his
music.
The instances I have cited—and to these many others might be added—show
that Dr. Wegeler was correct when he said that Beethoven was always in
love. Though fixed and grounded in every other habit of life, in love
his nature was contradictory. In this long list of attachments there
were but two that made a deep impression upon him. In the other cases
he flitted from flower to flower, making butterfly pauses at each. His
world was always an ideal one: ardent he may have been, but his passion
was none the less austere. Surrounded with corruption, he led a life
of absolute purity. Love to him was a light which illumines, not a
flame that burns. He found more pleasure in the society of women than
of men; and if his energetic, impulsive nature suggested exaggerated
feelings, it is very sure that they soon found their sentimental level
in his cooler moments. His letters, which at first glance seem imbued
with passion, when viewed from this stand-point are only expressions of
aspiration rather than of desire. If there were no other proof of this,
his purity and nobility of character forbid any doubt. If one wishes
to know how these attachments affected him in his music, it is only
necessary to look at the long list of his dedications, and remember
that almost every one of them sprang from the relations of friendship
and love. The very soul of Beethoven’s music is love in its varying
forms. His love for humanity rings out in the vocal finale of the Ninth
Symphony:—
“Seid umschlungen Millionen
Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt.”
His love of freedom burns in the “Eroica.” His love of God shines
resplendent and majestic in the immortal measures of the Second
Mass. His love of art is shown by the remorseless manner in which he
pressed the thorns of life into his own heart,—this Titan doing battle
with Fate, and winning immortality; and all along the fields of this
struggle are scattered the roses of woman’s love.
[Illustration]
FRANCIS JOSEPH HAYDN.
Sir, if you and I were both melted down together, we should not
furnish materials for one Haydn.—MOZART.
“Papa” Haydn—not only the father of the symphony and quartet, but
father to the musical world by the grace of his unaffected, naïve,
fresh, and smoothly flowing numbers, so full of cheerfulness and
good-nature—has been endeared to all musicians since his time by this
familiar and affectionate prefix; but the homely family word is a
strange misnomer when one considers his domestic relations and their
influence upon his music.
Haydn commenced his musical career as a chorister in Vienna, having a
voice of great power and beauty. In the midst of his success, however,
as a vocalist, one disappointment after another overtook him; and,
to crown all, he finally lost his voice, and was discharged from his
position besides, upon some trivial pretence, to make room for another
with greater vocal ability, and that other his own brother Michael. In
his twentieth year he was thrown out upon the world without friends and
without money, but, fortunately for him, with a very happy and hopeful
temperament. He soon procured a few pupils, borrowed some money,
rented a garret of an old stocking-weaver,—attracted by his sign, “A
poor person can find a sleeping-room in the attic very cheap,”—devoted
himself to composition, made the acquaintance of musicians, and
at last had the good luck to be selected as musical director and
chamber composer to a Bohemian count. This yielded him a good salary
for those days, and he thereupon began to think of marriage. He was
of an excitable, impulsive temperament, and withal susceptible to
female blandishments, and consequently was in a condition to accept
whatever chance might throw in his way. The stocking-weaver had an only
daughter, Mary, a young girl of lovely character and pious disposition,
whose admiration of Haydn’s musical talent soon developed into love for
him. There is little doubt but that the affection was reciprocated.
Haydn was struggling at this time, however, between two strong
passions,—love, on the one hand, and his mother’s ardent desire that he
should become a monk, on the other. The latter was the stronger; and
he soon entered the Servite monastery as a novice, where he devoted
himself to the pursuit of his art with the greatest industry. The
stocking-weaver’s daughter made no complaint when she found herself
forgotten and saw that her love was hopeless. She died not long
afterward; and among her last words to her parents were these: “Father
and mother, you must pray for Joseph as long as you live; for he is a
rare gift of God to men, and he will one day be a great man, but he
will always remain humble. The world will applaud him, but he will not
become unfaithful to his God on that account. He should not weep for
me, but sing a hymn at night when he sits all alone at his instrument.”
Upon learning of her death, Haydn visited the parents, sympathized with
them, and provided them with the money to procure her a befitting grave.
Haydn did not remain long in the monastery. He had not the monastic
disposition, though he was a man of very simple and childlike piety.
He could not seclude himself from a world in which he felt that he
was destined to achieve a great name, nor abandon the profession of
music, whose claims upon him were growing stronger and stronger. He
was hardly out in the world again before another opportunity for
marriage presented itself. Without any unnecessary delay he accepted
it, and regretted it all the rest of his life. He was introduced
into the family of a hair-dresser and wig-maker, named Keller, who
was of a sufficiently musical turn to appreciate his talent. He had
two daughters whose education was giving him much trouble, and was
delighted when Haydn consented to give them musical instruction. The
old wig-maker, having gained this point, took another step ahead, made
the most desperate arguments to convince him he ought to love some
one, and finally offered him the youngest daughter in marriage, who
would have made him an excellent wife. Haydn, however, with the usual
perversity of lovers, wanted the other, whereupon the disappointed
younger sister retired to a convent. Not a whit discouraged, the
wig-maker baited his hook with the other daughter, and easily caught
the susceptible Haydn. Never was there a more ill-assorted match. The
bride soon displayed herself as a scold and shrew of most ungovernable
temper. She had no sympathy with his musical ambition, and no pride
in his compositions. He himself said of her that she did not care
whether he were an artist or a shoemaker. Long before the honeymoon
was over, poor Haydn found himself tied to a Xanthippe, who when she
was not utterly unsociable, which probably were his happiest moments,
amused herself with curtain lectures of the most vigorous description.
And yet, oddly enough, the termagant influenced his music in a very
curious manner, and one not peculiarly agreeable to him. Added to all
her other disagreeable qualities, she was a religious bigot and prude,
with a decided _penchant_ for entertaining priests and monks. She
kept the house full of them; and they, realizing his genius, induced
her to make him write sacred music. To the religious admonition and
argument which she brought to bear upon him, she also added her own
personal commands and objurgations; and Haydn, being already under good
family discipline, could not do otherwise than submit; so, while the
fat fathers were revelling below stairs in carnal enjoyments, “Papa”
Haydn above stairs was writing anthems, motets, and masses for their
convents and churches, for which he received no remuneration. One can
easily imagine the wrath and imprecations he must have hurled at the
prude and her roystering companions, as the sounds of their revelry
smote upon his ears, and how little of the “Laus Deo” there was in his
heart as his fingers penned the scores that were to be sung upon the
following Sabbath. Gradually this kind of life became unendurable, and
he sought elsewhere the happiness which he could not find at home.
Fate, however, was kind to him, and brought him speedy release. The
Capellmeister of the reigning prince, Paul Esterhazy, as devoted to
music, even, as the present King of Bavaria, was growing old; and the
Prince applied to Haydn to fill the position of second Capellmeister.
Haydn joyfully accepted it, all the more so as it was an unwritten law
of the musical Count that musicians’ wives could not accompany them.
It was a happy day for “Papa” Haydn. He not only secured a lucrative
and important position, but, what was still better, a permanent release
from domestic torture. It was a lasting separation from his wife; but
he always acted honorably by granting her an annual stipend for her
support. Whenever they met the meeting was sure to be a stormy one, and
always on the subject of money. She was a spendthrift, and not only
wasted half his earnings, which he always sent her, but contracted
debts in his name, knowing he would pay them rather than have trouble.
Year by year she grew more extravagant; but at last death put an end to
her demands upon him. When the old Capellmeister died, he was appointed
to his place, and had full control of the Prince’s musical household,
which consisted not only of an excellent orchestra, but also of a large
chorus and corps of solo singers; so that he was enabled to bring out
large works, and the symphonies and operas of his own composition.
Besides these forces, he had travelling companies and _virtuosi_, and
an elegant theatre, at his disposal. Musically he had everything that
heart could wish; and in this musical atmosphere he composed nearly all
his operas and most of his songs, besides some of his most important
instrumental works. The place of his wife was very happily, but not
very honorably, filled by Luigia Polzelli, a vocalist in the chapel,
and wife of Anton Polzelli, a violinist in his orchestra. The lady was
an Italian by birth, and an ordinary singer, but possessed of personal
charms that commended her to him, and resulted in a _liaison_, at first
very agreeable, but ultimately subjecting him to almost as much trouble
as he had had with his wife, since the Roman woman made constant use
of his violent passion for her to extort money from him. She had two
children, one of whom was popularly supposed to be his son. There is no
record that the Polzelli was of any benefit to him musically; certainly
she was not morally.
There were those, however, who exercised a great and lasting influence
upon his musical production; and among them was Madame Genzinger, the
wife of a prominent physician in Vienna, at whose house he spent much
of his time, and for whom he wrote several symphonies and a large
number of sonatas. His correspondence with her was very voluminous;
and it bears almost constant testimony to the powerful influence she
exerted upon him, both during his service under Prince Esterhazy and
after he had quit that service. Her husband was the physician in
ordinary to that Prince, and it was thus he became acquainted with
the family. He visited the house every Sunday; and as the lady was a
fine singer and an admirable musician, whose home was the centre of
attraction for all the musicians in Vienna, he soon became an honored
guest; and the acquaintance which was based upon music soon ripened
into a lasting and honorable friendship, though the lady was by many
years his senior. It is a bright spot to contemplate in the unhappy
and not altogether blameless life of Haydn. Turn to almost any letter
in their long correspondence, and it will be found to testify to her
influence over him. At one time he writes:—
“I cannot but admire the trouble and patience you lavish on my poor
talents; and allow me to assure you in return, that in my frequent
evil moods nothing cheers me so much as the flattering conviction
that I am kindly remembered by you.”
At another time he writes:—
“Well, here I sit in my wilderness; forsaken like some poor orphan,
almost without human society; melancholy, dwelling on the memory of
past glorious days. Yes, past, alas! And who can tell when those
happy hours may return,—those charming meetings where the whole
circle have but one heart and one soul,—all those delightful musical
evenings which can only be remembered and not described? Where are
all those inspired moments?”
In the same letter he playfully laments the loss of the good things at
Madame Genzinger’s home, in the following humorously lugubrious strain:—
“I found everything at home in confusion. For three days I did not
know whether I was _capell_ master or _capell_ servant; nothing could
console me. My apartments were all in confusion; my pianoforte, that
I formerly loved so dearly, was perverse and disobedient, and rather
irritated than soothed me. I slept very little, and even my dreams
persecuted me; for while asleep, I was under the pleasant delusion
that I was listening to the opera of ‘Le Nozze di Figaro,’ when the
blustering north-wind woke me, and almost blew my nightcap off my
head. I lost twenty pounds in weight in three days; for the effects
of my good fare in Vienna disappeared on the journey. ‘Alas! alas!’
thought I to myself, when forced to eat, at the restaurateur’s,
instead of capital beef a slice of a cow fifty years old; instead of
a ragout with little balls of forced meat, an old sheep with yellow
carrots; instead of a Bohemian pheasant, a tough grill; and instead
of good and juicy oranges, Hungarian salad; instead of pastry, dry
apple-fritters, and hazel-nuts, etc. ‘Alas! alas!’ thought I again
to myself, ‘would that I now had many a morsel that I despised in
Vienna!’ Here in Estoras, no one asks me, ‘Would you like some
chocolate, with milk or without? Will you take some coffee, with or
without cream? What can I offer you, my good Haydn? Will you have
vanilla ice or pineapple?’ If I had only a piece of good Parmesan
cheese, particularly in Lent, to enable me to swallow more easily
the black dumplings and puffs! I gave our porter this very day a
commission to send me a couple of pounds.”
After Haydn had left Vienna and gone to London, under the management
of Salomon, to give concerts, he continued his correspondence, and
constantly expresses his obligations to her, besides sending her many
of his compositions written expressly for her. During his London
visit, where his concerts were all the rage, he made many female
friends,—among them, Madame Bartolozzi, the wife of the celebrated
engraver, for whom he wrote three piano trios and a sonata; the wife
of John Hunter, a celebrated surgeon of that time, who wrote the
words for many of his canzonets; Mrs. Hodges, whom he describes as
“the loveliest woman I ever saw, and a fine piano-player,” for whom
he wrote many pieces; and, lastly, a lady named Schrolter, widow of
the Queen’s music-master, who conceived a violent passion for him,
which was reciprocated, though he was then sixty years of age and she
still older. Referring to her afterward, in connection with some of
her letters to him, he said: “These are from an English widow who fell
in love with me. She was a very attractive woman, and still handsome
though over sixty; and had I been free, I should certainly have married
her.” For her he wrote three of his best trios. Of all his numerous
female acquaintances, however, not one exercised such an influence
upon him musically as Madame Genzinger, for whom his friendship was
honorable. We owe much of his music to his wife; but the savage and
truculent manner in which she inspired him was not conducive to the
best work of his genius. To Madame Genzinger’s exalted friendship
and noble influence we must assign his best instrumental pieces; and
who shall say that his two greatest works, the “Creation” and the
“Seasons,” written in his old age, when the passions had cooled and the
dross of life had been swept away, when, as he himself says, “I knelt
down every day, and prayed God to strengthen me for my work,” may not
also be attributable to the same inspiring influence?
[Illustration]
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART.
He was a man whose mission in the world seems to have been entirely
fulfilled; to whom it was given to link together the godlike with
humanity, the mortal with the immortal,—a man whose footprints not
all the storms of time can ever efface,—a man who, amid all his
lofty aims, esteemed the loftiest of all to be the elevation of
humanity.—NOHL.
There were but two women who strongly influenced Mozart in his
music,—his wife Constance and her sister Aloysia. When in Munich
seeking the patronage of the Elector, and while yet a lad, he attended
the German opera, and was much smitten with the voice and personal
charms of Mlle. Keiserin, the _prima donna_, a _débutante_, who was
singing in a work called “Das Fischer Mädchen,” adapted from Piccini.
It was only a boyish fancy, however, and resulted in nothing more
serious than some gushing letters to his father about her; referring
to which, several months later, he says, “I must confess that I was
an ass to write such a complete falsehood.” His heart was at one time
lightly touched by his cousin Marianne, whom he visited at Augsburg;
but it ended in a sportive mood between them, and, long after his
departure, in many of his most rollicking, frolicsome letters, full of
jest and banter, he alludes to it.
On the 30th of October, 1777, young Mozart arrived at Mannheim. The day
after his arrival he visited at the house of M. Cannabich, the director
of the Elector’s orchestra. He went there many times afterward, for
the director’s daughter Rose became his pupil. She was a sprightly,
beautiful, amiable girl; and a strong attachment sprang up between
them, with music, however, rather than love, for its basis. Painters
and poets afterward raved over her; but Mozart never was seriously
touched except in admiration of her beauty, and by the strong musical
sympathy between them, which led to his writing the B flat sonata for
her, the _andante_ movement of which he marked _amoroso_. It was a
favorite movement with both. What story of passion it may have told her
can be imagined. He at least never cared much for the response. His
fate was yet to come, but it came very speedily.
About this time he made the acquaintance of M. Weber, an uncle of the
composer of “Der Freischütz,” who was a prompter and music-copyist. He
was an honorable and open-hearted but poor man, with a wife and six
children depending upon him for support. The second daughter, Aloysia,
a girl of fifteen, had a remarkably beautiful voice, and Mozart offered
to instruct her. The offer was accepted, and master and pupil soon
became lover and mistress. His own letters tell the story of this
ill-fated love so completely that we do not need to look elsewhere for
it. On the 17th of January, 1778, he first speaks of her in a letter to
his father, and says:—
“She sings admirably, and has a lovely, pure voice. She is only
fifteen. She fails in nothing but in stage action; were it not for
that, she might be the _prima donna_ of any theatre.... My aria
for ‘De Amicis’ she sings to perfection, with all its tremendous
passages.”
Two weeks later he writes again, but only to inform his father that
she had been singing with him at Kirchheim-Boland, the residence of
the Princess of Orange. Meanwhile the two lovers are forming all kinds
of impracticable plans,—among them, one to travel together. With that
strong sense of filial duty which always characterized Mozart, he laid
the plan before his father. He had never expressed even a suggestion
of his love for Aloysia to him; but the father surmised it, and
disapproved of the plan to travel. He now grows bolder in his letters,
and makes no secret of his warm admiration of her, and strives also
to induce his father to take an interest in her musical abilities. He
wrote arias for her full of passion and feeling; and as she sang them
to him with all the beauty and richness of her voice, there can be
little doubt that the songs went to their hearts, and that they fully
believed in the reality of their love for each other, never dreaming
how soon the illusion would vanish. About the middle of March (1778)
he went with his mother to Paris. The parting with Aloysia was a sad
one: Weber wept, Aloysia wept; and Mozart writes his father: “Pray,
forgive me, but really tears come to my eyes when I think of it;” from
which we may infer that he himself also did a generous share of the
weeping as he bade adieu to the Webers. In Paris, music occupied his
attention; and concerts which he attended, and at which he played,
tempered the sorrows of separation, and, we may well believe, allayed
the rankling of the stings which his father’s satirical allusions to
his love-affair had left. Work is the universal panacea, but he by no
means forgot Aloysia. He had in his mind the idea of a speedy marriage
with her; and he writes to his father, July 31, intimating that he
would like to leave Paris and return to Mannheim, where Aloysia was
struggling against the cabals of jealous singers who were striving to
prevent her from getting an engagement in the Court concerts at Munich.
Little he dreamed of the fate that was to await him when he should see
her again. Three months later Aloysia secured the coveted situation
in that city; and Mozart immediately decided to seek an appointment
there, that he might be near her. In December we find him in Munich,
where he experienced the second painful shock of his life, the first
being the death of his mother during their Paris visit. Aloysia was
faithless to him. The blow came upon him like a thunder-stroke. She
hardly recognized him when he met her; whereupon he went to the piano
and sang a song of unconcern, with his heart full of tears. She had
met an actor named Lange at the house of the Princess of Orange, was
captivated with his appearance, and subsequently married him. Time was
kind to the one, and cruel to the other. It healed Mozart’s wounds,
and brought him one who was the soul of honor and constancy. After
Aloysia’s marriage he could calmly write to his father: “I was a great
fool about Madame Lange. I own it; but what is a man not when he is
in love?” The handsome actor whom Aloysia had married was a drunken,
dissipated wretch, who went from bad to worse, until at last she had to
separate from him. She continued her profession in Vienna, and in 1782
appeared in Mozart’s “Die Entführung.” Nohl says:—
“Neither happiness nor riches brightened Aloysia’s path in life,
nor the peace of mind arising from the consciousness of purity of
heart. Not till she was an aged woman, and Mozart long dead, did she
recognize what he really had been. She liked to talk about him and
his friendship; and in thus recalling the brightest memories of her
youth some of that lovable charm seemed to revive that Mozart had
imparted to her and to all with whom he had any intercourse.”
There is every reason to believe that on the day Mozart lost Aloysia
he gained her sister Constance; because there is no question that the
calm, quiet, domestic sister not only more thoroughly appreciated and
understood him, but had long nourished a strong though unuttered love
for him. She was the one whom he needed, the one whom fate had marked
out for him. She was quiet and restful in temperament, domestic in
nature, and patient, docile, and sweet in disposition. She was very
fond of music; and though not possessed of the brilliant powers of her
sister, she was still a singer of good taste and excellent voice, and
had a deeper insight into music than Aloysia. Joined to a rare tact in
managing household affairs, she had the influence necessary to assist
and inspire him in composition. She first appears in his letters May
25, 1781, only a few months after the separation from Aloysia, who was
now Madame Lange. She finishes a letter to his father, which business
engagements had prevented him from closing, and only writes a few
formal words regarding Mozart’s concerts. On the 25th of July of the
same year we find his first serious allusions to Constance, and these
are not very encouraging. He writes to his father that he is going to
leave the Webers because people are beginning to gossip. He says:—
“We went together twice to the Prater; but her mother was with us,
and as I chanced to be in the house I could not well refuse to
accompany them; besides, at that time I had heard none of these
foolish rumors. I must also tell you that I was only allowed to pay
my own share; and the mother, having since then heard these reports
from others as well as from myself, does not wish us to go anywhere
together, and herself advised me to remove to another house in order
to avoid any further unpleasantness.... I will not say that, living
in the same house with the young lady to whom people have married
me, I am ill-bred, and do not speak to her; but I am not in love
with her. I banter and jest with her when time permits, but nothing
more. If I were obliged to marry all those with whom I have jested, I
should have at least two hundred wives.”
Jesting saved him from one hundred and ninety-nine misfortunes,
perhaps; but there was one whose strong, steady, deep love turned the
edge of all his sportive jests, changed his frolicsome humor into
serious feeling, and at last gave him home and happiness. How soon jest
was turned into reality Mozart himself tells us; for in less than six
months he writes to his father, announcing his love for her, and asking
his consent to his marriage. The letter is an interesting one, as he
draws a picture of his affianced:—
“But now who is the object of my love? Do not be startled, I entreat.
Not one of the Webers, surely? Yes, one of the Webers,—not Josepha,
not Sophie, but the third daughter, Constance. I never met with such
diversity of disposition in any family. The eldest is idle, coarse,
and deceitful,—crafty and cunning as a fox. Madame Lange (Aloysia)
is false and unprincipled, and a coquette. The youngest is still too
childish to have her character defined; she is merely a good-humored,
frivolous girl,—may God guard her from temptation! The third,
however, namely, my good and beloved Constance, is the martyr of the
family, and probably on this very account the kindest-hearted, the
cleverest, and, in short, the best of them all. She takes charge of
the whole house, and yet does nothing right in their eyes.... Before
releasing you from this subject I must make you better acquainted
with the character of my Constance. She is not plain, but at the same
time far from handsome. Her whole beauty consists in a pair of bright
black eyes and a pretty figure. She is not witty, but has enough
sound good sense to enable her to fulfil her duties as a wife and
mother. It is utterly false that she is inclined to be extravagant;
on the contrary, she is invariably very plainly dressed,—for the
little her mother can spend on her children she gives to the two
others, but to Constance nothing. It is true that her dress is always
neat and nice, however simple; and she can herself make most of
the things requisite for a young lady. She dresses her own hair,
understands housekeeping, and has the best heart in the world. I love
her with my whole soul, as she does me. Tell me if I could wish a
better wife.”
Surely here was a Cinderella in real life; but Cinderella and the
Prince were to fight a hard battle yet, before they came to their
own. The composer Peter Winter, while in Salzburg, filled the ears of
Mozart’s father with bad reports about his son and scandalous stories
about Constance, and thus satisfied a grudge which he and his teacher,
the Abbé Vogler, had against Mozart. The father replied to his son’s
letter in a furious manner; and the son was for a time hardly less
indignant at the father for listening to such baseless accusations
against him and his affianced, than he was at the slanderers.
Constance’s guardian (the father being dead) was also very uneasy at
the insinuations against the young composer, and at last prevailed upon
the mother to insist that Mozart should make a written contract of
marriage. The contract was drawn up in this form:—
“I bind myself to marry Mlle. Constance Weber in the course of three
years; and if it should so happen, which I consider impossible, that
I change my mind, she shall be entitled to draw on me every year for
three hundred florins.”
Mozart, in a letter to his father, naïvely comments upon this contract:—
“Nothing in the world could be easier than to write this: for I knew
that the payment of the three hundred florins never would be exacted,
because I never could forsake her; and if, unhappily, I altered my
views, I would only be too glad to get rid of her by paying the three
hundred florins; and Constance, as I know her, would be too proud to
let herself be sold in this way.”
Constance had a more summary way of dealing with this contract. After
the guardian had gone, she demanded it of her mother, and resolutely
tore it to pieces, saying to her lover, “Dear Mozart, I require no
written contract from you; I rely on your promises.”
In January (1782) he again asks his father’s consent, and is busy
devising ways and means to procure money, first, for the performance
of the marriage ceremony, and second, for support after marriage.
He writes that he has in view three sources of income: first, the
composition of music for a new military band about to be organized by
Prince Lichtenstein; second, the Emperor and the Archduke Maximilian;
and, third, his pupils. More troubles begin to crowd in upon the
luckless lovers. Malicious gossips are not only spreading stories
about them, and Mozart’s father giving ear to them, but Constance’s
mother, who all along has favored the alliance, now begins to grow
indifferent to it, and demands that if they are united they shall stay
with her; to which Constance is opposed, and Mozart, with a wholesome
fear of mothers-in-law, decidedly objects. Indifference soon becomes
irritation, and there is wrangling in the household, and the mother
accosts the young lovers with sneering remarks. At last there is a
quarrel even between Mozart and Constance over a petty matter; but it
is only an April shower. The cloud passes quickly over, and the sun
shines again; but the future mother-in-law remains cloudy with frequent
storms, and at last the house becomes so hot that Constance quits it
for the domicile of the Baroness Waldstädten,—a somewhat flighty,
eccentric, and not altogether reputable person, but a good friend to
them. This step precipitated the marriage. Madame Weber threatened
to send the police to remove her daughter from the Baroness’s house.
Mozart and Constance decide to marry at once. He writes his father
of his intentions; and the latter gives his consent, coupled with the
condition, however, that he must expect nothing in future from him.
His opera, “Die Entführung,” had been performed, July 12, with great
success, and secured him the means for the ceremony. They were married,
August 4, in very simple style, at the house of the Baroness, four or
five persons being present. Three days later Mozart writes his father:—
“Our sole wedding festivities consisted of a supper which Baroness
Waldstädten gave us; and, indeed, it was more princely than baronial.
My darling is now a hundred times more joyful at the idea of going
to Salzburg; and I am willing to stake—ay, my very life, that you
will rejoice still more in my happiness when you really know her, if
indeed, in your estimation as in mine, a high-principled, honest,
virtuous, and pleasing wife ought to make a man happy.”
Eighteen years after Mozart’s death, his widow married the Danish
councillor, M. Nissen, and lived with him in Copenhagen; and her
declining years were spent, in conjunction with her husband, in the
preparation of the memoirs of the distinguished composer.