anything?”
“No. And besides”--with resigned contempt--“I don’t suppose you could
sing at sight if we had.”
“Excuse me, I will sing at sight anything you give me.”
“Well, since we have no music, do you know anything by heart?”
“Yes. I know the _Danaïdes_, _Stratonice_, the _Vestal_, _Œdipus_, the
two _Iphigenias_, _Orpheus_, _Armida_----”
“There, that will do! That will do! what a devil of a memory you must
have! Since you are such a prodigy, give us “_Elle m’a prodigué_” from
Sacchini’s _Œdipus_. Can you accompany him, Michel?”
“Certainly. In what key?”
“E flat. Do you want the recitative too?”
“Yes. Let’s have it all.”
And the glorious melody:
“Antigone alone is left me,”
rolled forth, while the poor listeners, with pitifully down-cast faces,
glanced at each other recognising that, though I might be bad, they
were infinitely worse.
The following day I was engaged at a salary of fifty francs a month.
And this was the result of my parents’ efforts to save me from the
bottomless pit! Instead of a cursed dramatic composer I had become
a damned theatre chorus-singer, excommunicated with bell, book and
candle. Surely my last state was worse than my first!
One success brought others. The smiling skies rained down two new
pupils and a fellow-provincial, Antoine Charbonnel, whom I met when
he came up to study as an apothecary. Neither of us having any money,
we--like Walter in the _Gambler_--cried out together:
“What! no money either? My dear fellow, let’s go into partnership.”
We rented two small rooms in the Rue de la Harpe and, since Antoine
was used to the management of retorts and crucibles, we made him cook.
Every morning we went marketing and I, to his intense disgust, would
insist on bringing back our purchases under my arm without trying to
hide them. Oh, pharmaceutical gentility! it nearly landed us in a
quarrel.
We lived like princes--exiled ones--on thirty francs a month each.
Never before in Paris had I been so comfortable. I began to develop
extravagant ideas, bought a piano--_such_ a thing! it cost a hundred
and ten francs. I knew I could not play it, but I like trying chords
now and then. Besides, I love to be surrounded by musical instruments
and, were I only rich enough, would work in company with a grand piano,
two or three Erard harps, some wind instruments and a whole crowd of
Stradivarius violins and ’cellos.
I decorated my room with framed portraits of my musical gods, and
Antoine, who was as clever as a monkey with his fingers (not a very
good simile, by-the-way, since monkeys only destroy) made endless
little useful things--amongst others a net with which, in spring-time,
he caught quails at Montrouge, to vary our Spartan fare.
But the humour of the whole situation lay in the fact that, although I
was out every evening at the theatre, Antoine never guessed--during
the whole time we lived together--that I had the ill-luck to _tread
the boards_ and, not being exactly proud of my position, I did not see
the force of enlightening him. He supposed I was giving lessons at the
other end of Paris.
It seems as if his silly pride and mine were about on a par. Yet no;
mine was not all foolish vanity. In spite of my parents’ harshness,
for nothing in the world would I have given them the intense pain of
knowing how I gained my living. So I held my tongue and they only heard
of my theatrical career--as did Antoine Charbonnel--some seven or eight
years after it ended, through biographical notices in some of the
papers.
VIII
FAILURE
It was at this time that I wrote the _Francs-Juges_ and, after it,
_Waverley_. Even then, I was so ignorant of the scope of certain
instruments that, having written a solo in D flat for the trombones in
the introduction to the _Francs-Juges_, I got into a sudden panic lest
it should be unplayable.
However one of the trombone players at the opera, to whom I showed it,
set my mind at rest.
“On the contrary,” said he, “D flat is a capital key for the trombone;
that passage ought to be most effective.”
Overjoyed, I went home with my head so high in the air that I could
not look after my feet, whereby I sprained my ankle. I never hear that
thing now without feeling my foot ache; probably other people get the
ache in their heads.
Neither of my masters could help me in the least in orchestration--it
was not in their line. Reicha did certainly know the capacity of most
wind instruments, but I do not think he knew anything of the effect of
grouping them in different ways; besides it had nothing to do with his
department, which was counterpoint and fugue. Even now it is not taught
at the Conservatoire.
However, before being engaged at the Nouveautés I had made the
acquaintance of a friend of Gardel, the well-known ballet-master,
and he often gave me pit tickets for the opera, so that I could go
regularly.
I always took the score and read it carefully during the performance,
so that, in time, I got to know the sound--the voice, as it were--of
each instrument and the part it filled; although, of course, I learnt
nothing of either its mechanism or compass.
Listening so closely, I also found out for myself the intangible bond
between each instrument and true musical expression.
The study of Beethoven, Weber and Spontini and their systems; searching
enquiry into the gifts of each instrument; careful investigation of
rare or unused combinations; the society of _virtuosi_ who kindly
explained to me the powers of their several instruments, and a certain
amount of instinct have done the rest for me.
Reicha’s lectures were wonderfully helpful, his demonstrations being
absolutely clear because he invariably gave the reason for each rule.
A thoroughly open-minded man, he believed in progress, thereby coming
into frequent collision with Cherubini, whose respect for the masters
of harmony was simply slavish.
Still, in composition Reicha kept strictly to rule. Once I asked his
candid opinion on those figures, written entirely on _Amen_ or _Kyrie
eleison_, with which the Requiems of the old masters bristle.
“They are utterly barbarous!” he cried hotly.
“Then, Monsieur, why do you write them?”
“Oh, confound it all! because everyone else does.”
Miseria!
Now Lesueur was more consistent. He considered these monstrosities more
like the vociferations of a horde of drunkards than a sacred chorus,
and he took good care to avoid them. The few found in his works have
not the slightest resemblance to them, and indeed his
“Quis enarrabit cœlorum gloriam”
is a masterpiece of form, style and dignity.
Those composers who, by writing such abominations, have truckled to
custom, have prostituted their intelligence and unpardonably insulted
their divine muse.
Before coming to France Reicha had been in Bonn with Beethoven, but
I do not think they had much in common. He set great value on his
mathematical studies.
“Thanks to them,” he used to say, “I am master of my mind. To them I
owe it that my vivid imagination has been tamed and brought within
bounds, thereby doubling its power.”
I am not at all sure that his theory was correct. It is quite possible
that his love for intricate and thorny musical problems made him lose
sight of the real aim of music, and that what the eye gained by his
curious and ingenious solution of difficulties the ear did not lose in
melody and true musical expression.
For praise or blame he cared nothing; he lived only to forward his
pupils, on whom he lavished his utmost care and attention.
At first I could see that he found my everlasting questions a perfect
nuisance, but in time he got to like me. His wind instrumental
quintettes were fashionable for a time in Paris; they are interesting
but cold. On the other hand, I remember hearing a magnificent duet,
from his opera _Sappho_, full of fire and passion.
* * * * *
When the Conservatoire examinations of 1827 came on I went up again,
and fortunately passed the preliminary, thereby becoming eligible for
the general competition.
The subject set was Orpheus torn by the Bacchantes. I think my version
was fair, but the incompetent pianist who was supposed to do duty for
an orchestra (such is the incredible arrangement at these contests) not
being able to make head or tail of my score, the powers that were--to
wit, Cherubini, Päer, Lesueur, Berton, Boïeldieu and Catel, the musical
section of the Institute--decided that my music was impracticable, and
I was put out of court.
So, after my Kreutzer experience of selfish jealousy, I now had a
sample of wooden-headed sticking to the letter of the law. In thus
taking away my modest chance of distinction did none of them think of
the consequences of driving me to despair like this?
I had got a fortnight’s leave from the Nouveautés for the competition;
when it was over I should have again to take up my burden. But just as
the time expired I fell ill with a quinsy that nearly made an end of me.
Antoine was always trotting after grisettes and left me almost entirely
alone. I believe I should have died without help had I not one night,
in a fit of desperation, stuck a pen-knife into the abscess that choked
me. This somewhat unscientific operation saved me, and I was beginning
to mend when my father--no doubt touched by my steady patience and
perhaps anxious as to my means of livelihood--wrote and restored me my
allowance.
Thanks to this unhoped-for kindness, I gave up chorus-singing--no
small relief, since, apart from the actual bodily fatigue, the idiotic
music I had to suffer from would soon have either given me cholera or
turned me into a drivelling lunatic.
Free from my dreary trade I gave myself up, with redoubled zest, to
my Opera evenings and to the study of dramatic music. I never thought
of instrumental, since the only concerts I had heard were the cold
and mean Opera performances, of which I was not greatly enamoured.
Haydn and Mozart, played by an insufficient orchestra in too large a
building, made about as much effect as if they had been given on the
_plaine de Grenelle_. Beethoven, two of whose symphonies I had read,
seemed a sun indeed, but a sun obscured by heavy clouds. Weber’s name
was unknown to me, while as for Rossini----
The very mention of him and of the fanaticism of fashionable Paris for
him put me in a rage that is not lessened by the obvious fact that he
is the antithesis of Gluck and Spontini. Believing these great masters
perfect, how could I tolerate his puerilities, his unmerciful big
drum, his constant repetition of one form of cadence, his contempt
for great traditions? My prejudice blinded me even to this exquisite
instrumentation of the _Barbiere_ (without the big drum too!) and I
longed to blow up the _Théâtre Italien_ with all its Rossinian audience
and so put an end to it at one fell swoop. When I met one of the tribe
I eyed him with a Shylockian scowl.
“Miscreant!” I growled between my teeth, “would that I might impale
thee on a red-hot iron.”
Time has not changed my opinion, and though I think I can refrain from
blowing up a theatre and impaling people on hot irons, I quite agree
with our great painter, Ingres, who, speaking of some of Rossini’s
work, said:
“It is the music of a vulgar-minded man.”
IX
A NIGHT AT THE OPERA
Here is a picture of one of my opera evenings.
It was a serious business for which I prepared by reading over and
studying whatever was to be given.
My faithful pit friends and I had but one religion, with one god,
Gluck, and I was his high priest. Our fanaticism for our favourites was
only equalled by our frantic hatred of all composers whom we judged to
be without the pale.
Did one of my fellow-worshippers tremble or waver in his faith,
promptly would I drag him off to the opera to retract--even going so
far sometimes as to pay for his ticket. On one special seat would I
place my victim, saying, “Now for pity’s sake don’t move. Nowhere else
can you hear so well--I know because I have tried the right place for
every opera.”
Then I would begin to expound, reading and explaining obscure passages
as I went along; we were always in very good time, first to get the
places we wanted; next, so as not to miss the opening notes of the
overture; lastly, in order to taste to the uttermost the exciting,
thrilling expectation of a great pleasure of which one knows the
realisation will exceed one’s hopes. The gradual filling of the
orchestra--at first as dreary as a stringless harp; the distribution
of the parts--an anxious moment this, for the opera might have been
changed; the joy of reading the hoped-for title on the desks of the
double-basses, which were nearest to us; or the horror of seeing it
was replaced by some wretched little drivel like Rousseau’s _Devin du
Village_--when we would rush out in a body, swearing at all and sundry.
Poor Rousseau! What would he have said if he could have heard our
curses? He, who thought more of his feeble little opera than of all
the masterpieces through which his name lives. How could he foresee
that it would some day be extinguished for ever by a huge powdered
periwig, thrown at the heroine’s feet by some irreverent scoffer.
As it happened, I was present that very night and, naturally, kind
friends credited me with this little unrehearsed effect. I am really
quite innocent, I even remember being quite as angry about it as I was
amused--so I do not think I should or could have done such a thing.
Since that night of joyous memory the poor _Devin_ has appeared no more.
But to go back to my story.
Reassured on the subject of the performance, I continued my preachment,
singing the leading motifs, explaining the orchestration and doing my
best to work my little gang up to a pitch of enthusiasm, to the great
wonderment of our neighbours who--mostly simple country folks--were so
wrought upon by my speeches that they quite expected to be carried away
by their emotions, wherein they were usually grievously disappointed.
I also named each member of the orchestra as he came in and gave a
dissertation on his playing until I was stopped short by the three
knocks behind the scenes. Then we sat with beating hearts awaiting
the signal from Kreutzer or Valentino’s raised baton. After that, no
humming, no beating time on the part of our neighbours. Our rule was
Draconian.
Knowing every note of the score, I would have let myself be chopped
in pieces rather than let the conductor take liberties with it. Wait
quietly and write my expostulations? Not exactly! No half-measures for
me!
There and then I would publicly denounce the sinners and my remarks
went straight home.
For instance, I noticed one day that in _Iphigenia in Tauris_ cymbals
had been added to the Scythian dance, whereas Gluck had only employed
strings, and in the Orestes recitative, the trombones, that come in so
perfectly appropriately, were left out altogether.
I decided that if these barbarisms were repeated I would let them know
it and I lay in wait for my cymbals.
They appeared.
I waited, although boiling over with rage, until the end of the
movement, then, in the moment’s silence that followed, I yelled:
“Who dares play tricks with Gluck and put cymbals where there are none?”
The murmuring around may be imagined. The public, not being
particularly critical, could not conceive why that young idiot in the
pit should get so excited over so little. But it was worse when the
absence of the trombones made itself evident in the recitative.
Again that fatal voice was heard:
“Where are those trombones? This is simply outrageous!”
The astonishment of audience and orchestra were fairly matched by
Valentino’s very natural anger. I heard afterwards that the unlucky
trombones were only obeying orders; their parts were quite correctly
written.
After that night the proper readings were restored, the cymbals were
silent, the trombones spoke; I was serene.
De Pons, who was just as crazy as I on this point, helped me to put
several other points straight but once we went too far and dragged in
the public at our heels.
A violin solo advertised for Baillot was left out. We clamoured
for it furiously, the pit fired up, then the whole house rose and
howled for Baillot. The curtain fell on the confusion, the musicians
fled precipitately, the audience dashed into the orchestra smashing
everything they could lay hands on and only stopping when there was
nothing left to smash.
In vain did I cry:
“Messieurs, messieurs! what are you doing? To break the instruments is
too barbarous. That’s Father Chénié’s glorious double-bass with its
diabolic tone.”
But they were too far gone to listen, and the havoc was complete.
This was the bad side of our unofficial criticism; the good side was
our wild enthusiasm when all went well. How we applauded anything
superlative that no one noticed, such as a fine bass, a happy
modulation, a telling note of the oboe! The public took us for embryo
_claqueurs_, the _claque_ leader, who knew better and whose little
plans were upset, tried to wither us with thunderbolt glances, but we
were bomb-proof.
There is no such enthusiasm in France nowadays, not even in the
Conservatoire, its last remaining stronghold.
Here is the funniest scene I ever remember at the opera. I had swept
off Leon de Boissieux, an unwilling proselyte, to hear _Œdipus_;
however, nothing but billiards appealed to him, and, finding him
utterly impervious to the woes of Antigone and her father, I stepped
over into a seat in front, giving him up in despair.
But he had a music-loving neighbour and this is what I heard, while my
young man was peeling an orange and casting apprehensive glances at the
other man, who was evidently in a state of wild excitement.
“Sir, for pity’s sake, do try to be calm.”
“Impossible! It’s killing me! It is so terrible, so overwhelming!”
“My good man, you will be ill if you go on like this. You really
shouldn’t.”
“Oh! oh! Leave me alone! Oh!”
“Come! come! Do cheer up a bit. Remember it is nothing but a play.
Here, take a piece of my orange.”
“It’s sublime----”
“Yes, it’s Maltese----”
“What glorious art!”
“Don’t say ‘No.’”
“Oh, sir! what music!”
“Yes, it’s not bad.”
By this time the opera had got to the lovely trio, “Sweet Moments,” and
the exquisite delicacy of the simple air overcame me too. I hid my face
in my hands, and tears trickled between my fingers. I might have been
plunged in the depths of woe.
As the trio ended two strong arms lifted me off my seat, nearly
crushing my breast-bone in; the enthusiast, recognising one
fellow-worshipper amongst the cold-blooded lot around, hugged me
furiously, crying:
“B-b-b-by Jove, sir! isn’t it beautiful?”
“Are you a musician?”
“No, but I am as fond of it as if I were.”
Then, regardless of surrounding giggles and of my orange-devouring
neophyte, we exchanged names and addresses in a whisper.
He was an engineer, a mathematician! Where, the devil, will true
musical perception next find a lodging, I wonder? His name was Le
Tessier, but we never met again.
X
WEBER
Into the midst of this stormy student life of mine came the revelation
of Weber, by means of a miserable, distorted version of _Der
Freyschütz_, called _Robin des Bois_, which was performed at the Odéon.
The orchestra was good, the chorus fair, the soloists simply appalling.
One wretched woman alone, Madame Pouilley, by the imperturbably wooden
way in which she went through her part--even that glorious air in the
second act--would have been enough to wreck the whole opera. Small
wonder that it took me a long while to unearth all the beauty of its
hidden treasures.
The first night it was received with hisses and laughter, the next
the audience began to see something in the Huntsmen’s Chorus, and
they let the rest pass. Then they rather fancied the Bridesmaid’s
Chorus and Agatha’s Prayer, half of which was cut out. A glimmering
notion that Max’s great aria was fairly dramatic followed; finally it
burst upon them that the Wolf’s Glen scene was really quite comic; so
all Paris rushed to see this misshapen horror, the Odéon got rich,
and Castilblaze netted a hundred thousand francs for destroying a
masterpiece.
Now I must own frankly that I was getting rather tired of high tragedy,
in spite of my conservatism, and, chopped about as it was, the sweet
wild savour of this woodland pastoral, its dainty grace and tender
melancholy opened to me a new world of music.
I deserted the opera in favour of the Odéon, where I had the _entrée_
to the orchestra, and soon knew _Der Freyschütz_ (according to
Castilblaze) by heart.
More than twenty years have passed since Weber himself passed through
Paris for the first and last time. He was on his way to his London
death-bed, and breathlessly I followed in his track, hoping and longing
to meet him face to face.
One morning Lesueur said:
“Why were you not here five minutes sooner? Weber has been playing our
French scores by heart to me.”
A few hours later in a music shop--
“Whom do you think we had here just now? Why, Weber!”
At the Odéon people were saying:
“Weber has just gone by. He is up in one of the boxes.”
It was maddening--I, alone, never saw him. Unlike Shakespeare’s
apparitions, he was visible to all but one.
Too obscure to dare to write, without a friend who could introduce me,
he passed out of my world.
Ah, why do not the thrice-gifted ones of this world know of the
passionate love and devotion their works inspire! If they could but
divine the suppressed admiration of a few faithful hearts! Would they
not gladly gather these chosen disciples about them to become a bulwark
against the shafts of envy, hatred, malice, and luke-warm tolerance of
which a thoughtless world makes them the target!
Weber was justly angry when he found out how Castilblaze--veterinary
surgeon of music--had butchered his beautiful work, and he published a
complaint before leaving Paris. Castilblaze actually had the audacity
to play the injured innocent, and to say that it was entirely owing to
his adaptation that _Freyschütz_ had succeeded at all!
The wretch!----yet a poor sailor gets fifty lashes for the slightest
insubordination.
Exactly the same thing had been done a few years earlier with Mozart’s
_Magic Flute_. It had been botched into a ghastly _pot-pourri_ by
Lachnith--whom I hereby pillory with Castilblaze--and given as the
_Mysteries of Isis_.
Thus mocked, travestied, deprived of a limb here, an eye there--twisted
and maimed--these two men of genius were introduced to the French
public.
How is it that they put up with these atrocities?
Mozart assassinated by Lachnith.
Weber by Castilblaze--who did the same for Gluck, Mozart, Rossini, and
Beethoven.
Beethoven’s symphonies “corrected” by Fétis, by Kreutzer, and by
Habeneck (of this I have more to say).
Molière and Corneille chopped up by Théâtre Français demons.
Shakespeare “arranged” for performance in England by Colley Cibber! The
list is endless.
No, a thousand times no! No man living has a right to try and destroy
the individuality of another, to force him to adopt a style not his
own, and to give up his natural point of view. If a man be commonplace,
let him remain so; if he be great--a choice spirit set above his
fellows--then, in the name of all the gods, bow humbly before him, and
let him stand erect and alone in his glory.
I know that Garrick improved _Romeo and Juliet_ by putting his
exquisite, pathetic ending in the place of Shakespeare’s; but who are
the miscreants who doctored _King Lear_, _Hamlet_, _The Tempest_,
_Richard the Third_?
That all comes from Garrick’s example. Every mean scribbler thinks he
can give points to Shakespeare.
But to go back to music. At the last sacred concerts, after Kreutzer
had experimentalised by making cuts in one Beethoven symphony, did not
Habeneck follow suit by dropping out several instruments in another,
and M. Costa, in London, try all sorts of weird conclusions with big
drums, ophicleides, and trombones in _Don Giovanni_ and _Figaro_? Well!
if conductors lead the way, who can blame the small fry for following
after?
But is not this the ruin of Art? Ought not we, who love and honour her,
who are jealous for the prescriptive rights of human intellect, to
hound down and annihilate the transgressor; to cry aloud: