I may as well own that I am short of money. My father has taken
another whim and sends me nothing, so I could not afford the
thirty or forty francs for the copying. I could not do it myself,
as I was shut up in the Institute. That abominable but necessary
competition! My only chance of getting the filthy lucre, without
which life is impossible.
‘Auri sacra fames quid non mortalia pectora cogis!’
My father would not even pay my expenses in the Institute. M.
Lesueur did so for me.”
“_August._--Forgive my negligence. My only excuses are the Academy
competition and the new pangs of my despised love. My heart can
be likened only to a virgin forest, struck and kindled by the
thunderbolt; now and again the fire smoulders, then comes the
whirlwind, and in a second the trees are a mass of living, hissing
flame and all is death and desolation.
“I will spare you a description of the latest blows.
“That shameful competition!
“Boïeldieu says I go further than Beethoven, and he cannot even
understand Beethoven; and that, to write like that, _I must have
the most hearty contempt for the Academicians!_ Auber told me much
the same thing, and added, ‘You hate the commonplace, but you need
never be afraid of writing platitudes. The best advice I can give
you is to write as insipidly as you can, and when you have got
something that sounds to you horribly flat, _you will have just
what they want!_’
“That is all very well, but when I go writing for butchers and
bakers and candlestick-makers I certainly shall not go to the
passion-haunted, crime-stained Queen of Egypt for a text.”
_To_ FERDINAND HILLER.
“1829.--What is this overwhelming emotion, this intense power of
suffering that is killing me? Ask your guardian angel, that bright
spirit that has opened to you the gate of Heaven. Oh, my friend!
can you believe that I have burnt the manuscript of my prose elegy?
I have Ophelia ever before me; her tears, her tragic voice; the
fire of her glorious eyes burns into my soul--I am so miserable, so
inexpressibly unhappy, oh, my friend!
“I seem to see Beethoven looking down on me with calm severity;
Spontini--safely cured of woes like mine--with his pitying
indulgent smile; Weber from the Elysian Fields, whispers consoling
words into my ear....
“Mad, mad, mad! is this sense for a student of the Institute; a
domino-player of the Café de la Régence?
“Nay, I _will_ live--live for music--the highest thing in life
except true love! Both make me utterly miserable but at least I
shall have lived! Lived, it is true, by suffering, by passion, by
lamentation and by tears--yet I _shall_ have lived! Dear Ferdinand!
a year ago to-day I saw _her_ for the last time. Is there for us a
meeting in another world?
“Ah, me! miserable! Alone! cursed with imagination beyond my
physical strength, torn by unbounded, unsatisfied love!--still, I
have known the great ones of the heaven of music; I have laughed
as I basked in the radiance of their glory! Immortals, stretch out
your hands, raise me to the shelter of your golden clouds that I
may be at rest!
“Voice of Reason:
“‘Peace, fool! ere many years have
passed your pain will be no more.’
Henriette Smithson and
Hector Berlioz
will rest in the oblivion of the grave and other unfortunates will
also suffer and die!” ...
_To_ H. FERRAND.
“_November 1829._--Oh Ferrand! Ferrand! why were you not here for
my concert? Yesterday I was so ill that I could not crawl; to-day
the fire of hell that inspired my _Francs-Juges_ overture, courses
through my veins.
“All my heart, my passion, my love are in that overture.
“After the crowd had dispersed the performers waited for me in the
courtyard and greeted me with wild applause. At the Opera in the
evening it was the same thing--a regular ferment!
“My friend, my friend! Had you but been there!
“But it was more than I could stand, and now I am a prey to the
most awful depression and despair; tears choke me, I long to die.
“After all, there will be a small profit--about a hundred and fifty
francs, of which I must give two-thirds to Gounet, who so kindly
lent it me--I think he is more in need than you. But my debt to you
troubles me, and as soon as I can get together enough to be worth
sending, you shall have it.” ...
* * * * *
“_December._--I am bored! wretched! That is nothing new, but I get
more and more soul-weary, more utterly bored as time goes on. I
devour time as ducks gobble water, in order to live and, like the
ducks, I find nothing but a few scrubby insects for nourishment.
What will become of me! What shall I do!”
_To_ H. FERRAND.
“_January 1830._--I do not know where to turn for money. I have
only two pupils, they bring me in forty-four francs a month; I
still owe you money besides the hundred francs to Gounet--this
eternal penury, these constant debts, even to such old and tried
friends as you, weigh on me terribly. Then again your father still
nurses the mistaken idea that I am a gambler--I, who never touch a
card and have never set foot in a gaming house--and the thought
that he disapproves of our friendship nearly drives me mad. For
pity’s sake, write soon!”
* * * * *
“_February._--Again, without warning and without reason, my
ill-starred passion wakes. She is in London, yet I feel her
presence ever with me. I listen to the beating of my heart, it is
like a sledge-hammer, every nerve in my body quivers with pain.
“Woe upon her! Could she but dream of the poetry, the infinite
bliss of such love as mine, she would fly to my arms, even though
my embrace should be her death.
“I was just going to begin my great symphony (_Episode in an
Artist’s Life_) to depict the course of this infernal love of
mine--but I can write nothing.”
* * * * *
“_May._--Your letter comforts me, dear friend, how good it is to
be blessed with a friend such as you! A man of heart, of soul, of
imagination! How rare that kindred spirits such as ours should meet
and sympathise.
“Words fail to tell the joy your affection gives me. You need not
fear for me with Henriette Smithson. I am no longer in danger
in that quarter; I pity and despise her. She is nothing but a
commonplace woman with an instinct for expressing the tortures
of the soul that she has never felt; she is quite incapable of
appreciating the noble, all-devouring love with which I honoured
her.
“The rehearsals of my symphony begin in three days; all the parts
are copied--there are two thousand three hundred pages. I hope to
goodness we shall have good receipts to pay for it all. The concert
takes place on the 30th May. And you alone will not be there! Even
my father wishes to come. Ah, my symphony!
“I wish the theatre people would somehow plot to get _her_
there--that wretched woman! But she certainly would not go if she
read my programme. She could not but recognise herself. What will
people say? My story is so well known.”
At this time a new influence came into my life which, for a time,
eclipsed my Shakespearian passion.
Hiller, the German composer-pianist, whom I had known intimately ever
since his arrival in Paris, fell violently in love with Marie Moke, a
beautiful and talented girl, who, later on, became one of our greatest
pianists.
Her interest in me was aroused by Hiller’s account of my mental
sufferings, and--so Fate willed--we were thrown much together at a
boarding-school where we both gave lessons--she on the piano and I
on--the guitar! Odd though it be, I still figure in the prospectus of
Madame d’Aubré as professor of that noble instrument.
Meeting Mademoiselle Moke constantly, her dainty beauty and bewitching
mockery of my high-tragedy airs and dismal visage soon turned my
thoughts from my absorbing passion and won her a shrine in my heart.
She was but eighteen!
Hiller, poor fellow, behaved admirably. He recognised that it was Fate,
not treachery on my part and, heart-broken as he was, he wished me
every happiness and left for Frankfort.
This is all I need say of this violent interlude that, by stirring my
senses, turned me aside for a while from the mighty love that really
held my heart. In my Italian journey I will tell of the dramatic
sequel. Mademoiselle Moke nearly proved the proverb that it is not well
to play with fire!
* * * * *
In 1830 the Competition took place later than usual--on the 15th July.
For the fifth time I went up, firmly resolved, if I should fail, to go
no more.
As I finished my cantata the Revolution broke out and the Institute was
a curious sight. Grape shot rattled on the barred doors, cannon balls
shook the façade, women screamed and, in the momentary pauses, the
interrupted swallows took up their sweet, shrill cry. I hurried over
the last pages of my cantata, and on the 29th was free to maraud about
the streets, pistol in hand, with the “blessed riffraff” as Barbier
said.
I shall never forget the look of Paris during those few days. The
frantic bravery of the gutter-snipe, the enthusiasm of the men, the
calm, sad resignation of the Swiss and Royal Guards, the odd pride of
the mob in being “masters of Paris and looting nothing.” One day, just
after this harmonious revolution, I had a strange musical shock.
Going through the Palais Royal, I heard some young men singing a
familiar air; it was my own:
“Forget not our wounded companions, who stood
In the day of distress by our side;
While the moss of the valley grew red with their blood
They stirred not, but conquered and died.”[7]
Not used to such fame I, in great delight, asked the leader whether I
might join in, and incontinently began a hot argument with him as to
the time at which it should be taken. Of course I was not recognised.
As we sang, three of the National Guard handed round their shakos to
collect money for the wounded and there was a welcome deluge of five
franc pieces. The crowd increased and our breathing space became less
and less; we should have ended in being smothered had not a kindly
haberdasher asked us up to her first floor windows, that looked out
upon the covered gallery, whence we could rain down our music upon
the crowd below, as the Pope does his blessing from the balcony of St
Peter’s.
First we gave them the _Marseillaise_. At the opening bar the noisy
crowd stood motionless; at the end of the second verse the same
silence; even so with the third. Irate at their apparent coldness, I
roared out--
“Confound it all! SING!”
And they sang.
Remember, those four or five thousand tightly packed people were--men,
women and children--hot from the barricades, inflamed with lust for
combat, and imagine how their
“Aux armes, citoyens!”
rolled out.
Aghast at the explosion we had provoked, our little band stood silent
as birds after a thunder clap.
I, literally not metaphorically, sank on the floor.
Some time before this I had arranged the _Marseillaise_ for full
orchestra and double chorus and had dedicated it to Rouget de Lisle,
who wrote inviting me to go and see him at Choisy, as he had several
proposals to make to me.
Unfortunately I could not go then, as I was on the point of starting
for Italy, and he died before I returned. I only heard much later that
he had written many fine songs besides the _Marseillaise_ and had also
a libretto for _Othello_ put aside; it is probably this that he wished
to discuss with me.
As soon as peace was patched up and Louis Philippe introduced by
Lafayette as “the best of republics” the Academy started work once more.
And as the judges, thanks to a piece which I have since burnt, believed
me reclaimed from my heresies, they gave me the first prize. Although,
in former years, I had been greatly disappointed at not getting it I
was not in the least pleased when I did.
Of course I appreciated its advantages; my parents’ pride, the kudos,
the freedom for five years from money troubles--yet, knowing the system
on which prizes were awarded, could I feel any proper pride in my
success?
Two months after came the distribution of prizes and the performance of
the successful work. It was all very hackneyed.
Every year the same musicians perform pieces turned out on the same
pattern; the same prizes, awarded with the same discrimination, are
handed over with the same ceremony. Every year on the same day, at the
same time, standing on the same step of the same staircase, the same
Academician repeats the same words to the winner.
Day, first Saturday in October; time, four in the afternoon; step, the
third; the Academician--we all know who.
Then comes the performance with full orchestra (in my case it was
not quite full, for there was only a clarinet and a half, the old
boy who played the first--having only one tooth and being asthmatic
besides--being only able to squeeze out a note here and there). The
conductor raises his baton----
The sun rises; ’cello solo, gentle crescendo.
The little birds wake; flute solo, violin tremolo.
The little rills gurgle; alto solo.
The little lambs bleat; oboe solo.
And as the crescendo goes on and the little birds and little brooks and
little beasts finish their performance, one suddenly discovers that it
is noon; then follow the successive airs up to the third, with which
the hero usually expires and the audience once more breathes freely.
Then the secretary, holding in one hand the artificial laurel wreath
and in the other the gold medal, worth enough to keep the recipient
until he leaves for Rome (in point of fact, I have proved that it is
worth exactly a hundred and sixty francs) pompously enunciates the name
of the author.
The laureate rises,
“His smooth, chaste forehead, newly shorn,
is wreathed with modest blushes.”
He embraces the secretary--faint applause. He embraces his master,
seated close by--more applause. Next come his mother, his sisters, his
cousins, and his aunts to the tune of more applause; then his fiancée,
after which--treading on people’s toes and tearing ladies’ dresses in
the blind confusion of his headlong career--he regains his seat, bathed
in perspiration. Loud applause and laughter.
This is the crowning moment, and I know lots of people who go for
nothing but the fun of it.
I do not say this in bitterness of spirit, although, when my turn came,
neither father nor mother, nor fiancée[8] were there to congratulate
me. My master was ill, my parents estranged, my mistress--ah!
So I only embraced the secretary, and I do not fancy that my “modest
blushes” were noticed because, instead of being “newly shorn,” my
forehead was buried in a shock of long red hair, which, in conjunction
with certain other points in my physiognomy certainly earned me a place
in the owl tribe.
Besides, I was not in at all an embrace-inspiring humour that day.
Truth obliges me to confess that I was in a howling, rampant rage.
I must go back a little and explain why.
The subject set was the _Last Night of Sardanapalus_, and it ended with
his gathering his most beautiful slaves around him and, with them,
mounting the funeral pyre.
I was just going to write a symphonic description of the scene--the
cries of the unwilling victims; the king’s proud defiance of the
flames, the crash of the falling palace--when I suddenly bethought me
that that way lay suicide--since the piano, as usual, would be the only
means of interpretation.
I therefore waited and, as soon as the prize was awarded and I knew I
could not be deprived of it, I wrote my CONFLAGRATION.
At the final orchestral rehearsal it made such a sensation that several
of the Academicians came up and congratulated me most warmly, without
a trace of pique at the trick I had played upon them. The rumour of it
having gone abroad, the hall was packed--for I found I had already made
a sort of bizarre reputation.
Not feeling particularly confident in the powers of Grasset, the
conductor, I stood close beside him, manuscript in hand, while Madame
Malibran, who had been unable to find a seat in the hall, sat on a
stool at my elbow between two double-basses. That was the last time I
ever saw her.
All went smoothly; Sardanapalus assembled his slaves, the fire was
kindled, everyone listened intently, and those who had been at
rehearsal whispered:
“Now it’s coming. Just listen. It’s simply wonderful!”
Curses and excommunications upon those musicians who do not count their
rests!! That damned horn, that should have given the signal to the
side-drums, never came in. The drums were afraid to begin, so gave no
signal to the cymbals, nor the cymbals to the big-drum.
The violins went wobbling on with their futile tremolo and my fire went
out without one crackle!
Only a composer who has been through a like experience can appreciate
my fury.
Giving vent to a wild yell of rage, I flung my score smash into the
middle of the band and knocked over two desks. Madame Malibran jumped
as if she had been shot, and the whole place was in an uproar.
It was a regular catastrophe--worst and cruellest of all I had
hitherto borne; but alas! by no means the last.
XVI
LISZT
_To_ HUMBERT FERRAND.
“_24th July 1830._
“DEAR FRIEND,--All that the most tender delicate love can
give is mine. My exquisite sylph, my Ariel, loves me more than ever
and her mother says that, had she read of love like mine, she could
not have believed it.
“I am shut up in the Institute _for the last time_, for the prize
_shall_ be mine this year, our happiness hangs on it. Every other
day Madame Moke sends her maid with messages. Can you credit it,
Humbert? This angel, with the finest talent in Europe, is mine! I
hear that M. de Noailles, in whom her mother believes greatly, has
pleaded my cause, despite my want of money. If only you could hear
my Camille _thinking aloud_ in the divine works of Beethoven and
Weber, you would lose your head as I do.”
“_23rd August 1830._
“I have gained the Prix de Rome. It was awarded unanimously--a
thing that has never been known before. What a joy it is to be
successful when it gives pleasure to those one adores!
“My sweet Ariel was dying of anxiety when I took her the news, her
dainty wings were all ruffled until I smoothed them with a word.
Even her mother, who does not look too favourably on our love, was
touched to tears.
“On the 1st November there is to be a concert at the Théâtre
Italien. The new conductor, Girard, whom I know well, has asked me
to write him an overture for it. I am going to take Shakespeare’s
_Tempest_; it will be quite a new style of thing.
“My great concert with the _Symphonie Fantastique_ is to be on the
14th November, but I must have a _theatrical_ success; Camilla’s
parents insist upon that as a condition of our marriage. I hope I
shall succeed.
“I do not want to go to Italy. I shall go and ask the King to let
me off. It is a ridiculous journey for me to take, and I might just
as well be allowed my scholarship in Paris.
“As soon as I have collected the money you so kindly lent me, you
shall have it. Good-bye, good-bye. I have just come from Madame
Moke’s, from touching the hand of my adored Camille, that is why
mine trembles and my writing is so bad. Yet to-day she has not
played me either Beethoven or Weber.
“_P.S._--That wretched Smithson girl is still here. I have not seen
her.”
_To_ HUMBERT FERRAND.
“_October 1830._--You will be glad to hear that I am to be heard
at the Opera. All thanks to Camille! In her slender form, witching
grace, and musical genius I found Ariel personified. I have planned
a tremendous overture, which I have submitted to the director.
Ariel! Ariel! Camille! I bless, I adore, I love thee more than poor
language can express. Give me a hundred musicians, a hundred and
fifty voices, then can I tell thee all!
* * * * *
“That poor Ophelia comes again and again to my mind. She has lost
more than six thousand francs in the Opéra Comique venture. She is
still here, and met me the other day quite calmly. I was utterly
miserable the whole evening, and went and told Ariel, who laughed
at me tenderly.”
In spite of all my eloquence, I could not get out of that tiresome
journey to Rome. But I would not leave Paris without having
_Sardanapalus_ performed properly, and for the third time my artist
friends most generously offered me their aid, and Habeneck consented to
conduct.
The day before the concert Liszt came to see me. We had not, so far,
met. We began talking of _Faust_, which he had not read, but which he
afterwards got to love as I did. We were so thoroughly sympathetic to
each other that, from that day, our friendship neither faltered nor
waned. At my concert everyone noticed his enthusiasm and vociferous
applause.
As my work is exceedingly complicated, it is not surprising that the
execution was by no means perfect; yet some parts of the Symphony made
a sensation. The _Scène aux Champs_ fell quite flat, and, on the advice
of Ferdinand Hiller, I afterwards entirely rewrote it.
_Sardanapalus_ was well done, and the _Conflagration_ came off
magnificently. It raised a conflagration in Paris too, in the shape of
a war of musicians and critics.
Naturally the younger men--particularly those with that sixth sense,
artistic instinct--were on my side, but Cherubini and his gang were
wild with rage.
He happened to pass the concert-room doors as people were going in, and
a friend stopped him, asking:
“Are you not coming to hear Berlioz’s new thing?”
“I need not zat I go hear how sings should not be done,” he replied.
He was much worse after the concert, and sent for me.
“You go soon,” he said.
“Yes, monsieur.”
“It vill be zat you are cross off ze register of Conservatoire, zat
your studies are finish. But it seem to me zat you should make visit to
me. One goes not out of Conservatoire like out of a stable.”
I very nearly said:
“Why not, since we are treated like horses?” but luckily had the good
sense merely to say that I had not the slightest intention of leaving
Paris without saying farewell to him.
So to Rome, _nolens volens_, I had to go, useless as it seemed.
The Roman Academy may be of service to painters and sculptors, but,
as far as music is concerned, it is lost time, considering the state
of music in Italy. Neither is the life led by the students exactly
conducive to study and progress.
Usually the five or six laureates arrange to travel in company, and
share expenses. A coach-driver agrees, for a modest sum, to take charge
of this cargo of great men, and dump it down in Italy. As he never
changes horses it takes a long time, and must be rather amusing.
I did not try it, as I had to stay in Paris for various reasons
till the middle of January and then wished to go round by La Côte
Saint-André--where my laurel wreath earned me a warm welcome--after
which, alone, and dreary, I turned my face towards Italy.
_To_ HUMBERT FERRAND.
“_November 1830._--Just a few lines in haste to tell you that
I am giving a gigantic concert at the Conservatoire--the
_Francs-Juges_ overture, the _Sacred Song_ and _Warrior’s Song_
from the Melodies, and _Sardanapalus_ with one hundred performers
for the CONFLAGRATION, and last of all, the _Symphonie
Fantastique_.
“Come, oh, do come. It will be terrible. Habeneck conducts. The
_Tempest_ is to be played a second time at the Opera. It is new,
fresh, strange, grand, sweet, tender, surprising. Fétis wrote two
splendid articles on it for the _Revue Musicale_. Some one said
to him the other day that I was possessed of a devil. ‘The devil
may possess his body, but, by Jove! a god possesses his head,’ he
retorted.
“_December._--You really must come; I had a frantic success. They
actually encored the _Marche au Supplice_. I am mad! mad! My
marriage is fixed for Easter 1832, on condition that I do not lose
my pension, and that I go to Italy for a year. My blessed symphony
has done the deed, and won this concession from Camille’s mother.
“My guardian angel! for months I shall not see her. Why cannot
I--cradled by the wild north wind upon some desolate heath--fall
into the eternal sleep with her arms around me!”
_To_ FERDINAND HILLER.
“LA CÔTE SAINT-ANDRÉ, _January 1831_.--I am at home once
more, deluged with compliments, caresses, and tender solicitude
by my family, yet I am miserable; my heart barely beats, the
oppression of my soul suffocates me. My parents understand and
forgive.
“I have been to Grenoble, where I spent half my time in bed, the
other half in calling upon people who bored me to extinction. On my
return I found awaiting me my longed-for letter from Paris.
“Now comes yours, to spoil all! Devil take you! Was it necessary
to tell me that I am luxuriating in despair, that _no one_ cares
twopence for me, least of all the people for whom I am pining?
* * * * *