Notwithstanding many pinches of poverty and burdens of debt, their life

together was a happy one. Their mutual love never decreased, but burned

strong and clear to the end. She was his constant guide and monitor.

She brightened all his days with her loving words and letters, and his

love for her was always tender and delicate. She was a prudent manager

of his domestic affairs, a safe counsellor in business matters, always

a cheerful companion, and tended him in his last days with unfaltering

devotion until the final bitter moment, when she flung herself upon

his bed and prayed to die with him. The influence of Aloysia upon his

music showed itself by the production of numerous brilliant arias

which he wrote for her; but all his great works, “Die Entführung,”

“Idomeneo,” “Don Giovanni,” “Die Zauberflöte,” “Nozze di Figaro,” “Cosi

fan Tutti,” “Titus,” the “Ave Verum,” and the “Requiem,” were written

after his marriage; and every one of them bears, in greater or less

degree, the imprint of Constance’s influence. She took special care

of his health, which was always delicate, so that his work might not

be interrupted. She not only spurred him on to the fulfilment of his

engagements; but when it happened that he was over-burdened with work,

at which times he was apt to pursue his fancies late into the night to

his physical detriment, she devised various means to relieve him. Her

devotion to him in this regard was untiring. He immortalized her in the

“Entführung,” written when they were lovers. The main idea of the opera

is based upon their relations to each other; and in it he pictures

himself in the character of _Belmonte_, and her in that of _Constanza_.

The Mass in C minor was written by him as a votive offering for her

recovery in her first confinement, and she sung the solos at the first

public performance. She was passionately fond of the Bach and Händel

fugues, and never ceased her entreaties until he commenced writing in

this form. The “Don Giovanni,” “Zauberflöte,” and “Requiem” are largely

due to her. In his dedications her name does not appear as frequently

as Aloysia’s, for we only find six solfeggi, a fugue, two sonatas,

and an aria written for her; but there was no need of specifying

her name where almost everything was due to her love, her care, and

her encouragement. In delicate health and straitened circumstances,

the victim often of bitter musical jealousies, harassed by business

complications, with which he was unfitted to contend, it is due to

her, not only that he produced so much, but that his music preserved

all its original joyousness, sweetness, and freshness, and that it has

done so much to bless and gladden humanity.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

FRANZ SCHUBERT.

Truly, Schubert is animated by a spark of the divine fire.—BEETHOVEN

(_on his death-bed_).

Franz Schubert, if not the creator, certainly the ablest and clearest

exponent, of the German Lied, wrote from his inner life; and his music,

so full of beauty and melodiousness, only recently appreciated and

known, will place him, in the near future, upon still loftier heights

than he now occupies. The life out of which he wrote was in the main a

sad one. There were days of cheer and gladness; but the most of them

were set to a minor key, so full of sadness and of suffering that they

appeal to personal sympathy, though their experiences richly colored

all he wrote. Exquisite as his songs are, they did not find a publisher

until near his death, and his best works were not known to the world

until long after the grave closed over him; while even now there remain

treasures of his melody no voice has yet sung. Dwelling by the side

of Beethoven, as he now sleeps by his side, the latter never knew the

worth of his music until it was shown him on his death-bed; and then

he recognized “the divine spark” of Schubert’s genius. In all beauty

there is sadness. It is the test of beauty in Nature, in humanity, and

in music. It determines the motive of Beethoven’s grandest works. It

colors with exquisite tints the measures of Chopin, most poetic of all

musicians. It is constantly present in Schubert’s works, though not

one of them is morbid. We may say that Schubert himself was morbid.

Certainly, sadness was almost the constant habit of his life, dispelled

now and then by an excess of hilarity, which when it was ended only

left him sadder than before; but his music does not reflect this

organic morbidness and despondency so much as it does the effort to get

out of the shadow into the sunshine. In this struggle he poured out

the rich treasures of his genius with marvellous energy and industry.

They reflect the beauty of the sunlight, but the sun is always shining

through the cloud. Thus, in great degree the exponent of the common

lot, his songs go to the heart, because they are full of the sorrows

and the sympathies of the heart, tempering its joys. So long as there

are voices to sing, the “Erl King,” the “Wanderer,” the “Ave Maria,”

the “Serenade,” and the gems of the “Winterreise” will be sung, because

they reflect the awful sadness of the supernatural, the pathos of the

homeless, the piteous appeal of the soul to Heaven, and the sad and

tender beauty of ideal love. It is a great genius singing by divine

right out from the depths of his own sadness what is most sacred to

every other heart. Search all through the long catalogue of his works,

from song to symphony, and while you may find outbursts of joy, you

will rarely find the triviality of humor; while you may discover the

constant expression of sorrow and tenderness and pathos, there is no

complaint.

The sadness of Schubert’s life is more than once expressed in his

letters and diary. In the latter (1816) he writes:—

“Man bears misfortune uncomplainingly, and for that reason feels it

all the more acutely. For what purpose did God create in us these

keen sympathies?”

To his friend Kupelwieser, professor at the Kunstakademie in Vienna, he

writes (1824):—

“Picture to yourself a man whose health can never be re-established,

who from sheer despair makes matters worse instead of better,—picture

to yourself, I say, a man whose most brilliant hopes have come to

nothing, to whom the happiness of proffered love and friendship is

but anguish, whose enthusiasm for the beautiful (an inspired feeling

at least) threatens to vanish altogether,—and then ask yourself if

such a condition does not represent a miserable and unhappy man.”

And to this burst of grief he adds the hopeless words of Gretchen:—

“Meine Ruh’ ist hin, mein Herz ist schwer:

Ich finde sie nimmer und nimmermehr.”

How this sadness affected his music he more than once tells us. His

diary says:—

“Grief sharpens the understanding, and strengthens the soul; whereas

joy seldom troubles itself about the former, and makes the latter

either effeminate or frivolous.”

In his “Dream” he says:—

“For many, many long years I sang my Lieder. If I would fain sing of

love, it turned to pain; if I would sing of pain, it turned to love.

Thus I was divided between love and sorrow.”

Still more decidedly does he express himself in his diary (1824):—

“My productions in music are the product of the understanding, and

spring from my sorrow; those only which are the product of pain seem

to please the great world most.”

Schubert had many sentimental friendships inspired of his music, but he

was not an easy victim to love; consequently his attachments were not

at all serious, except in one instance to be alluded to hereafter, and

that of so absurd a sort as to be almost incomprehensible, not the less

so that it involved an abrupt transition from a _femme de chambre_ to

her mistress, a princess. He was susceptible to female charms, and had

several alleged “affairs of the heart;” but he said little about them

and wrote still less. He was accustomed to make himself merry over the

dolors of his friends who were in love, and is constantly bantering

them in his letters and in his daily intercourse with them. It is

questionable whether he ever seriously thought of marrying, though in

his diary he once writes quite sentimentally:—

“Happy is he who finds a true friend; happier still is he who finds

in his wife a true friend. To the free man at this time marriage is

a frightful thought: he confounds it either with melancholy or low

sensuality.”

From this we may infer that if he had married it would have been in a

Platonic sense. He was by no means proof against the tender passion,

but it attacked him so lightly that he never compromised himself.

He was not a stranger to deep and true affection, but physically he

was not cast in a mould to be attractive to women. Had he been more

fortunate in the latter regard, it is entirely probable that he might

have married, and that, under happy domestic influences, much of the

sorrow of his life might have been avoided. Nevertheless this man with

a tender, loving soul, and a nature full of beautiful traits, set in

an unattractive frame, had relations and friendships with the gentler

sex which deeply influenced his music, though in the case to which I

have referred they were as _bizarre_ and inconsistent as could well be

imagined.

One of the earliest of his compositions to attract public attention

was his Mass in F, written for a festival of the parish church at

Lichtenthal, which he himself conducted. The soprano part was sung

by Theresa Grob, a vocalist of considerable repute. Attracted by her

voice and by the musical abilities of her brother, he had become at

this time a frequent visitor at her home. Many of his masses and other

compositions were rehearsed there, and several of his earlier songs

were first sung by her in these musical gatherings. His interest in

her, at first musical, soon became personal; but it never advanced

beyond the limits of a romantic attachment, which was ended not

long after by her very unromantic marriage to a baker. During his

comparatively brief relations with the family he wrote a “Tantum

Ergo” and “Salve Regina” for Theresa, and an adagio and rondo for her

brother, who played with great skill, both upon the piano and ’cello.

That he must have written many songs for her is also shown by the fact

that the descendants of the Grob family still possess a large number of

his compositions which have never been made public.

The great artist, Anna Milder, for whom Cherubini wrote the part of

_Faniska_, and Beethoven that of _Leonora_ in his “Fidelio,” also

played an important part in Schubert’s musical productivity. She

corresponded with him for several years; and her letters are replete

with valuable suggestions of themes for music, for which duty her long

and varied experiences peculiarly adapted her, while she also made

some of her most emphatic successes in singing his songs. Among other

compositions written for her, was “Zuleika’s Second Song,” of which she

says in a letter to him, “‘Zuleika’s Second Song’ is divine, and each

time I sing it my eyes fill with tears;” and the “Hirt auf dem Felsen,”

in which he departed from his usual Lied style by making the song of

a bravura character to suit her dramatic method. She suggested to him

many of Goethe’s poems for music, gave him some very valuable advice

about his opera “Alfonso and Estrella,” and was the first singer to

call special attention to his “Erl King,” though she did not make such

an immense success with it as Schröder-Devrient, who drew from Goethe

the remark: “Executed as you execute it, the whole becomes a complete

picture.”

Marie Pachler, whose influence upon Beethoven we have already seen,

also occupied a prominent place in Schubert’s musical life. At the time

he made the acquaintance of the Pachler family, it consisted of the

husband, Carl Pachler, Marie, and their son Faust. We have already

seen, in the Beethoven chapter, that she was a lady of rare musical

accomplishments and intellectual ability, and her home was the favorite

rendezvous of composers and artists. In 1827 the family lived in Gratz,

and in that year Beethoven had intended visiting them. He died about

that time, however, and Schubert filled his place, going there with

his friend Jenger, who was to have accompanied Beethoven. Many of

his happiest days were spent in the charming society of this family.

Many singers came and went. Excursions were made into the surrounding

country. Little musical parties were given. Schubert sang his old

Lieder, and wrote many new ones. Though at that time in the very valley

of the shadow of death, they were the happiest days of his life. His

visit is immortalized by numerous compositions. Belonging to those days

are the songs, “Das Weinen,” “Vor meiner Wiege,” “Heimliches Lieben,”

and “Silvia,” which are dedicated to Madame Pachler; the “Scotch

Ballad,” of Herder, written at her suggestion; the “Schluchtgesang,”

for double chorus; the “Ständchen,” the “Nachtgesang im Wald” chorus,

an Italian cantata, and many pieces of dance-music, among them the

“Valses Nobles” and “Originaltänze.” His music during this visit was

of a very cheerful character; but immediately after his return home

he composed the exquisitely beautiful but sorrowful cyclus of songs

known as the Winterreise, in some of which it almost seems as if he

recognized the shadows of the sad fate so swiftly approaching him.

Dr. Wegeler, in speaking of Beethoven’s numerous attachments, says,

in every man’s life there is one complete love episode. Schubert is

an exception to this rule. There was an episode in his life which

he unquestionably thought was complete from an amatory point of

view; though, to the practical, unromantic reader, it must have a

serio-comic if not even a grotesque aspect. In 1818, then a young

man of twenty-one, Schubert was recommended as a music-teacher to

Count John Esterhazy. The latter, who was a princely patron of music,

recognizing at once his abilities, proposed that he should enter his

family, spending the winters with him in Vienna, and the summers at

his country estates. It was an offer which Schubert gladly accepted.

The Count had two daughters,—Caroline, then eleven years of age; and

Marie, two years older. Both had excellent voices, the one soprano,

and the other alto, and became his pupils. He soon was a favorite

in the family, and was treated as an intimate. The atmosphere was a

very musical one; but it speedily grew romantic also on Schubert’s

part, though no one else shared in his affairs of the heart. He first

devoted himself to a flirtation with one of the servants, a _femme de

chambre_ to the Princess Caroline; to which at least we are indebted

for the exquisite “Divertissement à la Hongroise,” the themes of which

are the Hungarian melodies he heard her humming as she went about her

work. Finding that there was no response from the maid, he at once

transferred his affections to the child Caroline; and notwithstanding

the ridiculous disparity of age, the hopeless disparity in rank, and

the general absurdity of the relation, his admiration of her developed

into an earnest, fervent passion, which continued even to his death.

The child was not too young to appreciate his genius, to admire his

music, or to be sincerely attached to him as a friend; but she was

too young, not only to reciprocate his passion, but even to conceive

of it or understand it. She went on with her music enthusiastically,

and was quite as enthusiastic in her admiration of the genius of poor

Schubert; thus continually adding to the flame she had kindled in his

heart without being aware of it. She always remained a good friend to

him, and one of the most devoted admirers of his songs, as well as

her sister Marie, who did all she could to assuage his pangs of heart

when he found his passion was hopeless. She was not married until many

years after his death. Some biographers declare the age of Caroline

at this time to have been but seven years, which would make his

attachment still more inexplicable. Leaving the affair of the heart,

however, there is no question that the young Princess, as well as the

whole family, exercised a powerful influence upon his musical work. He

himself has left a record of Caroline’s influence upon him; for upon

one occasion, being reproached by her for not dedicating more of his

music to her, he replied in the most abrupt and passionate manner,

“What is the use of that, when everything I write belongs to you?” It

was under her influence and that of her sister that he wrote the songs,

“Abendlied,” “Blondel zu Marien,” “Ungeduld,” “Des Müllers Blumen,”

“Erlafsee,” “Sehnsucht,” “Am Strom,” and “Der Jungling auf dem Hügel,”

the trio in E flat, two overtures for four hands, several waltzes, the

“French Romance” in E minor, the Fantasie in F minor, the Variations

(op. 35), and a piano duet (op. 140). All these works, besides many

manuscripts not yet known to the public, are clearly attributable to

the Esterhazy family.

Though Schubert never knew the happiness of love, he has sung of

it with the purest ideal feeling. Though his life was clouded with

sadness, he has given to the world immortal pictures in tones of the

tenderest, loveliest, and truest aspirations of the heart. Though he

died wretchedly poor in this world’s goods, he bequeathed to the world

a rich legacy,—the outpouring of a beautiful soul’s musical wealth. The

wastes of sorrow which stretch across his life were made beautiful with

exquisite flowers of song, whose perfume will never be lost and whose

beauty will never fade.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

ROBERT SCHUMANN.

Beneath these flowers I dream, a silent chord. I cannot wake my own

strings to music; but under the hands of those who comprehend me, I

become an eloquent friend. Wanderer, ere thou goest, try me. The more

trouble thou takest with me, the more lovely will be the tones with

which I shall reward thee.—EUSEBIUS.

There was but one woman to whom Schumann was indebted for inspiration;

and that was the woman who was the nearest and dearest to him of

all women, his wife. Affianced to him by love and a kindred spirit

in musical genius, she roused him to musical effort, she shared in

his triumphs while he was living, and, from the day of his sad and

untimely death until now, she has revealed the beauty of his music to

the world. If he were a creator by the divine right of genius, by the

same divine right she has been the interpreter. The bond of love and

the affinity of music drew them together in an attachment nothing but

death was strong enough to break. His name, his fame, his memory, she

has preserved, and made still more beautiful by her own genius, and

by the force and influence of her noble womanhood. Clara Schumann has

kept her husband’s laurels green, has placed wreaths of immortelles

upon his grave, and has embalmed his name in an immortal love which had

its birth in music, and which still knows no more beautiful or tender

expression than in the revelation of that music to the world, though

twenty-five years have gone since the poor crazed brain ceased its work.

Clara Wieck, daughter of Friedrich Wieck, the well-known teacher, who

numbered such musicians as Schumann, Von Bülow, Krause, Spindler, and

Merkel among his pupils, was born in Leipsic in 1819, and is still

an honored and favorite artist in the concert-room. She commenced

studying the piano with her father in her fifth year, and at nine

years of age played in a public concert. Under her father’s careful

tuition,—and it is a thousand pities there are not more piano teachers

like him,—she made slow but very sure progress. It was no part of

his method to hurry a pupil. How many teachers to-day can say with

him: “I have always preferred a gradual, even a slow development,

step by step, which often made no apparent progress, but which still

proceeded with a certain constancy and with deliberation, and which

was combined with dreamy sensibility and a musical instinct, requiring

slow awakening, and even with a certain flightiness, one for which the

patient labor and perseverance of six years or more was required, and

where childishness allowed no encouragement to sordid speculations

for the future”? In her eleventh year she also commenced the study

of composition with Heinrich Dorn. Shortly after this she made a

concert-tour to Berlin, Vienna, and other cities, which met with such

success that it decided her to adopt the concert-stage, and enter

upon the career of a professional artist. With this purpose in view

she returned to Leipsic, and resumed her studies, which were very

comprehensive in character, including technique, theory, harmony,

counterpoint, instrumentation, score-reading, the voice, and the

violin. The foundations of her future greatness as a _virtuoso_ were

laid deep and strong. For five years, from 1835 to 1840, she made

concert-tours, which extended her reputation all over Germany and

France; and during this period she did more than any other in making

the German people acquainted with Chopin’s music. All her associations

and surroundings were calculated to aid her in her artistic career, and

to prepare the way for just such a success as this remarkable woman has

achieved in her long and honorable public life as an artist. She was

not only trained with conscientious fidelity to the highest and noblest

ideals of her art, but she was brought up in a musical atmosphere.

At a very early age the great violinist Paganini was astonished at

her precocity of talent, and when in Leipsic played with her almost

continually. In Paris she heard Chopin, Liszt, Kalkbrenner, and other

prominent artists; and many of their works she played for the first

time in Germany. She had already commenced the work of composition; and

in this connection a review of one of her pieces, the “Soirée für das

Pianoforte,” Op. 6, by Schumann himself, will be interesting. He says:—

“On one side this composition betrays such a tender and yet

superabundant life that the most silent whisper could touch it, and

again such riches of unusual wealth and fulness of intricacies and

solutions as only the most experienced musicians could create. Where

Sebastian Bach digged his golden treasures in the deepest shafts of

his grand musical mines; where Beethoven, like a huge giant, flashes

up toward the brightest regions of the skies; where the present

masters bring forth their new combinations, endeavoring to reconcile

the old and new,—all these unexplored regions are perfectly familiar

to her, and yet she chats about them with the modesty of a maiden,

and at the same time leads one to expect so much from her that one

hardly knows where it all shall end. When you listen to the young

artist’s notes on the piano, interpreting her own innermost emotion,

one cannot imagine how it is done. It seems almost impossible that

such notes, such depths of feelings, can be written on paper with

visible signs. In reality, one cannot express with words what she is.

It is even impossible to describe the impressions her playing makes,

not to speak of what she does to create such sensations.”

There is something more than the mere critical spirit revealed in this

eulogium. Read between the lines, it is not difficult to discover the

human passion which inspired it.

When Schumann first met Clara Wieck, she was already recognized as a

genius, though but a child. He was a musical student of a very romantic

nature, exquisitely sensitive, moody even to the verge of melancholy,

and completely permeated with the spirit of Jean Paul, whose works he

had closely studied, and whose influence was already visible in his

letters and other writings. It was during his visit to Leipsic in 1828

that he became acquainted with Friedrich Wieck. He formed a strong

attachment for him; and the remarkable musical accomplishments of his

daughter Clara led him to seek the same tuition that had developed

such skill in her case. He requested Wieck to teach him; and the

latter complied, though at this time he gave him but few lessons, and

these were not satisfactory to his teacher, as Schumann kept himself

within the narrow range of mere facility in playing, and, with the

same persistence that characterized him for years afterward, declined

to perfect himself in harmony. He never recognized its necessity until

he commenced serious work for the orchestra, and then it was too late

for him to reach his complete development. During all this time he had

been studying law in deference to the wishes of his mother, who was

bent upon making him a lawyer, while he was equally bent upon following

music as a profession. At last, in 1830, he writes to her, desiring

her to consult with Wieck, saying that he will abide by his decision

whether he shall continue to study law, or return to Leipsic and resume

his musical studies. His mother complies with his wish, and writes to

Wieck:—

“All rests on your decision,—the peace of a loving mother, the whole

happiness for life of a young and inexperienced man, who lives but in

a higher sphere and will have nothing to do with practical life. I

know that you love music. Do not let your feelings plead for Robert,

but consider his years, his fortune, his powers, and his future.”

Wieck had already considered his powers and his future during the short

time he had taught him, and he replied at once in favor of Schumann’s

musical plans. The mother thereupon withdrew all opposition; and the

son enthusiastically writes to his old teacher, “Trust me, I will

deserve the name of your scholar;” and to his guardian, “I was born for

music, and will remain true to it,”—a promise never broken.

At Michaelmas, 1830, Schumann arrived at Leipsic, and resumed his

studies. At the commencement of this chapter I have quoted from Wieck

to show that he believed in the old maxim of hastening slowly. Schumann

was impatient, and by over-practice in the prosecution of a system

of his own devising, lost the use of his right hand. This ended his

studies with Wieck, and his professional career as a pianist. He now

entered upon the higher career of a composer; upon which Clara Wieck

was to exercise a powerful influence, and also shone out speedily with

remarkable brilliancy as a critic in the “Neue Zeitschrift für Musik,”

in the columns of which Florestan, Eusebius, Raro, and Serpentinus soon

became as familiar as household names. Schumann entered upon his work

with all the romance, zeal, fire, and freshness of youth. He heralded

Chopin as the rising star in music, and first made him known by his

criticisms, as Clara did afterward by her interpretations of his music.

Jealousy was a thing unknown to him. He did more than any other to

establish the fame, not only of Chopin, but of Franz, Heller, Gade, and

Henselt, and was one of the first to recognize the genius of Berlioz,

besides fighting a life-long battle for Schubert, Mendelssohn, and

Hiller.

Up to this time Schumann’s interest in Clara Wieck was purely of an

artistic character; but even now she was influencing him, for in 1833

we find his “Impromptus” for piano upon a romanza which had been

published by her. The theme was a favorite one with her, and he wrote

eleven variations upon it; and the next year she appears in that

picturesque and fanciful masquerade in notes, the “Carnival,” under

the pseudonyme of “Chiarina.” In 1835 a sonata appeared “dedicated by

Florestan and Eusebius to Clara.” In 1836 his interest in Clara Wieck

became not only artistic but personal. He fell deeply in love with her,

and from that moment a struggle for her possession commenced. Of that

struggle he writes, in 1839, to Heinrich Dorn:—

“There is much in my music, no doubt, that might seem like a

narrative of the struggle for the possession of my Clara. You have

probably been able to understand it. These very troubles have

solely given the impulse to the ‘Concerto,’ the ‘Sonata,’ the

‘Davidsbündlertänze,’ the ‘Kreisleriana,’ and the ‘Noveletten.’”

Up to 1840 Schumann had not written a single song; but after he found

that she was really his own, no less than one hundred and thirty-eight

of the most beautiful songs ever written attested his happiness. The

father opposed their union, and it is doubtful whether his passion was

at first returned. They were separated for some time by a concert-tour

made by Clara and her father; but through a third party Schumann

managed to hear from her, and to this party he writes, March 1, 1836:—

“Clara Wieck loves, and is loved. You might easily discover it by her

gentle, almost heavenly look and mien. Pardon me if I omit for the

present her lover’s name. The happy pair met, saw, spoke, and became

engaged, without her father’s knowledge. He has discovered it, would

cut it down, forbids all intercourse on pain of death; but they have

braved him a thousand times.... Now comes my most heartfelt prayer

that you will let me know all you can learn, directly or indirectly,

concerning Clara, her feelings, and her life.”

In 1837 he wrote to Wieck, asking for the hand of his daughter; and his

answer may be inferred from the following extract from a letter written

to his sister-in-law, Theresa:—

“The old man won’t let Clara leave him yet; he’s too fond of her. And

he is really in the right; for he thinks we ought to earn more money

first, so that we may live comfortably.”

To attain that object he went to Vienna, but failed in his purpose; and

he returned to Leipsic, and once more sought to mollify the obdurate

heart of Wieck, who again refused his consent. He then appealed to

the law; and in 1840 the Royal Court of Appeals requested the father

to yield, which paved the way to their union. In September of that

year he met her at Weimar at the house of a friend, and their nuptials

were celebrated on the 12th of that month. In an extract already

made from one of his letters, it is shown that the “Noveletten,” the

“Kinderscenen,” and the “Kreisleriana” were inspired by Clara Wieck. It

might be added that all his piano compositions from 1831 to 1840—and

they are very numerous—were born of his artistic and personal relations

to her. Not only this, but she inspired all his lyrical work during the

year 1840, which includes the songs already spoken of, revealing his

inner life during this period. After their marriage the real work of

his life began. He emancipated himself from the narrow limits of the

piano, and commenced writing for the orchestra, both symphonies and

chamber-music. It was the real work of his life; and the symphonies

he has left, particularly the B flat major and the E flat major (the

Rhenish), are eloquent suggestions of what he might have accomplished,

following, as he did, closely in the footsteps of Beethoven, had not

the derangement of his mental faculties brought his life to a tragic

close.

Schumann had other attachments during his life,—among them, those for

an amateur vocalist named Agnes Carus, whom he met in Zwickau, and

whose singing had a rare fascination over him; for Clara von Kurner,

daughter of Dr. von Kurner, a chemist of Augsburg, of whom he writes

to his friend Rosen, “The lovely Clara’s image floats before me, both

sleeping and waking;” and with Ernestine von Fricken, who lived at

Wieck’s house in 1834, and studied the piano, whose blooming personal

charms aroused his passion. To Henrietta Voigt, the wife of a Leipsic

merchant, who was a very warm and influential friend of Schumann’s in

1834, he writes in his Jean Paulish way:—

“I was completely exhausted yesterday, and your letter came. It

soothed me like an angel’s hand; that is, for a day and night, and

this morning every nerve is a tear.... Is it a weakness to confess

it? ’Tis my Ernestine whom I love beyond all measure; ’tis you,

Henrietta, my beloved friend. You glorious creature, what can I offer

in return for your supreme favor? ’Tis said that those who love each

other shall meet again in some other star, where they shall live and

rule alone. Let us hold this lovely saying to be true.”

Schumann sought the fair Ernestine’s hand in marriage, but his suit

was unsuccessful. Not one of these attachments, however, specially

influenced him in musical production. Clara Schumann was the genius of

his life, the companion, friend, and counsellor of his work, the guide

and inspirer that led him to his highest and most enduring efforts. Her

ideal of art was always the purest and loftiest. As an artist she has

commanded the homage and admiration of the world. As a woman she stands

peerless in the nobility, dignity, and beauty of her womanhood. Since

her husband’s death she has been his faithful interpreter, besides

editing his works. The love which crowned their lives with so much

happiness, notwithstanding the cruelty of fate, still remains, and

keeps the memory of the composer fresh by her executive tribute to his

genius, and her loving and skilful interpretation of his works, which

she did so much to inspire and help produce.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY.

Mendelssohn is betrothed, so is very much occupied, but great and

good as ever. No day passes in which he does not utter at least two

thoughts worthy to be graven in gold.—SCHUMANN.

Nearly all the great and enduring music of the world has been conceived

of sorrow or born in the struggle with destiny. The exercise of

the heroic qualities in the battle of life has called out heroic

music. Disappointments in life, the pressure of poverty, the pangs

of suffering, the struggle against circumstances, and sometimes the

spur of malicious competition, have aroused qualities of character

in composers which have reflected themselves in their music. These

elements have given us majesty, grandeur, and strength in music. More

tranquil lives, kindly smiled upon by fate and lifted above all

necessities, undisturbed by care and untouched by sorrow, have given

us beautiful, graceful, elegant music, strains of enticing melody, and

measures of smooth, flowing harmony, but rarely rising above the world.

They may touch the heart, but they do not appeal to the soul. They may

reveal the beauties of the earth and sky, but they do not go beyond

finite boundaries, and give us glimpses of the infinite.

Felix Mendelssohn’s music belongs to this class, and his life-currents

ran in channels that were never vexed by a storm. Of all composers,

it might almost be said of all men, his career and his experiences

were the most fortunate. He belonged to a family remarkable for its

talent in literature, philosophy, music, and the plastic arts. It was,

moreover, a wealthy family; so that he not only had every advantage

which wealth could procure in his studies, but during his entire life

was enabled to surround himself with luxuries, and at no time was

obliged to compose owing to financial straits. He was brought up in

an atmosphere of art. The great poets, painters, composers, singers,

and players of Europe were among the frequent and welcome visitors at

his home fireside. He was endowed with rare personal beauty, and was

richly gifted in scholarship and accomplishments of various kinds,

as well as in those qualities of head and heart which attract a wide

circle of friends and admirers. There was no sorrow in his life until

his sister died, and then he succumbed to grief and soon passed away.

The smooth and even tenor of his life had enervated him, as it were;

and when the first blow came, it crushed him.

To estimate the influences of woman upon Mendelssohn’s music, it is

not necessary to go beyond the limits of his home circle; and these

influences tended to color it with the same peculiarities of which

we have spoken. His mother, his sister, and his wife—women of noble

character, genial disposition, and loving nature—helped to impart to

his music its peculiar grace and beauty. His mother first discovered

his talent, and gave him his first lessons, and in his boyhood guided

his studies, placed him under competent teachers, and accustomed him

to hear the best music performed by the best musicians, with whom the

Mendelssohn home was always a favorite resort. His sister Fanny, who

afterward married the painter Hensel, was a pianist and composer of

more than ordinary ability. In youth they were inseparable musical

companions. They studied together; they composed together. Like her

brother, she called about herself the best musical talent in Berlin.

In the earlier collection of his songs, many of hers appear so closely

similar in feeling and color that they would be indistinguishable were

no signature attached. Devrient says:—

“His elder sister Fanny stood musically most related to him; through

her excellent nature, clear sense, and rich fund of sensibility (not

perceptible to every one), many things were made clear to him.”

At the Sunday performances in the Mendelssohn home, she and her brother

played in trios with a small orchestra which was accustomed to assemble

there. His letters constantly bear testimony how eagerly he waited for

her criticisms upon his work. Their musical sympathy was extraordinary,

and is indicated by their correspondence upon more than one occasion

in musical notation. Each was possessed of rare sensibility, and their

musical affinities drew them together in a companionship of heart and

soul which was never disturbed except by her sudden death. Devrient

thus tells the sad story:—

“In perfect health and cheerfulness she had been presiding at a vocal

rehearsal for the next of her Sunday performances on the afternoon

of May the 14th (1847). All at once she felt her hands powerless at

the keys, and was compelled to ask a friend to take her place at

the instrument. The rehearsal proceeded. It was of the choruses of

the ‘Walpurgis Night.’ She was listening to them from an inner room

through the open doors, whilst she was fomenting her hands in hot

vinegar. ‘How beautifully it sounds!’ she said joyfully. She thought

herself restored, and was on the point of returning to the music-room

when a second and total paralysis struck her; she lost consciousness,

and had breathed her last by eleven o’clock that night.... Upon Felix

her loss fell heavier than upon any one, bound up with her as he was

in all his musical associations from earliest childhood.”

Lampadius, in his “Life of Mendelssohn,” says of her:—

“This cherished sister, Fanny, had been the companion of the great

musician’s pursuits during the years of childhood, in the days when

they used to take five-minute lessons together, and in later days

also, when (as I have heard him tell) they vied with each other

which could best execute a certain difficult left-hand passage in

Kalkbrenner’s ‘Effusio Musica.’ Had Madame Hensel been a poor man’s

daughter, she must have become known to the world by the side of

Madame Schumann and Madame Pleyel, as a female pianist of the very

highest class. Like her brother, she had in her composition a touch

of that Southern vivacity which is so rare among the Germans. More

feminine than his, her playing bore a strong family resemblance to

her brother’s in its fire, neatness, and solidity. Like himself, too,

she was as generally accomplished as she was specially gifted.”

He never entirely recovered from the shock of her death. He secluded

himself almost entirely within the family circle, and always seemed to

be living in the presentiment of his own speedy departure. The last

time that he had parted from her, she reproached him for not spending

her birthday (November 8) with her. He replied, “Depend upon it, the

next I shall spend with you.” Fanny died May 14, 1847. He died November

4, the same year, and was with her upon her birthday. The influence

of such a woman, bound to him by such strong ties of affection and

such rare musical sympathy, cannot even be estimated. When she died,

his hold upon music was gone. A few brief months, and they listened

together to the music of a higher world, companions no more to be

separated.

Mendelssohn’s own home was full of the sunshine which had always

illuminated his charmed life. Though a great favorite with women, and

sought after by many, he had never contemplated marriage until the

death of his father. The latter had always been anxious that his son

should marry happily, and thus have the influences of a pleasant home

surrounding him, and affecting his music. Only a few days after the

funeral, knowing his father’s wishes, he told his sister Fanny that he

was resolved to marry. The event came speedily. In the summer of 1836

he was in Frankfort, conducting the Cecilia Society, and giving his

“St. Paul” and some of the works of Händel. During his stay he had been

introduced to the family of Madame Jeanrenaud, the widow of a minister

of the French Reformed Church in that city. She was living with her

children in her parents’ home. The oldest daughter, Cecilia, at once

attracted him. Devrient describes her as follows:—

“Cecilia was one of those sweet, womanly natures, whose gentle

simplicity, whose mere presence, soothed and pleased. She was slight,

with features of striking beauty and delicacy. Her hair was between

brown and gold; but the transcendent lustre of her great blue eyes

and the brilliant roses of her cheeks were sad harbingers of early

death. She spoke little, and never with animation, in a low, soft

voice. The friends of Felix had every reason to hope that his choice

would secure repose to his restless spirit, and happy leisure for

thought and work in his home.”

And this was so, for never was there a happier home. The enthusiastic

Élise Polko says of her:—

“Cecilia Jeanrenaud, whose mother belonged to a distinguished

emigrant family, was at that period considered one of the most

beautiful girls in Frankfort, always so rich in female charms, where

indeed to this day, as in Saxony, ‘fair maidens grow on every tree;’

and when I now recall her image as I first saw her, though some time

after her marriage, I feel that to this present hour she has always

remained my beau ideal of womanly fascination and loveliness. Her

figure was slight, of middle height, and rather drooping, like a

flower heavy with dew; her luxuriant golden-brown hair fell in rich

curls on her shoulders; her complexion was of transparent delicacy,

her smile charming; and she had the most bewitching deep-blue eyes I

ever beheld, with dark eyelashes and eyebrows.”

Such was the fair vision that presented itself to Mendelssohn during

his visits, which became more and more frequent and quickly resulted in

betrothal and marriage. Of their courtship, Hiller, in his delightful

“Reminiscences,” says:—

“His visits became more and more frequent, but he always behaved with

such reserve towards his chosen one, that, as she once laughingly

told me, in her husband’s presence, for several weeks she did not

imagine herself to be the cause of Mendelssohn’s visits, but thought

he came for the sake of her mother, who, indeed, with her youthful

vivacity, cleverness and refinement, chattering away in the purest

Frankfort dialect, was extremely attractive. But though during this

early time Felix spoke but little to Cecilia, when away from her

he talked of her all the more. Lying on the sofa in my room after

dinner, or taking long walks in the mild summer nights with Dr. S.

and myself, he would rave about her charm, her grace, and her beauty.

There was nothing overstrained in him, either in his life or in his

art. He would pour out his heart about her in the most charmingly

frank and artless way, often full of fun and gayety; then again

with deep feeling, but never with any exaggerated sentimentality or

uncontrolled passion. It was easy to see what a serious thing it was;

for one could hardly get him to talk of anything which did not touch

upon her more or less.”

Their intercourse was one of the purest love. Their home was always a

happy one, and the centre of attraction for all the great artists of

his time. She was a good singer, was possessed of more than ordinary

musical intelligence, sympathized with and encouraged him in his work,

and rejoiced in his triumphs. She understood him, and she prized him

at his real value. Slight as she was in physique, and calm and gentle

as she was in her bearing, her spirit was more heroic than his. In

all other regards she was his complement. She cared for him until his

last moment, and strong in her very tenderness accepted his death with

resignation and heroism. Of the funeral Devrient says,—

“When the church was almost deserted, a female form in deep mourning

was led to the bier. She sank down beside it, and remained long in

prayer. It was Cecilia, taking her last farewell of the earthly

remains of Felix. She knew that she would not long survive him.”

She lived but five years longer, and those years were lovingly and

faithfully devoted to the care and education of his children. Then she

passed quietly away, and, like her illustrious husband, was buried with

imposing musical ceremonies.

The influences of mother, sister, and wife, all led Mendelssohn in

the same direction of beauty and grace of style, rather than of great

strength. His life never knew but one pang, and that was the last one.

It was never clouded by any sorrows except such as are the common lot;

and for these he had not the common endurance. It was a life without

regrets and without reproach, and therefore a life without great

moments or great struggles that call out the deepest and best that is

in human effort. He imparted to his music his own elegance and grace;

and it reflects also the gentleness, the sweetness, the loveliness, and

the beauty of mother, sister, and wife.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

FREDERICK CHOPIN.

Chopin died slowly, consuming himself in the flames of his own

genius.... He was a poet of a mournful soul, full of reserve and

complicated mystery, and familiar with the stern face of sorrow. He

constantly reminded us of a convolvulus balancing its heaven-colored

cup on an incredibly slight stem, the tissue of which is so like

vapor that the slightest contact wounds and tears the misty

corolla.—LISZT.

The very name of Chopin suggests the name of woman, and of one woman

more than any other,—George Sand. Liszt says his music is cannons

buried in flowers. He himself was buried beneath an exterior of elegant

_hauteur_ and graceful courtesy, and no one ever penetrated to his

inner self but the woman who was at once his good and evil genius.

Under this goodly exterior was an imagination of exquisite fineness

and power; feelings, though pent up, that raged at times like a

volcano; a physical constitution enervated and undermined by disease; a

pride so sensitive and so secretive that it allowed but one to intrude

upon him or to peer into his inner life; a dread of human contact, not

from hatred of men, but from the very fineness of his organization,

that made him a stranger even among his friends. Such conflicting

qualities of mind and body marked him out for suffering; but his

suffering was concealed, as well as the real character of his life.

There is scarcely an event of Chopin’s life, scarcely a phase of his

passion or his temperament, hardly a phrase of his music, that is not

related to woman. It was in his Paris salon, surrounded by lovely

women, that he improvised so enchantingly. Almost every piece he has

written was inspired of woman, and is dedicated to her. The finest

interpreters of his music have been women. It was Clara Schumann who

first really made Germany acquainted with it, as it was Robert Schumann

who first proclaimed his genius in a critical manner. His passion

itself was peculiarly feminine, as appears very clearly from his

relations to George Sand. A woman’s voice was the last sound he heard,

as she sang in his dying chamber.

There are but two sources to which we can go for information that

is authoritative as to the events of Chopin’s life, and that bears

directly upon the subject of woman’s influence,—Liszt’s so-called

biography, which is in the nature of a rhapsody; and the biography

recently written by M. Karasowsky, which may be considered reliable,

though in some parts highly colored.

Liszt has drawn a fascinating picture of his earlier attachments,

especially his love for a young lady who never ceased “to feel a

reverential homage for him,” but was lost to him by the more intense

and fatal passion which George Sand kindled. Liszt says:—

“This young Polish lady, unfortunately separated from Chopin,

remained faithful to his memory, to all that was left of him. She

devoted herself to his parents. The father of Chopin would never

suffer the portrait which she had drawn of him in the days of hope

to be replaced by another, done by the hands of a far more skilful

artist. We saw the pale cheeks of this melancholy woman glow like

alabaster when a light shines through its snow, many years afterward,

when, in gazing upon this picture, she met the eyes of his father.”

At the house of the Princess Czetwertynska in Warsaw, a lady who was

a passionate admirer of music, and who appreciated his playing and

his talent of composition, he met with a group of young and noble

ladies,—among them the Princess of Lowicz, the Countess Zamoyska, the

Princess Radizwill, the Princess Jablonowska, and others,—who exercised

a powerful influence upon him. Liszt bears testimony to this influence

in the following glowing words:—

“As these visions of his youth deepened in the long perspective of

memories, they gained in grace, in charm, in delight in his eyes,

fascinating him to such an extent that no reality could destroy their

secret power over his imagination, rendering his repugnance more and

more unconquerable to that license of allurement, that brutal tyranny

of caprice, that eagerness to drink the cup of fantasy to the very

dregs, that stormy pursuit of all the changes and incongruities of

life, which rule in the strange mode of life known as _La Bohéme_.”

In 1830, at Nice, he met three beautiful and accomplished Polish

ladies, Marie, Nathalie, and Delphine, daughters of Count Comar. They

subsequently married wealthy noblemen; and in their elegant Paris

salons Chopin was a frequent visitor, and the centre of admiration and

attraction. Their friendship for him was enthusiastic and lasting, and

helped to inspire him to loftier effort than ever before; and one of

them, Delphine, then the Countess Potocka, was with him in his dying

moments, sustaining and glorifying them with her lovely voice.

His connection with George Sand cannot be called an episode. From the

moment that he felt the weird fascination of this enchantress, he was

completely in her power. She ruled his life. She changed its currents,

directed its purposes, controlled its destiny, absorbed his very

existence, until, in a fatal moment, he asked what it was impossible

for her to grant; and then she left him, as one writer coolly says, “to

his cough and his piano.”

It were a difficult task to analyze the strange relations between

George Sand and Chopin, because the two natures had little in common.

The one was prosaic, virile, coarse, and unconventional; the other was

poetical, feminine, delicate, and sensitive. They were allied in the

possession of genius and in the recognition of what was beautiful;

beyond this they touched at no point. The narratives of Liszt and

Karasowski, so far as they cover this period of his life, though

differing in view, for Liszt himself had felt the influence of George

Sand, are extremely interesting. Liszt draws an attractive picture

of the coterie of poets and artists who were wont to assemble in

Chopin’s salon, among whom not one more clearly recognized his genius

than George Sand. “After having named Madame Sand, whose energetic

personality and electric genius inspired the frail and delicate

organization of Chopin with an intensity of admiration which consumed

him, as a wine too spirituous shatters the fragile vase, we cannot

now call up other names from the dim limbus of the past,” says Liszt.

She was naturally anxious to establish a friendship with Chopin,

for she shared with him his intense admiration of the beautiful;

but he at first shrank from her, for his melancholy, sensitiveness,

exclusiveness, tenderness, ideality, and sincere religious feeling

were all repulsed by her boldness, energy, unconventionality, and

masculine nature: but the acquaintance which she forced upon him at

last dissipated all his fears; and, as might be expected of such a

nature, once devoted to an object, he concentrated himself with all the

strength of that nature upon it, and was utterly absorbed by his ideal.

Henceforth George Sand was to him a fatal necessity.

In 1836 his health began to decline. A year later he was seized with

a dangerous illness, and was advised to go South, where he would have

the benefit of a balmier climate. He selected the island of Majorca,

and Madame Sand accompanied him. Under her care and the influences of

the climate he improved. “He breathed there that air,” says Liszt, “for

which natures unsuited for the world, and never feeling themselves

happy in it, long with such a painful homesickness.” She herself says:—

“The funereal oppression which secretly undermined the spirit of

Chopin, destroying and corroding all contentment, gradually vanished.

He permitted the amiable character, the cheerful serenity of his

friend, to chase sad thoughts and mournful presentiments away, and to

breathe new force into his intellectual being.”

For a time Chopin was happy, and Madame Sand was his inspiration. In

her “Lucrezia Floriani,” where he figures as Prince Karol, she says:—

“He was no longer upon the earth, he was in an empyrean of golden

clouds and perfumes; his imagination, so full of exquisite beauty,

seemed engaged in a monologue with God himself; and if, upon the

radiant prism in whose contemplation he forgot all else, the magic

lantern of the outer world would ever cast its disturbing shadow, he

felt deeply pained.”

The dream, however, was suddenly dissipated. Liszt does not tell the

cause, but it is well known. He desired her to marry him. His nature

was all love. Love was his life. Madame Sand says:—

“He loved for the sake of loving. No amount of suffering was

sufficient to discourage him. He could enter upon a new phase, that

of woe; but the phase of coldness he could never arrive at.”

To transform a passionate friendship into a pure love was an impossible

thing for her. They separated, and that separation strained and rent

every cord that bound him to life. As Liszt says,—

“His last pleasure seemed to be the memory of the blasting of his

last hope; he treasured the bitter knowledge that under this fatal

spell his life was ebbing fast away. He seemed to inhale the poison

rapidly and eagerly, that he might thus shorten the time in which he

would be forced to breathe it. Only a short time before he died, he

wrote to a Polish friend: ‘It is the end. I am only vegetating, and

awaiting the last of it. I have never cursed any one, but now I am so

worn and weary of life that I am now ready to curse that Lucrezia.

But she suffers as well: ill-fortune devours her daily.’”

M. Karasowski’s version differs somewhat from that of Liszt. According

to the later biographer, chance brought him to Paris, and face to face

with the woman who from that moment cast a dark and fatal shadow upon

his life. One rainy day, in a fit of despondency, he travelled about

the streets of Paris; and suddenly, remembering it was reception-day

at a house where he was always a welcome guest, he turned his steps

thither. As he mounted the stairs he fancied he was followed by a

shadow from which there came a strong perfume of violets (his favorite

flowers). He was about to retrace his steps, as if it were an ill-omen;

but, smiling at his fears, entered the salon. He took his seat in a

corner aside from the company, preferring to listen and be a spectator;

but upon being pressed to play, he went to the piano and improvised.

As he finished he became aware that a plainly dressed woman, leaning

upon the other end of the piano, was gazing at him with a boldness and

intensity that made him redden. A few minutes later she was introduced

to him by Liszt as George Sand. His first feeling was aversion. In

writing home about her, he says her features are coarse, and her voice

harsh and masculine. She glowingly praised his playing, and each time

she met him cunningly flattered him, until at last he was madly in

love with her. Karasowski’s narrative of their life in Majorca does

not agree with Liszt’s. According to the former, he was thoroughly

uncomfortable and unhappy during the stay, and returned to Paris worse

off in health than when he left. As his health declined, Madame Sand’s

passion for him cooled; and at last she found an occasion to quarrel

with him, and he left her, vowing never to return. Some time after he

met her at a friend’s house. She held out her hand, and softly said

“Frederick,” as if she would be reconciled, but he turned away from her

without recognition.

Sainte-Beuve has perhaps given the most reasonable explanation of the

rupture between them. She felt a man’s passion towards him, he felt a

woman’s love towards her; she was a woman of masculine nature, he was a

man of feminine nature. When he proposed marriage her passion cooled,

and she was ready to leave him as she had left others. His nature,

being feminine, imposed upon him the female torture of endurance. Her

attachment was in one sense a coarse one, to be ended at any moment

by caprice or whim; his was an absorption profound and unalterable: he

was not necessary to her; she was necessary to him. It was a union of

two natures with nothing in common,—most fatal of all mistakes. The

cruelty of this relation was the first fascination; a grotesque and

unnecessary episode of it was the manner in which she has drawn his

picture in the least attractive of all her works, “Lucrezia Floriani;”

the hopelessness of it was her refusal to marry,—a shock which his

sensitive, affectionate nature could not sustain; then followed the

natural results to such a nature,—decline, despair, death.

His last hours were consoled and comforted by a tender, loving woman,

who had been his friend and admirer before he came under the fatal

influence of George Sand. Liszt touchingly and beautifully describes

the scene:—

“On Sunday, the 15th of October (1849), his attacks were more

violent and frequent, lasting for several hours in succession. He

endured them with patience and great strength of mind. The Countess

Delphine Potocka, who was present, was much distressed; her tears

were flowing fast, when he observed her standing at the foot of his

bed, tall, slight, draped in white, resembling the beautiful angels

created by the imagination of the most devout among the painters.

Without doubt he supposed her to be a celestial apparition; and

when the crisis left him a moment in repose, he requested her to

sing. They deemed him at first seized with delirium, but he eagerly

repeated his request. Who could have ventured to oppose his wish?

The piano was rolled from his parlor to the door of his chamber,

while, with sobs in her voice and tears streaming down her cheeks,

his gifted countrywoman sang. Certainly this delightful voice had

never before attained an expression so full of profound pathos. He

seemed to suffer less as he listened. She sang that famous canticle

to the Virgin which, it is said, once saved the life of Stradella.

‘How beautiful it is!’ he exclaimed. ‘My God, how very beautiful!

Again—again!’ Though overwhelmed with emotion, the Countess had

the noble courage to comply with the last wish of her friend, a

compatriot; she again took a seat at the piano, and sang a hymn from

Marcello.... The sacred silence was only broken by the voice of the

Countess floating like a melody from heaven, above the sighs and sobs

which formed its heavy and mournful earth-accompaniment.”

Two days later he died; and his last act was in accordance with the

love and courtesy which had always characterized him. He bent his

head, and kissed the hand of his friend Gutman, and quietly fell into

the dreamless sleep, leaving behind him a legacy of music, which,

though small as compared with the works of other composers whom we have

considered, is of imperishable beauty, and bears trace on every page

of woman’s love and influence,—trace, too, of woman’s fatal spell,

darkening and destroying.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CARL MARIA VON WEBER.

May God still grant me the blessing which he has hitherto so

graciously accorded me, that I may have the power to make the dear

one happy, and, as a brave artist, bring honor and advantage to my

fatherland! Amen!—WEBER’S _Diary_.

Fridolin von Weber, steward to the noble family of Schönau-Zella,

grandfather of the composer of “Der Freischütz,” had two sons. The

elder became the father of Constance, the wife of Mozart; the younger,

Franz Anton, the father of Carl Maria; so that the two eminent

composers were cousins by marriage. Franz Anton’s first wife was

Maria Anna von Fumetti, daughter of the Court Financial Counsellor at

Cologne, who died in 1783, worn out with the vagaries, eccentricities,

and dissipations of her husband, who was a member of a strolling

company of comedians. Two years afterward, being then in his fiftieth

year, he married Genofeva von Brenner, a pretty girl of sixteen, who

was destined to become the mother of Carl Maria. For years the child

was carried by his patient, suffering mother in the company of the

strolling comedians, surrounded by the worst of influences, and cared

for, trained, and educated by her alone, until at last her health

was shattered, and she fell into a decline. She died in 1798, and

Franz Anton’s sister Adelheid took the boy under her protection. She

was a maiden lady of excellent judgment and kindly heart, and filled

the mother’s part in shielding him from the contaminations all about

him, besides superintending his education. The influence of these

two women upon the future of the child placed under such unfavorable

circumstances was powerful for good, and unquestionably laid the

foundations of his future fame.

In his eighteenth year Carl Maria, then earning a precarious living

by teaching, made the acquaintance of Fraulein von Belonde, maid of

honor to the Duchess Louise of Würtemberg, wife of Prince Eugene

Friedrich, resident at Carlsruhe. She is described as an admirable

piano-forte player. Impressed with the beauty of Weber’s improvising,

and sympathizing with his unfortunate circumstances, she became much

interested in him and determined to aid him, and succeeded so well that

she secured for him the position of musical director to the Prince,

who not only took Weber himself, but his old worthless father and his

good aunt Adelheid into his own house and kindly cared for them. Their

stay, however, was not of long duration. The tide of war broke up their

asylum. Weber drifted about for some time, almost hopelessly in debt

and drowning his troubles in excesses of dissipation, until in 1807 he

found himself in the service of Prince Ludwig and his wife, a princess

of Nassau-Weilburg. He was intrusted with the musical education of

their children; and, says his son in his excellent biography, “to

this new position of the young composer are probably owing not only

the ‘six pièces à quatre mains’ dedicated to the Princess Ludwig, but

many others of his brilliant instrumental works belonging to this

period.” It was about this time that he wrote his opera “Sylvana” for

King Friedrich’s theatre,—an event which played an important part in

his life, as it brought him in contact with Gretchen Lang, one of the

singers,—“the charming, winning, coquettish little serpent,” with whom

he became speedily fascinated. His biographer says:—

“She became the central point of all his life and aspirations. There

is no evidence to show to what degree of intimacy this union of the

two young fiery artist-natures was carried. It is certain, however,

that from the time Carl Maria made Gretchen Lang’s acquaintance, he

seldom quitted her side.”

It was an unfortunate attachment in every way. It brought down upon

him the displeasure of his patron, secured for him the enmity of the

King, and plunged him deeply into debt. Creditors pursued him, and

at last he was sent to the debtors’ prison. To crown his misfortunes

came an order from the King that he should be transported beyond the

boundaries of Würtemberg. In Frankfort he subsequently met Gretchen

again, but her passion for him had cooled. He sought in vain to renew

the old relations. They spent their last evening together at a concert,

and in this moment of adieu to her he had loved so passionately he saw

for the first time the one who was destined to be his wife. This was

Caroline Brandt, who was the solo singer on the occasion. A few days

later his opera “Sylvana” was put in rehearsal. Gretchen was engaged

at the theatre, but she refused to sing. The title rôle was given to

Caroline Brandt, and it was due mainly to her efforts that the opera

was successful. The composer was loudly called for at the close, and

Caroline led him forward to receive the applause of the people. As his

son says:—

“Little did the youth then know that the hand which clasped his was

one day to be his own for life; that from that hand he was destined

to receive his life’s greatest happiness.”

Many tribulations, however, were in store for Weber before

he reached that important event in his life.

His prospects meanwhile were brightening. We next find him in Munich,

with his new opera “Abu Hassan.” Its rehearsals brought him in contact

with the female artists and with a crowd of admirers who lavished

their blandishments upon him. He passed a gay life among them; but the

general result could not have been very favorable, for in his diary at

this time he constantly writes: “All women are worthless,” (“All are

bad alike.” From a musical point of view, however, female influence

added to his productivity and inspired his work. About this time he

paid a visit to the Bavarian minister at Jegisdorf, and while there

wrote his brilliant scena and aria from “Athalie,” for the singer

Frau Peyermann, an inmate of the house, to whose charms Weber was

peculiarly susceptible. Had his visit been a prolonged one, the destiny

of Caroline Brandt might have been disturbed; for his next work for the

singer was the “Künstler’s Liebesforderung” “The Artist’s Declaration

of Love”), one of the most beautiful of all his songs. Weber next

appears in Prague as opera-director, busy with the rehearsals of

Spontini’s “Cortez.” In the troupe was a dancer named Brunetti, who had

been married for many years to a woman who had risen from the ballet to

light operatic rôles. Weber’s son says of her:—

“She was the mother of several children, but still possessed a

considerable charm in her fine, plump figure, and her beautiful blue

eyes. She was as full of the absurdest tricks and caprices as she

was lively and impetuous in temperament; and that her reputation of

being a mistress of all the finest arts of coquetry did not belie

her, Weber had soon to learn to his cost. Thérèse Brunetti was fond

of attending the operatic rehearsals, even when not herself employed.

On these occasions Weber was frequently thrown in her way; and he

soon conceived for the handsome, seductive woman a passion which

seemed to have deprived his otherwise clear mind of all common sense

and reason, and which neither the flood of administrative affairs nor

the cold breath of duty could extinguish. Vain were all his efforts

to conceal it. In a very short time it became the topic of general

remark; excited the ridicule or grave anxieties of his friends;

involved him in a thousand disagreeable positions; robbed him of

the most precious treasures of a heart rich in love; lowered his

moral character, without the slightest compensating advantage to his

artistic career; and wellnigh dragged him down into an abyss beyond

hope of rescue.”

There is no doubt that Weber was thoroughly infatuated with this woman,

and there is equally no doubt that she led him a life of torment.

His diary is full of his troubles growing out of this relation, and

lamentations over her unworthiness and his own folly; but still she

kept him in slavery to her charms. His deliverance, however, was near

at hand. Caroline Brandt arrived in Prague, and on the 1st of January,

1814, appeared on the stage under Weber’s direction. I take the story

of her _début_ and what followed from his son’s biography:—

“Caroline Brandt was small and plump in figure, with beautiful,

expressive gray eyes and fair wavy hair, and a peculiar liveliness in

all her movements. Her first appearance on the stage at Prague at

once decided her position in that capital.

“The honor of a recall before the curtain—an honor in those days

seldom bestowed—was awarded to her; and from the first, many of her

competitors, among whom was naturally Thérèse Brunetti, began to

look on her askance. This feeling of jealousy was soon increased.

When introduced by Weber into the houses of Count Colowrat, Prince

Lobkowitz, and others of the first families of Prague, she was

welcomed there with the distinction due not only to her great

artistic merits and her innate charms, but to the purity and worth

of her moral character. Weber was thus thrown greatly in her

company. He could not but feel the magic power of so fascinating

a woman; he could not but draw comparisons, little by little,

between the worthless object of his passion,—to whom, by a strange

coincidence, Caroline Brandt bore a vague resemblance in fresher,

younger form,—and this pure, bright, artless creature. Still, during

the commencement of the year 1814 no traces are to be found of

any diminution of his passion for the coquettish, artful Thérèse

Brunetti. He suffered bitterly, it is true, from her deceptions, her

sordidness, her infidelities; but his heart yearned for love, and

clung with desperation to the rotten plank on which he had stored

all his hopes of requited affection. In the months of January and

February there still appear in his note-book such remarks as, ‘I

was very sad; but she was good to me, and I was content.’ ‘I found

Calina with Thérèse, and I could scarce conceal the fearful rage that

burned in me.’ ‘No joy without her, and yet with her only sorrow!’

“But the unworthy bond was at last to be broken; and the release was

effected by two comparatively trifling circumstances. The tender

lover, on the birthday of the object of his passion, had prepared for

her a present, consisting of a gold watch, to which were appended a

variety of trinkets, all chosen with symbolical reference to his deep

affection. At the same time he had ordered her a dish of oysters,

then a rare and costly delicacy in Prague. To the valuable watch the

fair Thérèse paid little heed, still less to the profound meaning

of the symbolical trinkets. She flung herself upon the oysters with

a gluttony which disgusted the sentimental lover. On a sudden the

scales fell from his eyes. The other circumstance was not perhaps

so trifling. Weber had long remarked, with all the pangs of the

most fearful jealousy, the marked attentions paid by Thérèse to a

certain Calina, often alluded to in his notes,—a man of substance.

Although this affair had become a matter of town talk and scandal,

the infatuated adorer had still followed in the train of the delusive

woman, until she herself announced to him, with the utmost coolness,

that she had been offered, with her husband, an apartment in Calina’s

house, and had accepted it. This utter want of delicacy of feeling

toward him revolted Weber. For once disdain overmastered passion.

Still more irritated was he when he learned the foul advice given by

Thérèse to Caroline Brandt, for whom the banker Kleinwächter showed a

preference. ‘Hold him fast,’ had said the worldly-minded woman; ‘he

is worth the trouble, for he is rich.’ All this might have failed in

opening the eyes of a man so utterly blinded by mad passion, had he

not had a little physician by his side, who had the best means of

curing his disorder by the sweetest homœopathic medicaments, which

doubtless had already begun to work their spell.”

It was not long before his passion for Thérèse Brunetti was

extinguished. Caroline charmed him more and more as he became

acquainted with her; and at last he was allowed to pay his court to

her, not, however, without rousing the demon of jealousy in Thérèse.

She used every wile and fascination to gain him back. It was a long,

hard struggle; but she failed. But now a fresh trouble arose; for

Caroline was of a jealous disposition also, and the knowledge of his

past relation to Thérèse, as well as the sight of her efforts to

beguile him, very nearly ended the new love as well as the composer.

Between the two charmers he was prostrated with trouble and bodily

ailments, which had this good effect, however, that they removed him

from the neighborhood of Thérèse’s fascinations. By the advice of

his friends he went to the baths of Friedland, and was thus released

from the one tyrant and was able to devote himself more assiduously

to the other. His ardent letters to Caroline soon smoothed over all

difficulties, and removed her doubts of him for several weeks. They

arose once more, however, before he returned to Prague, when she heard

that he was again the centre of an admiring group. She tormented him

with a letter on the subject, to which he answered:—

“Be pacified. The attention ladies show me is but the amusement or

the affectation of the hour. There is no thought of love in it, my

child. You must not suppose all other women have the same bad taste

as you. The embraces of dear old Mamma Beer can surely be no reproach

to me. My lips, eyes, and ears might all be subjected to the most

inquisitorial examination.”

Thus the two lovers were harassed by storm after storm. At last came a

period of rest. Then scandal began to assail Caroline. She was charged

with maintaining improper connections with Weber. To rescue her from

this cowardly assault, he implored her to marry him at once. Acting

upon the advice of her mother, she replied that she must have time to

reflect whether she was ready to give up her art. Her answer led to a

bitter quarrel between them, which was still further intensified by

a fresh fit of jealousy on her part, owing to the alleged attentions

which he had bestowed upon an actress named Christine Böhler, though

there were no grounds for her suspicions. Overwhelmed with his

troubles, he precipitately left Prague and went to Munich. During his

stay in that city he received a letter from Caroline saying that it was

best the engagement between them should be severed. He hurried back to

Prague, and at their very first meeting the tie was renewed, never to

be broken again; and with her consent public announcement was made of

their formal engagement. From this moment his creative power reasserted

itself, and song after song came from his pen, inspired by her love,

while new positions of honor and distinction were offered him.

From this time also her influence is clearly apparent upon his musical

work, particularly in his masterpiece, that flower of German operas,

“Der Freischütz.” He consulted her constantly, both in the preparation

of the libretto and of the score; and her suggestions heightened its

beauty and wonderful dramatic power. He called her his “public with

two eyes,” and when it was finished he said to her in a note:—

“The whole has now a far better effect, and I must thank you for

that, my poppet. Your ideas were bold, but they have succeeded.”

On the 4th of November, 1818, the fête-day of the affianced pair, they

were married at Prague, and on that day he writes in his diary:—

“May God bless our union, and grant me power and strength to make my

beloved Lina as happy and contented as my inmost heart would desire!

May his mercy lead me in all my doings!”

Though she was still occasionally harassed by jealous doubts of him

when he was absent from her, their life was a very happy one.

In 1826, shattered in health, he left for London, whence he was

destined never to return. As his wife heard the carriage door close, on

the cold winter morning that he left home, she rushed to her room, sank

upon her knees, and cried out in the bitterness of her soul, “It is his

coffin I heard closed upon him.” The only tie between them now was that

of correspondence. His son says:—

“Nothing can be more touching than these letters, amounting in all to

fifty-three, in which the sufferer was always striving to conceal,

as far as he could, his sufferings; the anxious woman, left behind,

always repressing her own bitter anguish lest it should increase the

other’s sorrow.”

In another place his son says:—

“On the morning after the first representation of ‘Oberon,’ Weber lay

exhausted in his easy-chair, when Fürstenau entered his room with a

new potion. ‘Go, go!’ murmured the sufferer. ‘No doctor’s tinkering

can help me now; the machine is shattered. But, ah! would but God in

his mercy grant that it might hold together till I could embrace my

Lina and my boys once more!’”

On the evening of the 2d of June he wrote his last letter to his wife:—

“What a joy, my own dear darling, your letter gave me! What a

happiness to me to know that you are well! As this letter requires

no answer, it will be a short one. What a comfort it is not to have

to answer.... God bless you all, and keep you well. Oh! were I but

amongst you all again! I kiss you with all my heart and soul, my

dearest one. Preserve all your love for me, and think with pleasure

on him who loves thee above all, thy Carl.”

Two days later he called his friends about him, and with solemn

earnestness turned to them and murmured, “God reward you all for

your kind love to me.” One by one they sorrowfully left the room.

Fürstenau helped him to retire. He gave him his thanks, and then with

a kindly smile illuminating his face said, “Now let me sleep.” They

were his last words. The next morning he was found dead. On the 14th of

December, 1844, the body of the master reached Dresden, and was borne

to the cemetery chapel amid thousands of people, who lined the streets

and stood with uncovered heads paying silent homage to his memory. His

son says:—

“In the richly decorated chapel of the cemetery, all the ladies of

the theatre, with Schröder-Devrient at their head, awaited the body

and covered the coffin with laurels. The ceremony was at an end. The

torches were extinguished; the crowd dispersed. But by the light of

two candles still burning on the altar might be seen the form of a

small, now middle-aged woman, who had flung herself upon the bier,

whilst a pale young man knelt praying by her side.”

The next day the body was placed in the family vault; and Richard

Wagner, the rising genius of German music, spoke a solemn and eloquent

tribute of praise over the remains of the composer of “Euryanthe,”

“Freischütz,” and “Oberon.”

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RICHARD WAGNER.

I believe in God, Mozart, and Beethoven, and in their disciples and

apostles. I believe in the Holy Ghost and the truth of Art,—one and

indivisible. I believe that this art proceeds from God, and dwells

in the hearts of all enlightened men. I believe that all may become

blessed through this art.—WAGNER.

The career of Richard Wagner, the musician of the future, the

stanch protester against all that is artificial and conventional in

music, poet, littérateur, and dramatist, the great high-priest who

wedded music and poetry in a union now known the world over as the

music-drama, was strongly influenced by the power of woman. His father,

who was superintendent of police at Leipsic, died shortly after the

composer’s birth; and his mother, who, Dr. Nohl says, was “a woman of

a very refined and spiritual nature,” then married an actor, Ludwig

Geyer, who had been an intimate friend of the family. The step-father

died before the boy had reached his seventh year, but he had already

recognized his artistic talent and had intended he should be a

portrait-painter. In his last sickness, however, he heard him playing

melodies from “Der Freischütz” in an adjoining room, and exclaimed,

“Can it be that he has a talent for music?” He commended him to his

mother, and she did all in her power to realize almost the last words

of her husband: “I would have made something out of him.”

But little has been made known of Wagner’s first wife, Minna Planer,

an actress whom he married Nov. 24, 1836; but from that little it is

certain that she was not a helpmate to him in any sense. She was an

ordinary woman, having little knowledge of music and still less taste

for it. She could not appreciate his ambitions, or understand the great

purpose of his life. She died in 1866; but during her last years she

had lived separately from him at Munich, supported by an allowance

which he settled upon her. At this time Wagner was living in retirement

at Triebscheu, near Lucerne, where Frau von Bülow, wife of the eminent

pianist, Hans von Bülow, who keenly sympathized with his artistic

aspirations, ministered to his domestic comforts. “This man, so

completely controlled by his demon, should always have had at his side

a high-minded, appreciative woman, a wife that would have understood

the war that was constantly waged within him,” is the judgment passed

on his first wife by one of her own friends. This woman he found in

Cosima von Bülow; and it certainly is an extraordinary tribute to Von

Bülow’s generosity, unselfishness, and self-sacrifice that he himself

acknowledged the fitness of their union.

In 1834 Liszt, the pianist and composer, was the centre of a brilliant

musical and literary coterie in Paris, which comprised such members as

Chopin, George Sand, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and others almost equally

noted. Among them was the Countess d’Agoult, better known by her _nom

de plume_, “Daniel Stern.” His acquaintance with her ripened into an

attachment of familiarity, which was at first attractive to Liszt and

subsequently repugnant. He was considerably her junior, and she was

already married; but she threw herself upon his protection, deserted

her family, and became his travelling companion. She accompanied him

in his years of travel through Italy and Germany, but in 1840 the

attachment began to weaken. A short time before, he had written to a

friend:—

“When the ideal form of a woman floats before your entranced soul,—a

woman whose heaven-born charms bear no allurements for the senses,

but only wing the soul to devotion,—if you see at her side a youth

sincere and faithful in heart, weave these forms into a moving story

of love, and give it the title, ‘On the Shores of the Lake of Como.’”

The romance was a brief one. The Countess was speedily off to Paris

again with her children, for during their attachment a son and two

daughters had been born to them. The son, and one of the daughters, who

married M. Émile Ollivier, the French statesman, are dead. The second

daughter was Cosima, so named in memory of Como, who subsequently

married Von Bülow. She was afterward divorced from him, and, as has

already been said, met Wagner at Triebscheu. She was in complete

sympathy with him, understood him, inspired him, and proved a blessing

to him. They were married in 1870; and the first fruit of this

union was the boy Siegfried, to whom the next year he dedicated the

incomparably beautiful “Siegfried Idyl,” which pictures the charming

environments of his childhood at Lucerne. “For the first time in his

life,” says Dr. Nohl, “he secured that complete human happiness which

sustains and animates our powers.” Judith Gautier, in her charming

volume, “Richard Wagner and his Poetical Work from Rienzi to Parsifal,”

gives the following pleasant picture of the family home:—

“At sunset I reached Triebscheu, that consecrated bit of land where

since that time I have passed so many pleasant hours. It was a sort

of promontory, extremely picturesque, jutting into the lake. There

was neither grating nor door; the garden had no defined limits,

and extended indefinitely toward the neighboring mountains. The

exterior of the house was perfectly plain,—gray, with dark tiles;

but in the interior arrangements, full of grace and elegance, one

felt the presence of a woman. Madame Wagner appeared in the midst

of her children, fair, tall, and gracious, with a charming smile,

and tender, dreamy-blue eyes. The sympathy with which she inspired

me from the first moment has never been broken; and our friendship,

already of long standing, has never known a cloud. It was a

delightful evening; the master displayed incomparable animation and

gayety of spirits.”

Never was there a more perfect companionship, perhaps, than that of

Wagner and his wife. Whatever may be thought of the manner in which

the separation from Von Bülow was accomplished, it was unquestionably

in accordance with German law; and the fact that he made no objection

to the separation, or to the subsequent union with Wagner, but on the

other hand acknowledged its peculiar fitness, and that he was and

still is one of the composer’s stanchest and most zealous adherents,

perhaps ought to satisfy the most scrupulous moralist. From the time

that Wagner first met Cosima in Switzerland to the hour of his sudden

death in Venice, his life was crowned with perfect happiness. She is

a woman of rare personal accomplishments and extraordinary magnetic

power, and she drew about her in their Villa Wahnfried a circle of

friends and artists who made the atmosphere congenial and inspiring to

Wagner. She herself, however, was the magician who exerted the most

powerful influence upon him. She advised, consoled, encouraged, and

inspired him. He lived always by her side, and he died in her arms, she

not knowing that the beloved one had passed away, but fancying that he

was asleep. After a life of strife such as few men have to encounter;

of hatred more intense and love more devoted than usually falls to the

lot of humanity; of restless energy, indomitable courage, passionate

devotion to the loftiest standards of art, and unquestioning allegiance

to the “God that dwelt within his breast,” he rests quietly under the

trees of Villa Wahnfried. Inspired by man’s steadfast courage and a

noble woman’s love, he has lifted the musical art out of its grossness,

artificiality, and vulgarity, invested it with a new body, and animated

it with a new and pure spirit.

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