been ill himself he would have come to see you. He told me to give you
this letter.”
As I began to open it, the child stopped me:
“He said you must read it alone. There is no answer.” And he hurried
out.
I supposed it just a letter of congratulation; but here it is:
“DEAR FRIEND,--Only Berlioz can recall Beethoven, and I,
who have heard that divine work--so worthy of your genius--beg
you to accept the enclosed 20,000 francs, as a tribute of
respect.--Believe me ever, your affectionate friend,
NICCOLO PAGANINI.
“PARIS, _18th Dec. 1838_.”
I knew enough Italian to make out the letter, but it surprised me so
greatly that my head swam, and, without thinking of what I was doing,
I opened the little note which was enclosed and addressed to M. de
Rothschild. It was in French and ran:
“MONSIEUR LE BARON,--Would you be so good as to hand over
the 20,000 francs that I deposited yesterday to M. Berlioz.
PAGANINI.”
Then I understood.
My wife, coming in, thought that some new trouble had fallen upon us.
“What is it now?” she cried. “Be brave! we have borne so much already.”
“No, no--not that----”
“What then?”
“Paganini--has sent me--20,000 francs!”
“Louis! Louis!” cried Henriette, rushing for her boy, “come here to
your mother and thank God.”
And together they knelt by my bed--grateful mother and wondering child.
Oh Paganini! why could you not be there to see?
Naturally, my first thought was to thank him. My letter seemed so poor,
so inadequate, that I am ashamed to give it here. There are feelings
beyond words.
His munificent kindness was soon noised abroad and my room besieged
by friends anxious to know the facts. All rejoiced and some were
jealous--not of me, but of Paganini, who was rich enough to do such
deeds. Then began the comments, fury and lies of my opponents, followed
by the congratulatory letter of Janin and his eloquent article in the
_Débats_.
For a week I lay in bed, burning with impatience to see and thank
my benefactor. Then I hurried to his house and found him in the
billiard-room. We embraced in silence then, as I poured forth broken
thanks, he spoke and--thanks to the silence of the room--I was able to
make out his words.
“Not a word! It is so little and has given me the greatest pleasure
of my life. You cannot tell how much your music moves me. Ah!” he
cried, with a blow of his fist on the table, “now your enemies will be
silenced for they know I understand and am not easily satisfied.”
But great as was his name it was not great enough to silence the dogs
of Paris; in a few weeks they were again baying at my heels.
My earnest wish, now that all debts were paid and a handsome sum
remained in hand, was to write a masterpiece, grand, impassioned,
original, worthy of dedication to the master to whom I owed so much.
But Paganini, growing worse, had left for Nice, whence alas! he
returned no more. I consulted him as to a suitable theme, but he
replied:
“I cannot advise you. You best know what suits you best.”
After much wavering I fixed on a choral symphony on Shakespeare’s
_Romeo and Juliet_, and wrote the prose words for the choral portion,
which Emile Deschamps, with his usual kindness and extraordinary
versatility, put into poetry for me.
Ah! the joy of no more newspaper articles!--or at least hardly any.
Paganini had given me money to make music, and I made it. For seven
months, with only a few days’ intermission, did I work at my symphony.
And, during those months, what a burning, exhilarating life I led! Ah!
the joy of floating on the halcyon sea of poetry; wafted onward by the
sweet soft breeze of imagination; warmed by the rays of that golden sun
of love unveiled by Shakespeare! I felt within me the god-like strength
to win my way to that blessed hidden isle, where the temple of pure art
raises its soaring columns to the sky.
To others must I leave it to say whether I ever truly looked upon its
glories.
Such as it was, my symphony was performed three times running, and each
time appeared to be a great success. To my sorrow, Paganini never heard
it nor read it. I hoped to see him again in Paris; then to send him the
printed score; but he died at Nice leaving to me the poignant sorrow
that he would never judge whether the work, undertaken to please him
and to justify his faith in its author, was worthy of his great trust.
He, too, seemed sorry not to have known it, and in his letter of the
7th January 1840, he wrote:
“Now it is well done; jealousy can but be silent.”
Dear, noble friend! He never saw the ribald nonsense written about my
work; how one called my _Queen Mab_ music a badly-oiled squirt, how
another--speaking of the _Love-Scene_, which musicians place in the
forefront of my work--said I _did not understand Shakespeare_!
Empty-headed toad, bursting with stupid self-importance! If you could
prove that....
Never was I more deeply hurt by criticism, and yet none of these high
priests of art deigned to point out the faults, which I thankfully
corrected, when told of them.
For instance, Ernst’s secretary, M. Frankoski, wrote from Vienna saying
that the end of _Queen Mab_ was too abrupt; I therefore wrote the
present coda and destroyed the original one.
The criticisms of M. d’Ortigue I also appreciated. The rest of the
alterations were my own.
But the symphony is enormously difficult for the executants, both in
form and style, and needs most careful, conscientious practice and
perfect conducting--which means that none but first-rate artists in
each department could possibly do it.
For this reason it will never be given in London. They do not give
enough time to rehearsals. The musicians there have no time for
music.[16]
XXV
BRUSSELS--PARIS OPERA CONCERT
_To_ FRANZ LISZT.
“PARIS, _6th August 1839_.--I long, dear friend, to
tell you all the musical news--at least all that I know. Not
that you will find anything new in it. You must be quite _blasé_
with studying Italian modes of thought; they are dreadfully like
Parisian ones.
“I know you have not the heart to laugh at them, for you are not
of those who find subject for mirth in the insults offered to our
Muse--you would rather, at any cost, hide the blemishes upon her
snowy robes and the woful rents in her shimmering veil of light.
“So I will content myself with calmly stating facts and retailing
news, whereby I can preserve a dignified quiet, and can simply deal
out remarks without theorising.
“The day before yesterday, as I was smoking a cigar in the
Boulevard des Italiens, Batta caught me by the arm.
“‘What are they up to in London?’ I
asked.
“‘Nothing whatever. They despise music
and poetry and drama--everything. They go to the Italian Opera
because the Queen goes, and that’s all. I feel quite thankful
not to be out of pocket and to have been clapped at two or three
concerts. That is all the British hospitality I can boast of. Even
Artot, in spite of his Philharmonic success, was horribly bored.’
“‘And Doehler?’
“‘Bored also.’
“‘Thalberg?’
“‘Is cultivating the provinces.’
“‘Benedict----’
“‘Encouraged by the success of his
first attempt, is writing an English opera.’
“‘Well, I’m off. Come to Hallé’s
to-night, we are going to drink and have some music.’
“M. Hallé is a young German pianist--tall, thin, and
long-haired--who plays magnificently, and seems to get at music by
instinct rather than by notes--that is to say, he is rather like
you. Real talent, immense knowledge, perfect execution, are among
the gifts we all recognise in him.
“Hallé and Batta played Mendelssohn’s B flat sonata, then we had a
chorus over our beer, then Beethoven’s A major sonata, of which the
first movement excited us wildly, and the minuet and finale drove
us to the verge of lunacy.
“Oh you untiring vagabond! when will you return, once more to
preside over our nights of music?
“Between ourselves, you always had too many people at your
gatherings--too much talk, too little listening. You, alone, wasted
an amount of inspiration that was enough to turn one giddy, without
all the rest of the folks in addition.
“Do you remember that evening at Legouvé’s when--the lights put
out--you played the C sharp minor sonata, we five lying in the
dark on the floor? My tears and Legouvé’s, Schoelcher’s wondering
respect, Goubeaux’s astonishment! Ah me! you were indeed sublime
that night!
“But to get back to news.
“There is a glorious row toward between our Opera troupe and the
Italian; they want to unite them in the Rue Le Pelletier. It will
be rather a shock. Lablache against Levasseur, Rubini against
Duprez, Tamburini against Dérivis, Grisi against Mdlle. Naudin and
the whole lot against the big drum.
“We mean to be there to pick up the dead and the dying. Lots of
people find fault with the Opera orchestra, they say they do not
keep in tune, that the right-hand side tends to get a quarter-tone
higher than the left--which these gentlemen consider most
unreasonable----
“‘You seem to suffer in silence,’ one
of them said to me the other day.
“‘I? I did not say I suffered at all,’
I replied. ‘First, because I never said a word, and secondly,
because....’
“Sometimes when they are at their wit’s end they play _Don
Giovanni_. If Mozart could come back to this world, he would tell
them (like Molière’s president) that he would not have it _played_.
“The other day, Ambroise Thomas, Morel, and I were saying we would
give five hundred francs for a good performance of Spontini’s
_Vestale_; that set us off--we know it by heart--and we went on
singing it till midnight.
“But we missed you for our accompaniments.
“I am just pouring out news as it comes into my head. Hiller has
sent me part of his _Romilda_ from Milan. One of our enemies wished
to throw himself off the Vendome Column the other day. He gave the
keeper forty francs to let him go up--then changed his mind and
walked down again.
“Chopin is still away; they said he was very ill, but there
is no truth in it. Dumas has just written an exquisite
thing--_Mademoiselle de Belle Isle_--but that is out of my
province. There! no more news.
“My indifferentism does not extend to you and your long absence.
Come back soon. It is high time you did, both for us and, I hope,
for yourself too. Adieu.”
In 1840 the Government proposed celebrating the tenth anniversary of
the Revolution by exceptional ceremonies, and the Minister of the
Interior, M. de Remusat, who, like M. de Gasparin, had a soul for
music, commissioned me to write a symphony, leaving form and all
details entirely to me.
I planned a great symphony, on broad, simple lines, and as it was to be
played in the open air where delicate orchestral effects would be lost,
I engaged a military band of two hundred men.
Habeneck was anxious to conduct but, remembering the snuff trick, I
preferred to do my own conducting.
Most fortunately, I invited a large audience to the final rehearsal,
feeling sure that my work could not be properly judged on the day of
performance.
And so it proved. On the great Place de la Bastille, ten yards away,
you could make out nothing, and to make things worse, the legions of
the National Guard marched off right in the middle, to the rattle of
fifty kettledrums. That is the way music is always honoured in France
at public _fêtes_, apparently they think it is meant to please--the eye.
Towards the end of this year I made my first musical venture out of
France, as M. Snel, of Brussels, asked me to direct some of my works
for the _Société de la Grande Harmonie_ in the Belgian capital.
Nothing but a regular _coup d’état_ at home made the execution of this
plan possible. On one pretext or another, my wife had always set her
face against my leaving Paris, her real reason being a most foolish and
unfounded jealousy, for which there was absolutely no cause.
But constant accusations forced me, in time, to justify them and to
take advantage of the position with which she credited me.
Smuggling my music out of the house by degrees, I finally departed
secretly, leaving a letter of explanation and, accompanied by the lady
who has since been my constant travelling companion,[17] I went off to
Brussels.
To cut short these sad and sordid details--after many painful scenes,
an amicable separation was arranged. I often saw my wife, my affection
for her remained unchanged--indeed, the miserable state of her health
but made her dearer to me.
This is sufficient to explain my conduct to those who have only known
me since that time; I shall not recur to the subject as I am distinctly
not writing confessions.
I gave two concerts in Brussels, where opinions were, as usual, divided
about me as in Paris. Fétis chose to find fault with my (perfectly
correct) harmony, and I was rather tempted to reply to him in one of
the papers, but finally decided to stick to my invariable rule to reply
to no criticism whatsoever.
This being merely a trial trip, I arranged to spend five or six months
on tour in Germany, and therefore returned straight to Paris to give a
colossal farewell concert.
I explained my wish to M. Pillet, director of the Opera, who was quite
willing to allow me the use of the theatre.
But it was necessary to keep it secret so that Habeneck might not have
time to counterplot, as he would hardly look with a favourable eye on
anyone who supplanted him at the conductor’s desk.
I, therefore, prepared all my music and engaged my performers without
telling them where the concert would be held, and when all was ready I
asked M. Pillet to tell Habeneck that the concert was entirely in my
hands. But he dared not face his terrible chief, and it fell to my lot
to write and inform him of our arrangements.
He received my letter during a rehearsal, read it several times,
looked very black, then went down to the office and said that the plan
suited him exactly, as he wished to go into the country the day of the
concert. Still his disgust was quite evident, and it was shared by a
part of his orchestra, who thought to pay court to him by shewing it.
The concert was for the benefit of the Opera, but I was to have five
hundred francs for my share and the Opera staff were to get no extra
remuneration whatever. Mindful of my experience with the Théâtre
Italien, I determined to devote my five hundred francs to the payment
of these men, all the more readily that I felt thunder in the air in
the form of Habeneck’s savage looks, the numbers of the _Charivari_
(which cut me up tremendously) on the desks, and the constant little
confabulations that went on in odd corners.
I engaged six hundred performers from different theatres and from the
Conservatoire, and in a week managed to drill them into something like
order, how I cannot imagine.
I was on foot, baton in hand, the whole day, going from the Opera to
the Théâtre Italien, whence I engaged the chorus; thence to the Opera
Comique and to the Conservatoire to superintend different parts, for I
dared not relegate a single department to anyone else.
Then, in the foyer of the Opera, I took the stringed instruments from
eight till twelve, and the wind from twelve to four. My throat was on
fire, my voice gone, my right arm almost paralysed. One day I should
have been ill with thirst and fatigue had not a kind chorus-singer had
the humanity to bring me a large glass of hot wine.
The players of the Opera made me as much trouble as possible; they
learnt that the outside performers were to have twenty francs a piece,
so they demanded a like sum.
“Not for the money,” said they, “but for the honour of the Opera.”
“You shall have your twenty francs,” I cried; “but for heaven’s sake go
on and let me have a little peace.”
On the day of the grand rehearsal all went fairly well, except the
_Queen Mab_ scherzo, which is too dainty to be treated by so large
a body of players. Unfortunately I did not think, at the time, of
entrusting it to a small band of picked musicians, so was reluctantly
obliged to cut it altogether out of the programme.
On the day of the performance I had hoped to keep quiet until the
evening, but my friend, Leon Gatayes, came in to tell me that a plot
was being hatched by Habeneck’s partizans (who were indignant at his
being passed over) to ruin the whole affair. The drum parchments
were to be slit, the bows of the double-basses greased, and in the
middle of the concert a section of the audience was to shout for the
_Marseillaise_.
After this, needless to say, I did not take much rest. Prowling
restlessly round the Opera, I had the good luck to meet Habeneck; I
caught him by the arm.
“I hear your musicians are going to play me some tricks. I have my eye
on them.”
“Oh, it’s all right,” he answered. “I have talked to them; you need not
be afraid.”
“I am not afraid: on the contrary, I am comforting _you_. You see, if
anything happened, it would fall pretty heavily on you. But make your
mind easy; they won’t do anything.”
And they did not. My copyist had been all day in the theatre guarding
the drum and double-basses, and I myself went round to all the desks to
ensure each man having his own part.
Indeed I was made quite ashamed of myself when I got to the Dauverné
brothers; one of them looked up and said reproachfully:
“Berlioz, surely you don’t doubt us? Aren’t we decent fellows and your
friends?”
I grew quite hot and stopped my investigations, for which, it must be
owned, there really was some excuse.
Nothing went wrong and my _Requiem_ produced its due effect, but
during the interval, according to rumour, Habeneck’s cabal howled for
the _Marseillaise_. I went to the front of the stage and shouted at the
top of my lungs:
“We will _not_ play the _Marseillaise_; that is not what we are here
for,” and peace reigned once more.
Although the receipts were eight thousand five hundred francs, the sum
put aside to pay the musicians was not sufficient to fulfil my promises
to them, and I had to supplement it by three hundred and fifty out of
my own pocket, as the red ink entry in the cashier’s book at the Opera
testifies to this day.
Thus I organised the most tremendous concert Paris had ever known, and
was three hundred and fifty francs put of pocket for my pains. I was
likely to grow rich!
M. Pillet is a gentleman and I never could understand how he allowed
it; perhaps the cashier never told him.
I left for Germany a few days later on my pilgrimage. It was hard work
truly, but it was at least _musical_ hard work, and I had the untold
happiness of being safe away from the intrigues and platitudes of Paris
and among sympathetic musical people.
XXVI
HECHINGEN--WEIMAR
My tour began with trouble; I had intended giving a concert in
Brussels, as Madame Nathan-Treillet, the idol of the Bruxellois, had
kindly promised to come from Paris purposely to sing for me. But she
fell seriously ill, and we knew that not all the symphonies in the
world would make up for her absence.
When the catastrophe was announced the Grande Harmonie promptly fainted
_en bloc_, pipes went out as if from want of air, and people dispersed
groaning. In vain did I say, “Be calm! There will be no concert;
you will be spared the misery of listening to my music. Surely that
compensation is not to be despised!” It availed naught. _Their eyes
wept tears of beer et nolebant consolari_ because she came not. So my
concert went to the devil.
Time passed; I was obliged to go on leaving the poor Belgians to their
fate. My anxiety for them, however, soon melted as I embarked on my
Rhine journey and went up to Mainz, hoping to be able to arrange a
concert there.
I first went to Schott, patriarch of music publishers, who seemed
rather as if he belonged to the household of the Sleeping Beauty, his
somnolent sentences being interspersed with long silences.
“I don’t think--you hardly will be able--give a concert--there is--no
orchestra--no public--no money.”
Not being overburdened with patience, I went straight to the station
and off to Frankfort. To add fuel to my fire, the train was asleep too;
it “made haste slowly”; it did not _go_; it dawdled and, particularly
that day, made interminable organ pedal-points at each station. But
every adagio has an end, and finally I got to Frankfort--a well-built,
bright town, very much alive and up to date.
Next day, crossing the square on my way to the theatre, I came up with
some young men carrying wind-instruments and asked them--since they
evidently belonged to the orchestra--to take my card to Guhr, the chief.
“Ah,” said one, who spoke French, “we are glad to see you. M. Guhr
told us you were coming. We have done _King Lear_ twice, and though we
cannot offer you your Conservatoire orchestra, perhaps you will not be
very displeased with us.”
Guhr appeared, sharp, incisive, with snapping dark eyes and quick
gestures; it was easy to see that he would not err on the side of
indulgence with his orchestra. He spoke French but not fluently
enough for his wishes, so he tumbled over his sentences, which were
interlarded with oaths in a thick German accent, with most ludicrous
results.
The upshot of his flow of eloquence was that the two Milanollo girls
were creating such a furore that no other music would have the
slightest chance of success.
He was voluble in excuses and ended:
“What can I do, my dear fellow? These infant prodigies make money;
French Vaudevilles make money--I can’t refuse money, can I? But do stay
till to-morrow and you shall hear _Fidelio_ with Pischek and Mdlle.
Capitaine and you can give me your opinion of them.”
So it was arranged that I should go on to Stuttgart and try my fortunes
with Lindpaintner, leaving the Frankfurters to cool down after the
fever caused by the charming little sisters, whom I had praised and
applauded in Paris but who got sadly in my way in Frankfort.
_Fidelio_ was beautifully sung by Mdlle. Capitaine; she is not a
brilliant singer, but of all the women I heard in Germany I like her
best in her own style. In a box I espied my old friend, Ferdinand
Hiller, and a moment we were back on our student-comrade footing of
years before. He is at work on an oratorio _The Fall of Jerusalem_; I
am sorry that I have never been in Frankfort for one of his concerts to
hear and judge of his compositions, which I am told are of a very high
order.
My first care was to get as much information as I could on the musical
resources of Stuttgart, for I found the expenses of carrying so much
concerted music about with me something enormous and only wished to
take what I might fairly expect to be performed. I finally decided on
two symphonies, an overture and some choral pieces, leaving all the
rest with that unlucky Guhr, who seemed fated to be bothered with me
and my music in some way or other.
I had a letter of introduction to a Dr Schilling, whose title made me
shudder. I pictured an aged pedant in spectacles and red wig, armed
with a snuff-box and astride his hobbies, fugue and counterpoint,
caring for nothing but Bach and Marpurg and hating modern music in
general and mine in particular.
So much for preconceived ideas.
Dr Schilling was young, wore no spectacles, had a handsome crop of
black hair, smoked, took no snuff, never mentioned fugues or canons and
showed no dislike for modern music--not even mine.
He spoke French about as badly as I did German and our intercourse was
not precisely on the lines of Herder and Kant. I made out that I could
either apply for the loan of the theatre, which would mean freedom from
expense and ensure the presence of the King and Court or else could
engage the _Salle de la Redoute_, where I should have everything to
manage and which the King never entered.
I sought an interview with Baron von Topenheim, superintendent of the
theatre, who most kindly assured me that he would speak to the King
that evening:
“But,” he added, “I think I ought to tell you that the acoustic of the
theatre is vile and that of the _Salle de la Redoute_ is good.”
I was nonplussed and could only go and see if Lindpaintner would advise
me what to do. I do not know how to express my feelings towards him,
but at the end of ten minutes we might have been friends of ten years’
standing.