where I again had the pleasure of a crowded house and appreciative
audience, and made many friends among the orchestra. Krebs alone
was reserved in his praise. ‘My dear fellow,’ said he, ‘in a few
years your music will be all over Germany, and will be popular,
and that will be an awful misfortune! Think of the imitations, the
eccentricities, the style it will let us in for! For Art’s sake it
were better you had never been born!!’
“Let us hope my poor symphonies are not as contagious as he thinks.
And so, O maker of poems, adieu!”
From Hamburg I went to Berlin and Hanover, finishing at Darmstadt where
the Grand Duke insisted not only on my taking the full receipts from
my concert (so far Weimar--city of artists--was the only one that had
extended to me this courtesy) but, in addition, refused to let me pay
any of the expenses.
Everywhere I met with success and made friends.
Thus ended the longest and perhaps the most arduous pilgrimage ever
taken by a musician; its memory will, to me, be ever green.
How can I thank thee, Germany, noble foster-mother to the sons of
music? How express my gratitude, admiration, and regret? I know not. I
can but bow before thee humbly and murmur brokenly--
“Vale Germania, alma parens!”
XXVIII
A COLOSSAL CONCERT
When I got back to Paris, I found M. Pillet planning a revival of _Der
Freyschütz_. Now, by the rules of the Opera every word must be sung and
as there are spoken dialogues in Weber’s opera he engaged me to set
them in the form of recitations.
“It is all wrong,” I said, “but as that is the only condition on
which it will be played and as, if I don’t do it, you will give it
to someone who does not know Weber as I do, I accept but with one
stipulation--that you change neither music nor libretto.”
“Certainly,” he replied, “do you suppose I would revive _Robin des
Bois_?”
“Very well, then I will get to work at once. How are you arranging the
parts?”
“Madame Stolz, Agatha; Mdlle. Dobré, Annette; Duprez, Max.”
“I bet he won’t take it,” I said.
“Why not?”
“You will see soon enough.”
“Bouché will do well for Gaspard.”
“And the Hermit?”
“Oh--well--” said he, awkwardly, “you know the Hermit isn’t much use, I
was going--to cut him out.”
“H’m! Really? Yet you are going to act _Freyschütz_ and not _Robin des
Bois_. Evidently, since we sha’n’t agree, it is better for me to retire
at once for I can’t stand that sort of correction.”
“Dear me! how wholesale you are in your notions. Very well, we will
keep the Hermit, we will keep everything, lock, stock, and barrel.”
Then my troubles began. The actors would make their recitations as slow
and stately as a tragedy; Duprez,--as I foretold--although ten years
before he had been a light tenor and had managed Max perfectly--found
it impossible to adapt his fine tenor voice to the music and demanded
all sorts of unheard-of transpositions and alterations. I cut them
short by refusing to disintegrate the rôle and it was handed over to
Marié.
Then nothing would do but they must have a ballet, and as I could not
stop it I tried to arrange a sort of scene from Weber’s _Invitation to
the Waltz_; but that was not enough, so the dancers themselves took
it into their heads that some bits out of my symphonies would come in
nicely.
Pillet agreed. I did not; and, to stop discussion, I said:
“Now look here! I entirely object to introducing into _Der Freyschütz_
music that is not Weber’s. To prove that I am not unreasonable, go and
ask Dessauer, who is over there; I will abide by his decision.”
At Pillet’s first words Dessauer turned sharply to me:
“Oh, Berlioz! don’t do that!”
That ended the matter for the time and the opera was a success. But
when I went to Russia they cut and chopped and gnawed it until it was
simply a deformity.
And _how_ they play what is left now! What a conductor! What a chorus!
What utterly sleepy, disgraceful ineptitude and misinterpretation of
everything by everybody!
When will a new Christ come to purge our temple and drive out the money
changers with a scourge!
* * * * *
I returned to my treadmill--journalism--once more, and oh! the horror
of it!
The misery of writing to order an article on nothing in particular--or
on things that, as far as I was concerned, simply did not exist since
they excited in me no feeling of any description whatsoever. Long ago
I remember spending three days over a critique without being able to
write one word. I cannot remember the subject but I well remember my
torments.
I strode up and down, my brain on fire; I gazed at the setting sun, the
neighbouring gardens, the heights of Montmartre--my thoughts a thousand
miles away.
Then, as I turned and saw that confounded white paper without a line on
it, I flew into the wildest rage.
My unoffending guitar leant against the wall. I kicked it to bits; my
pistols stared at me from the wall with big round eyes. I gazed back,
then, tearing my hair, burst into burning tears.
That soothed me somewhat, I turned those staring pistols face to the
wall and picked up my poor guitar which gave forth a plaintive wail.
Then my six-year-old boy, with whom I had unjustly found fault, tapped
at the door. As I did not answer he cried:
“Father, is you friends?”
“Yes, yes, my boy, I is friends!” and I flew to let him in. I took him
on my knee and laid his fair head on my shoulder; we dropped asleep
together and my article was forgotten. Next morning I managed to write
something. That is fifteen years ago and my martyrdom still lasts! It
is not that I mind work. I can grind at rehearsals for hours at a time;
can spend my nights in correcting proofs; can and will do anything and
everything that pertains to my work as a musician.
But to eternally pamphleteer for a living! It is cruel!
_To_ HUMBERT FERRAND.
“_3rd October 1844._--I read in the _Débats_ of your splendid
agricultural success and can imagine how much work and
perseverance it involves. You are a kind of Robinson Crusoe in
your island,[20] and when the sun shines I long to be with you, to
breathe the spicy air, to follow you from field to field, to listen
with you to the sweet silence of your lonely groves--our affection
is so sure, so whole-hearted, so perfect!
“Yet when dull days come and mists rise, the fever of Paris seizes
me once more and I feel that here only is life possible. But can
you believe that a strange sort of torpid resignation with regard
to things musical has taken possession of me? It is as well, for
this indifference saves my strength for the time when a passionate
struggle may become necessary.
“You have doubtless heard of the marvellous success of my _Requiem_
in St Petersburg. Romberg most bravely tackled the enormous expense
and, thanks to the generosity of the Russian aristocracy, made a
profit of five thousand francs. Give me a despotic government as
nursing mother of Art!
“If you could but be here this winter! I long to see you. I seem to
be going down hill so rapidly, life is so short! The end is often
before my eyes now and I clutch with frenzied eagerness at the
flowers beside my path as I slip quickly past.
“There was a rumour that I was to succeed Habeneck at the Opera,
it is a dictatorship that I should enjoy in the interests of
Art. But, for that, Habeneck would have to be translated to the
Conservatoire, where Cherubini still goes to sleep. Perhaps when I
am old and incapable I shall go to the Conservatoire. At present I
am too young to dream of it!”
I was railing more than usual at my hard fate when Strauss proposed
that we should give a concert at the close of the 1844 Exhibition, in
the empty building.
It was a tremendous undertaking, for his original intention was to have
also a ball and a banquet to the exhibitors. But, owing to the fixed
idea of M. Delessert, chief of the police, that plots and risings were
in the air, we were forced to reduce it to a classical concert for me
and a popular promenade concert next day for Strauss.
Rushing all over Paris I engaged nearly every musician of any
consequence and gathered a body of 1022 performers--all paid except the
singers from the lyric theatres, who helped me for love of music.
The rehearsals and general arrangements were most arduous and my
anxiety lest we should fail nearly killed me. The great day, the 1st
August, came and at noon (the concert began at one o’clock) I went to
the Exhibition, noticing with pleasure the stream of carriages all
converging on the Champs Elysées. Everything inside the building was
in perfect order, everyone in his or her appointed place, and my good
friend and indefatigable librarian, M. Rocquemont, assured me that all
would go perfectly.
Musical delirium seized me, I thought no more of public, receipts or
deficit, but was just raising my baton to begin when a violent smashing
of wood announced that the people had burst the barriers and filled the
hall. This meant success and I joyfully tapped my desk, crying:
“Saved!”
To direct my mass of performers I had Tilmant to conduct the wind,
Morel[21] the percussion instruments, and five chorus-masters, one in
the centre and four at the corners to guide those singers who were out
of my range. Thus there were seven deputy-conductors, whose arms rose
and fell with mine with incredible precision.
The Blessing of the Daggers from the _Huguenots_ was given with an
imposing effect that surpassed my expectations. I wished Meyerbeer
could have heard it. It worked upon me so that my teeth chattered and
I shook with nervous ague. The concert had to be stopped while they
brought me some punch and a change of clothes, and by making a little
screen of the harps in their linen covers, I was enabled to dress right
before the audience without being seen.
The concert finished triumphantly with the utmost satisfaction to
artists and audience but, as I went out, I had the gruesome pleasure
of seeing the hospital authorities counting our receipts and walking
off with the _eighth gross_--that is, four thousand francs--which left
me, when all was paid, with eight hundred francs for all my trouble and
anxiety.
This mad experiment was hardly over when M. Amussat, my anatomy master
and friend, called.
“Why, Berlioz!” he said, “what on earth is the matter? You are as
yellow as a guinea and look thoroughly overdone.”
He felt my pulse.
“You are on the verge of typhoid and must be bled.”
“Very well, do it now.”
He did, and then said:
“You will please leave Paris at once and go to the Riviera or somewhere
south by the sea and forget all these exciting topics. Be off at once.”
With my eight hundred francs I went to Nice. It moved me strangely to
see those haunts of thirteen years earlier--the days of my youth.
I bathed, explored the well-known cliffs, paid my respects to the
old cannon, still asleep in the sun; the room in which I wrote _King
Lear_ was let to an English family so I found shelter in an old tower
adjoining the Ponchettes Rocks. After a month’s lotus-eating I turned
my face once more to Paris and took up again my Sisyphus burden.
After giving some concerts in the circus of the Champs Elysées, which
fatigued me greatly I again took a rest on the Mediterranean shores
then gave some more concerts in Marseilles, Lyons and Lille of which
I have given a full account in my _Grotesques de la Musique_. Shortly
afterwards I started on my tour through Austria, Bohemia and Hungary.
XXIX
THE RAKOCZY MARCH
Of my journey from Paris to Vienna I only have two distinct
impressions--one of a violent pain in my side that I thought would be
the death of me and the other of a species of god I saw at Augsbourg.
This worthy man had founded a sort of neo-christianity which was rather
popular: he looked a decent sort of fellow.
At Ratisbon the steamer had gone, so I was obliged to wait two days and
then go on in a diligence, which made me feel as if I had gone back
into the Dark Ages. At Linz, however, I set foot on a fine steam-boat,
and found myself once more in A.D. 1845.
But I had time for reflection and could not help wondering why on earth
we cannot all spell the names of places alike. There was I, hunting
through a German map. Linz was graciously pleased to be the same in
both languages, but where was Ratisbon? Who could possibly find it
masquerading as Regensburg?
What should we say to the Germans if they persisted in calling Lyons,
Mittenberg, and Paris, Triffenstein?
On landing at Vienna I at once got an idea of the passion for music of
the Austrians.
The custom-house officer examining my trunks caught sight of the name
on them and asked:
“Where is he? Where is he?”
“I am he, monsieur.”
“_Mein Gott_, M. Berlioz, where in the world have you been? We have
been waiting for you a week and couldn’t think what had become of you.”
I thanked my worthy friend as well as my limited vocabulary would
allow, and could not help thinking that my non-appearance would never
give rise to similar anxiety at the Paris Douane.
The first concert I went to was one in the Riding School, given by
nearly a thousand performers--most of them amateurs--for the benefit of
the Conservatoire, which has no, or very little, Government support.
The verve and precision with which that musical crowd rendered Mozart’s
delicate _Flauto Magico_ overture quite astonished me, I had not
believed it possible.
I was delighted to make the acquaintance of Nicolaï, conductor of
the Kärnthnerthor Theatre; he has the three gifts necessary--to my
mind--for a perfect director. He is an experienced, enthusiastic
composer, has perfect intuition for rhythms and clear-cut and precise
mechanism. Finally, he is a clever organiser, sparing neither time nor
trouble; hence the wonderful unity and perfection of the Kärnthnerthor
orchestra.
He arranged sacred concerts in the _Salle des Redoutes_ similar to
ours in Paris. There I heard a scena from _Oberon_, a fine symphony of
Nicolaï’s own and the incomparable B flat of Beethoven.
It is in this fine hall that, thirty years since, Beethoven gave his
masterpieces--now worshipped by Europe, but then despised by the
Viennese, who crowded to hear Salieri’s operas! How my knees trembled
as I stood at the desk where once _he_ had stood! Nothing is changed;
the desk I used is the very one that he had used, by that staircase he
had come up to receive the applause of his few admirers, looked upon by
the rest of the audience as fanatics in search of eccentricity.
For recognition Beethoven had to wait, but how he suffered!
To my great delight Pischek, the splendid baritone I had met and
admired in Frankfort, suggested that he should make his Viennese début
at my concert.
He had improved immensely; somehow his voice always gave rise in me to
a sort of exaltation or intoxication which, now, was intensified by its
splendid compass, passion and exquisite sweetness.
No wonder that his success in a great ballad by Uhland (which bore
no resemblance to the inanities we call ballads in Paris) was
instantaneous and, as an encore, he gave a song that drove the audience
almost frantic. If only he would learn French what a furore he would
make in Paris!
My reception by all in Vienna--even by my fellow-ploughmen, the
critics--was most cordial; they treated me as a man and a brother, for
which I am heartily grateful.
After my third concert at a grand supper my friends presented me with a
silver-gilt baton, and the Emperor sent me eleven hundred francs with
the rather odd compliment, “Tell Berlioz I was really amused.”
The rest of my doings, are they not written in the newspapers of the
day?
The first thing I did on leaving Vienna for Pesth was to get into
trouble with the Danube, which, instead of remaining decently within
its banks, chose to overflow and inundate that muddy Slough of Despond
by courtesy called the Emperor’s highway. Only with an extra team of
horses had we been able to make way even so far, but at midnight I was
aroused from my resigned drowsiness by the stoppage of the carriage and
the boiling of waters all round.
The driver had gone straight into the river, and dared not stir a step.
The water rose steadily.
There was a Hungarian captain in the coupé who had spoken to me once or
twice through the little window between us; it was my turn to speak now:
“Captain!”
“Sir?”
“Don’t you think we are going to be drowned?”
“Yes, I do. Have a cigar.”
His calm insolent coolness made me long to smash his head in; in a
fury I took his cigar and puffed violently. Still the water rose and
the desperate driver turned, and at the risk of spilling us all in the
river, climbed up the bank and took us straight-way--into a lake. This
time I thought must be the end of all and I called out to the soldier:
“Captain, have you another cigar?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let me have it quick, for it’s all up with us now!”
But it was not, for an honest country man passing by (where the devil
could he have been going in such weather at such a time of night?)
extricated us and gave our unhappy Phæton directions whereby we made
our way to Pesth. At least it was a big town of which I asked my
captain the name.
“Buda,” said he.
“What? In my map the town opposite Pesth is called Ofen. Look.”
“Oh yes, that’s Buda. Ofen is the German name for it.”
“H’m, I see. German maps are as cleverly arranged as French ones; but I
think they might give us both names anyway.”
On reaching Pesth I had a little pleasure party all to myself, in
accordance with a promise made to myself while soaking in the Danube
mud. I took a bath, drank two glasses of Tokay and slept twenty
hours--not, however, without visions of boiling waters and lakes of
mud. After which I set out on the war-path of concert-promoting,
greatly helped by the kindness of Count Raday, superintendent of the
National Theatre.
Now the Hungarians are nothing if not patriotic. In every shop window
things are ticketed _hony_ (national) and, by the advice of an amateur
in Vienna, who had brought me a volume of Hungarian national airs, I
chose the Rakoczy March and arranged it as it now stands as finale to
the first part of my _Faust_.
No sooner did the rumour spread that I had written _hony_ music than
Pesth began to ferment.
How had I treated it? They feared profanation of that idolised melody,
which for so many years had made their hearts beat with lust of glory
and battle and liberty; all kinds of stories were rife, and at last
there came to me M. Horwath, editor of a Hungarian paper--who, unable
to curb his curiosity, had gone to inspect my march at the copyist’s.
“I have seen your Rakoczy score,” he said, uneasily.
“Well?”
“Well; I feel horribly nervous about it.”
“Bah! why?”
“Your motif is introduced _piano_, and we are used to hearing it
started _fortissimo_.”
“Yes, by the gipsies. Is that all? Don’t be alarmed. You shall have
such a forte as you never heard in your life. You can’t have read the
score carefully; remember the end is everything.”
All the same, when the day came my throat tightened, as it did in
times of great excitement, when this devil of a thing came on. First
the trumpets gave out the rhythm, then the flutes and clarinets, with
a _pizzicato_ accompaniment of strings--softly outlining the air--the
audience remaining calm and judicial. Then, as there came a long
_crescendo_, broken by the dull beats of the big drum (as of distant
cannon) a strange restless movement was perceptible among them--and,
as the orchestra let itself go in a cataclysm of sweeping fury and
thunder, they could contain themselves no longer.
Their overcharged souls burst with a tremendous explosion of feeling
that raised my hair with terror.
I lost all hope of making the end audible,[22] and in the encore it was
no better; hardly could they contain themselves long enough to hear a
portion of the coda.
Horwath, in his box, was like one possessed, and I could not resist a
smiling glance at him to ask--
“Are you still afraid or are you content with your _forte_?”
It was lucky that this was the end of the programme, for certainly
these excitable people would have listened to nothing more.
As I mopped my face in the little room set apart for me, a poorly
dressed man slipped quietly in. He threw himself upon me, his eyes full
of tears, and stammered out:
“Ah, monsieur--the Hungarian--poor man--not speak French--Forgive,
excited--understood your cannon--Yes, big battle--Dogs of Germans!”
Striking his chest vehemently--“In heart of me you stay--ah,
French--Republican--know to make music of Revolution!”
I cannot describe his frenzy; it was almost sublime.
After that, of course, the Rakoczy ended every concert, and on leaving
I had to present the town with my MS.
Later on I sent them a revised version, as some young Hungarians did
me the honour to present me with a silver crown of most exquisite
workmanship.
When I got back to Vienna, the amateur who had given me the idea of
writing the march came to me in comical terror.
“For mercy’s sake,” he begged, “never tell that I gave you the idea.
The excitement of it has reached Vienna, and I should get into dreadful
trouble if it were known.”
Of course I promised silence, but, as this terrible affair is long
since done with, I may now add that he was called---- No, I only wished
to frighten him. I won’t tell!
* * * * *
I had not intended to include Prague in my round, but someone sent me
the Prague _Musical Gazette_ with three appreciative articles on my
_King Lear_ by Dr Ambros. I wrote to thank him and mentioned my doubts
of my reception by his fellow-citizens who, I had been told, would hear
no one but Mozart. His kind reply swept away my misgivings and made
me as eager to go as I had hitherto been the reverse. Of Prague my
recollections are golden. I gave six concerts, and at the last, had the
great joy of having Liszt to hear my _Romeo and Juliet_.
At the close of the performance as I begged him to be my interpreter in
thanking the artists for their devotion and patience in spending three
weeks over my works, two or three of them came up to us and spoke to
him.
“My office is changed,” he said, turning to me; “these gentlemen
request me to convey to you their thanks for the pleasure you have
given them and their joy in your pleasure.”
This was indeed a red-letter day for me! There are not many such in my
life.
As the music lovers of Vienna had given me a banquet and a silver-gilt
baton, those of Prague gave me a supper and a silver cup.
But this same cup poured out such floods of champagne that Liszt, who
had made a charming and touching speech in my honour, was shipwrecked
therein. At two o’clock in the morning Belloni, his secretary, and I
were hard at work in the streets of Prague trying to persuade him to
wait till daylight to fight a Bohemian who had drunk more than he had.
We were rather anxious about him, as he had to give a concert at noon
next day, and at half-past eleven was still asleep. At length he was
awakened, jumped into a carriage, walked on to the platform, and played
as I verily believe he had never played before. There certainly is a
Providence over--pianists.
I cannot express my tender regrets for those good Bohemians.
“O Prague! when shall I see thee again?”
XXX
PARIS--RUSSIA--LONDON
While trailing round Germany in my old post-chaise I composed my
_Damnation de Faust_. Each movement is punctuated by memories of the
place where it was written. For instance, the Peasant’s Dance was
written by the light of a shop gas-jet one night when I had lost myself
in Pesth, and I got up in the middle of the night in Prague to write
the song of the angelic choir.
Thinking that my foreign tour might have enhanced my home reputation,
on my return to Paris I ventured to put it in rehearsal, going to
enormous expense for copying and for the hire of the Opera Comique.
Fatal reasoning! The indifference of the Parisians to art had increased
by leaps and bounds, the weather in November 1846 was vile, and they
preferred their warm homes to the unfashionable Opera Comique.
It was twice performed to half empty houses and elicited no more
attention than if I had been the least of Conservatoire students.
Nothing in all my career has wounded me as this did. The lesson was
cruel but useful; I vowed that never again would I trust to the tender
mercies of Paris.
I did not keep my vow, for later on I could not resist letting it hear
my _Childhood of Christ_, which proved a great success.
[Berlioz does not mention the domestic troubles that added greatly to
his dejection. His wife was paralysed and his son Louis, brought up
in a divided household, naturally gave him anxiety, as the following
letter shows]:
_To_ LOUIS BERLIOZ.