Two composers, Auber and Felicien David -- Auber, the legend of
his youthful appearance -- How it arose -- His daily rides, his
love of women's society -- His mot on Mozart's "Don Juan" -- The
only drawback to Auber's enjoyment of women's society -- His
reluctance to take his hat off -- How he managed to keep it on
most of the time -- His opinion upon Meyerbeer's and Halevy's
genius -- His opinion upon Gerard de Nerval, who hanged himself
with his hat on -- His love of solitude -- His fondness of Paris
-- His grievance against his mother for not having given him
birth there -- He refuses to leave Paris at the commencement of
the siege -- His small appetite -- He proposes to write a new
opera when the Prussians are gone -- Auber suffers no privations,
but has difficulty in finding fodder for his horse -- The
Parisians claim it for food -- Another legend about Auber's
independence of sleep -- How and where he generally slept -- Why
Auber snored in Veron's company, and why he did not in that of
other people -- His capacity for work -- Auber a brilliant talker
-- Auber's gratitude to the artists who interpreted his work, but
different from Meyerbeer's -- The reason why, according to Auber
-- Jealousy or humility -- Auber and the younger Coquelin -- "The
verdict on all things in this world may be summed up in the one
phrase, 'It's an injustice'" -- Felicien David -- The man -- The
beginnings of his career -- His terrible poverty -- He joins the
Saint-Simoniens, and goes with some of them to the East -- Their
reception at Constantinople -- M. Scribe and the libretto of
"L'Africaine" -- David in Egypt at the court of Mehemet-Ali --
David's description of him -- Mehemet's way of testing the
educational progress of his sons -- Woe to the fat kine --
Mehemet-Ali suggests a new mode of teaching music to the inmates
of the harem -- Felicien David's further wanderings in Egypt --
Their effect upon his musical genius -- His return to France --
He tells the story of the first performance of "Le Desert" -- An
ambulant box-office -- His success -- Fame, but no money -- He
sells the score of "Le Desert" -- He loses his savings -- "La
Perle du Bresil" and the Coup-d'Etat -- "No luck" -- Napoleon
III. remains his debtor for eleven years -- A mot of Auber, and
one of Alexandre Dumas pere -- The story of "Aida" -- Why
Felicien David did not compose the music -- The real author of
the libretto.
I knew Auber from the year '42 or '43 until the day of his death. He and
I were in Paris during the siege and the Commune; we saw one another
frequently, and I am positive that the terrible misfortunes of his
country shortened his life by at least ten years. For though at the
beginning of the campaign he was close upon ninety, he scarcely looked a
twelvemonth older than when I first knew him, nearly three decades
before; that is, a very healthy and active old man, but still an old
man. So much nonsense has been written about his perpetual youth, that
it is well to correct the error. But the ordinary French public, and
many journalists besides, could not understand an octogenarian being on
horseback almost every day of his life, any more than they understood
later on M. de Lesseps doing the same. They did not and do not know M.
Mackenzie-Grieves, and half a dozen English residents in Paris of a
similar age, who scarcely ever miss their daily ride. If they had known
them, they might perhaps have been less loud in their admiration of the
fact.
What added, probably, to Auber's reputation of possessing the secret of
perpetual youth was his great fondness for women's society, his very
handsome appearance, though he was small comparatively, and his
faultless way of dressing. He was most charming with the fairer sex, and
many of the female pupils of the Conservatoire positively doted on him.
Though polite to a degree with men--and I doubt whether Auber could have
been other than polite with no matter whom--his smiles, I mean his
benevolent ones, for he could smile very sceptically, were exclusively
reserved for women. When he heard Mozart's "Don Juan" for the first
time, he said, "This is the music of a lover of twenty, and if a man be
not an imbecile, he may always have in a little corner of his heart the
sentiment or fancy that he is only twenty."
There was but one drawback to Auber's enjoyment of the society of
women--he was obliged to take off his hat in their presence, and he
hated being without that article of dress. He might have worn a
skull-cap at home, though there was no necessity for it, as far as his
hair was concerned, for up to the last he was far from bald; but he
wanted his hat. He composed with his hat on, he had his meals with his
hat on, and though he would have frequently preferred to take his seat
in the stalls or balcony of a theatre, he invariably had a box, and
generally one on the stage, in order to keep his hat on. He would often
stand for hours on the balcony of his house in the Rue Saint-Georges
with his hat on. "I never feel as much at home anywhere, not even in my
own apartment, as in the synagogue," he said one day. He frequently went
there for no earthly reason than because he could sit among a lot of
people with his hat on. In fact, those frequent visits, coupled with his
dislike to be bareheaded, made people wonder now and then whether Auber
was a Jew. The supposition always made Auber smile. "That would have
meant the genius of a Meyerbeer, a Mendelssohn, or a Halevy," he said.
"No, I have been lucky enough in my life, but such good fortune as that
never fell to my lot." For there was no man so willing--nay, anxious--to
acknowledge the merit of others as Auber. But Auber was not a Jew, and
his mania for keeping on his hat had nothing to do with his religion. It
was simply a mania, and nothing more. When, in January, '55, Gerard de
Nerval was found suspended from a lamp-post in the Rue de la
Vieille-Lanterne, he had his hat on his head; his friends, and even the
police, pretended to argue from this that he had not committed suicide,
but had been murdered. "A man who is going to hang himself does not keep
his hat on," they said. "Pourquoi pas, mon Dieu?" asked Auber, simply.
"If I were going to kill myself, I should certainly keep my hat on." In
short, it was the only thing about Auber which could not be explained.
Auber was exceedingly fond of society, and yet he was fond of solitude
also. Many a time his friends reported that, returning home late from a
party, they found Auber standing opposite his house in the Rue
Saint-Georges, with apparently no other object than to contemplate it
from below. After his return to Paris from London, whither he had been
sent by his father, in order to become conversant with English business
habits, he never left the capital again, though at the end of his life
he regretted not having been to Italy. It was because Rossini, who was
one of his idols, had said "that a musician should loiter away some of
his time under that sky." But almost immediately he comforted himself
with the thought that Paris, after all, was the only city worth living
in. "I was very fond of my mother, but I have one grievance against her
memory. What did she want to go to Caen for just at the moment when I
was about to be born? But for that I should have been a real Parisian."
I do not think it made much difference, for I never knew such an
inveterate Parisian as Auber. When the investment of Paris had become an
absolute certainty, some of his friends pressed him to leave; he would
not hear of it. They predicted discomfort, famine, and what-not. "The
latter contingency will not affect me much, seeing that I eat but once a
day, and very little then. As for the sound of the firing disturbing me,
I do not think it will. It has often been said that the first part of my
overture to 'Fra Diavolo' was inspired by the retreating tramp of the
regiment; there may be some truth in it. If it be vouchsafed to me to
hear the retreating tramp of the Germans, I will write an overture and
an opera, which will be something different, I promise you."
I do not suppose that, personally, Auber suffered any privations during
the siege. A man in his position, who required but one meal a day, and
that a very light one, was sure to find it somewhere; but he had great
trouble to find sufficient fodder for his old faithful hack, that had
carried him for years, and when, after several months of scheming and
contriving to that effect, he was forced to give it up as food for
others, his cup of bitterness was full. "Ils m'ont pris mon vieux cheval
pour le manger," he repeated, when I saw him after the event; "je
l'avais depuis vingt ans." It was really a great blow to him.
There is another legend about Auber which is not founded upon facts,
namely, that he was pretty well independent of sleep. It was perfectly
true that he went to bed very late and rose very early, but most people
have overlooked the fact that during the evening he had had a
comfortable doze, of at least an hour and a half or two hours, at the
theatre. He rarely missed a performance at the Opera or Opera-Comique,
except when his own work was performed. And during that time he
slumbered peacefully, "en homme du monde," said Nestor Roqueplan,
"without snoring."
"I never knew what it meant to snore," said Auber, apologetically,
"until I took to sleeping in Veron's box; and as it is, I do not snore
now except under provocation. But there would be no possibility of
sleeping by the side of Veron without snoring. You have to drown his, or
else it would awaken you."
Auber was a brilliant talker, but he scarcely ever liked to exert
himself except on the subject of music. It was all in all to him, and
the amount of work he did must have been something tremendous. There are
few students of the history of operatic music, no matter how excellent
their memories, who could give the complete list of Auber's works by
heart. We tried it once in 1850, when that list was much shorter than it
is now; there was not a single one who gave it correctly. The only one
who came within a measureable distance was Roger, the tenor.
In spite of his world-wide reputation, even at that time, Auber was as
modest about his work as Meyerbeer, but he had more confidence in
himself than the latter. Auber was by no means ungrateful to the artists
who contributed to his success; "but I don't 'coddle' them, and put
them in cotton-wool, like Meyerbeer," he said. "It is perfectly logical
that he should do so. The Nourrits, the Levasseurs, the Viardot-Garcias,
and the Rogers, are not picked up at street-corners; but bring me the
first urchin you meet, who has a decent voice, and a fair amount of
intelligence, and in six months he'll sing the most difficult part I
ever wrote, with the exception of that of Masaniello. My operas are a
kind of warming-pan for great singers. There is something in being a
good warming-pan."
At the first blush, this sounds something like jealousy in the guise of
humility, but I am certain that there was no jealousy in Auber's
character. Few men have been so uniformly successful, but he also had
his early struggles, "when perhaps I did better work than I have done
since." The last sentence was invariably trolled out when a pupil of the
Conservatoire complained to him of having been unjustly dealt with. I
remember Coquelin the younger competing for the "prize of Comedy" in '65
or '66. He did not get it, and when we came out of Auber's box at the
Conservatoire, the young fellow came up to him with tears in his eyes. I
fancy they were tears of anger rather than of sorrow.
"Ah, Monsieur Auber," he exclaimed, "that's an injustice!"
"Perhaps so, my dear lad," replied Auber; "but remember that the verdict
on all things in this world may be summed up in the words you have just
uttered, 'It's an injustice.' Let me give you a bit of advice. If you
mean to become a good Figaro, you must be the first to laugh at an
injustice instead of weeping over it." Wherewith he turned his back upon
the now celebrated comedian. In the course of these notes I shall have
occasion to speak of Auber again.
Auber need not have generalized to young Coquelin; he might have cited
one instance of injustice in his own profession, to which, fortunately,
there was no parallel for at least thirty years. In the forties the
critics refused to recognize the genius of Felicien David, just as they
had refused to recognize the genius of Hector Berlioz. In the seventies
they were morally guilty of the death of Georges Bizet, the composer of
"Carmen."
I knew little or nothing of Hector Berlioz, but I frequently met
Felicien David at Auber's. It was a pity to behold the man even after
his success--a success which, however, did not put money in his purse.
His moral sufferings, his material privations, had left their traces but
too plainly on the face as well as on the mind. David had positively
starved in order to buy the few books and the paper necessary to his
studies, and yet he had the courage to say, "If I had to begin over
again, I would do the same." The respectability that drives a gig when
incarnated in parents who refuse to believe in the power of soaring of
their offspring because they, the parents, cannot see the wings, has
assuredly much to answer for. Flotow's father stops the supplies after
seven years, because his son has not come up to time like a race-horse.
Berlioz' father does not give him so long a shrift; he allows him three
months to conquer fame. Felicien David had no father to help or to
thwart him in his ambition. He was an orphan at the age of five, and
left to the care of a sister, who was too poor to help him; but he had
an uncle who was well-to-do, and who allowed him the magnificent sum of
fifty francs per month--for a whole quarter--and then withdrew it,
notwithstanding the assurance of Cherubini that the young fellow had the
making of a great composer in him. And the worst is that these young
fellows suffer in silence, while there are hundreds of benevolent rich
men who would willingly open their purses to them. When they do reveal
their distressed condition, it is generally to some one as poor as
themselves. These rich men buy the autographs of the deceased genius for
small or large sums which would have provided the struggling ones with
comforts for days and days. I have before me such a letter which I
bought for ten francs. I would willingly have given ten times the amount
not to have bought it. It is written to a friend of his youth. "As for
money," it says, "seeing that I am bound to speak of it, things are
going from bad to worse. And it is very certain that in a little while I
shall have to give it up altogether. I have been ill for three weeks
with pains in the back, and fever and ague everywhere. I dare say that
my illness was brought on by my worries, and by the bad food of the
Paris restaurants, also by the constant dampness. Why am I not a little
better off? I fancy that the slight comforts an artist may reasonably
expect would do me a great deal of good. I am not speaking of the body,
though it is a part of ourselves which considerably affects our
intellect, but my imagination would be the better for it, for how can my
brain, constantly occupied as it is with the worry of material wants,
act unhampered? Really, I do not hesitate to say that poverty and
privation kill the imagination."
They did not kill the imagination in David's case, but they undermined
his constitution. It was at that period that he fell in with the
Saint-Simoniens, to the high priest of which, M. Enfantin, who
eventually became the chairman of the Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean
Railway Company, he took me many years later. After their dispersion,
the group to which he belonged went to the East, and it is to this
apparently fortuitous circumstance that the world owes not only "Le
Desert," "La Perle du Bresil," and "L'Eden," but probably also
Meyerbeer's "Africaine." Meyerbeer virtually acknowledged that but for
David's scores, so replete with the poetry of the Orient, he would have
never thought of such a subject for one of his operas. M. Scribe, on the
other hand, always maintained that the idea emanated from him, and that
it dated from 1847, when the composer was given the choice between "La
Prophete" and "L'Africaine," and chose the former. One might almost
paraphrase the accusation of the wolf against the lamb in La Fontaine's
fable. "M. Scribe, if you did not owe your idea to Felicien David, you
owed it to Montigny, the director of the Gymnase, who in the thirties
produced a play with a curious name, and a more curious plot, at the
Ambigu-Comique."[28] One thing is certain, that "L'Africaine" was
discarded, if ever it was offered, and would never have been thought of
again but for Meyerbeer's intense and frankly acknowledged admiration of
Felicien David's genius.
[Footnote 28: I have taken some pains to unearth this play. It
was called "Amazampo; or, The Discovery of Quinine." The scene
was laid in Peru in 1636. Amazampo, the chief of a Peruvian
tribe, is in love with Maida, who on her part is in love with
Ferdinand, the son of the viceroy. Amazampo is heart-broken,
and is stricken down with fever. In his despair and partial
delirium he tries to poison himself, and drinks the water of a
pool in which several trunks of a tree called _kina_, reported
poisonous, have been lying for years. He feels the effect
almost immediately, but not the effect he expected. He
recovers, and takes advantage of his recovered health to forget
his love passion, and to be avenged upon the oppressors of his
country, many of whom are dying with fever. Lima becomes a huge
cemetery. Then the wife of the viceroy is stricken down. Maida
wishes to save her, but is forestalled by Amazampo, who compels
Dona Theodora to drink the liquor, and so forth. But Amazampo
and Maida die.--EDITOR.]
To return for a moment to Felicien David, whose melancholy vanished as
if by magic when he related his wanderings in the East. I do not mean
the poetical side of them, which inspired him with his great
compositions, but the ludicrous one. I do not remember the dress of the
Saint-Simoniens, I was too young at the time to have noticed it, but am
told it consisted of a blue tunic and trousers to match, a scarlet
jersey, which buttoned at the back, and could not be undone except with
the aid of some one else. It was meant to symbolize mutual dependence
upon one another. "As far as Marseilles everything went comparatively
well," said David; "we lived by giving concerts, and though the receipts
were by no means magnificent, they kept the wolf from the door. Our
troubles began at Constantinople. Whether they did not like our music,
or ourselves, or our dresses, I have never been able to make out, but we
were soon denounced to the authorities, and marched off to prison,
though our incarceration did not last more than a couple of hours,
thanks to our ambassador, Admiral Roussin. Our liberation, however, was
conditional; we had to leave at once. We made our way to Smyrna, where
my music seemed to meet with a little more favour. I performed every
night, but in the open air, and some one took the hat round, just as if
we had been a company of ambulant musicians to the manner born. We were,
however, not altogether unhappy, for we had enough to eat and to drink,
which with me, at any rate, was a paramount consideration. Up till then
sufficient food had not been a daily item in my programme of life. My
companions, nevertheless, became restless; they said they had not come
to eat and drink and play music, but to convert the most benighted part
of Europe to their doctrines; so we moved to Jaffa and Jerusalem, then
to Alexandria, and finally to Cairo. By the time we got there, only
three of us were left; the rest had gone homeward. Koenig-Bey had just
at that moment undertaken the tuition of Mehemet-Ali's children--there
were between sixty and seventy at that time; it was he who presented me
to their father, with a view of my becoming the professor of music to
the inmates of the harem. 'It is of no use to try to get you the
appointment of professor of music to the young princes, because Mehemet,
though intelligent enough, would certainly not hear of it. He would not
think it necessary that a man-child should devote himself to so
effeminate an accomplishment. I am translating his own thoughts on the
subject, not mine. When I tell you that my monthly report about their
intellectual progress is invariably waved off with the words, "Tell me
how much they have gained or lost in weight," you will understand that I
am not speaking at random. The viceroy thinks that hard study should
produce a corresponding decrease in weight, which is not always the
case, for those more or less inclined to obesity make flesh in virtue of
their sitting too much. Consequently the fat kine have a very bad time
of it, and among the latter is one of the most intelligent boys,
Mohammed-Said.'"
"Those who would infer from this," said David one day, referring to the
same subject, "that Mehemet-Ali was lacking in intelligence, would
commit a grave error. I am convinced, from the little I saw of him, that
he was a man of very great natural parts. His features, though not
absolutely handsome, were very striking and expressive. He was over
sixty then, but looked as if he could bear any amount of fatigue. His
constitution must originally have been an iron one. Instead of the
Oriental repose which I expected, there was a kind of semi-European,
semi-military stiffness about him, which, however, soon wore off in
conversation. I say advisedly conversation, albeit that he did not
understand a word of French, which was the only language I spoke, and
that I could not catch a word of his. But in spite of Koenig-Bey's
acting the interpreter, it was a conversation between us both. He seemed
to catch the meaning of my words the moment they left my lips, and every
now and then smiled at my remarks. He as it were read the thoughts that
provoked them, and I do not wonder at his having been amused, for I
myself was never so amused in my life. Perhaps you will be, when I tell
you that I was not to see the ladies I had to teach; my instruction was
to be given to the eunuchs, who, in their turn, had to transmit them to
the viceroy's wives and daughters. Of course, I tried to point out the
impossibility of such a system, but Mehemet-Ali shook his head with a
knowing smile. That was the only way he would have his womenkind
initiated into the beauties of Mozart and Mendelssohn. I need not tell
you that the arrangement came to nought."
Nearly all these conversations which I have noted down here, without
much attempt at transition, took place at different times. One day, when
he was relating some experiences of his wanderings through the less busy
haunts of Egypt, I happened to say, "After all, Monsieur David, they did
you good; they inspired you with the themes of your most beautiful
works."
It was a very bitter smile that played on his lips, but only for a
moment; the next his face resumed its usual melancholy expression. "Yes,
they did me good. Do you know what occurred on the eve of the first
performance of 'Le Desert,' on the morrow of which I may say without
undue pride that I found myself famous? Well, I will tell you. But for
Azevedo, I should have gone supperless that night.[29] I met him on the
Boulevards, and I almost forced him to take some tickets, for I was
hungry and desperate. I had been running about that morning to dispose
of some tickets for love or money, for what I feared most was an empty
house. I had sold half a dozen, perhaps, but no one had paid me. Azevedo
said, 'Yes, send me some this afternoon.' 'I can give them to you now,'
I replied, 'for I carry my box office upon me.' Then he understood, and
gave me the money. May God bless him for it, for ever and ever!
[Footnote 29: Alexis Azevedo, one of the best musical critics
of the time, as enthusiastic in his likes as unreasoning in his
dislikes. He became a fervent admirer of Felicien
David.--EDITOR.]
"Now would you like to hear what happened after the performance?" he
continued. "The place was full and the applause tremendous. Next morning
the papers were full of my name; I was, according to most of them, 'a
revelation in music.' But for all that I was living in an attic on a
fifth floor, and had not sufficient money to pay my orchestra, let alone
to arrange for another concert. As for the score of 'Le Desert,' it went
the round of every publisher but one, and was declined by all these. At
last the firm of Escudier offered me twelve hundred francs for it,
which, of course, I was glad to take. They behaved handsomely after all,
because they arranged for a series of performances of it, which I was to
direct at a fee of a thousand francs per performance. Those good
Saint-Simoniens, the Pereiras, Enfantin, Michel Chevalier, had not
lifted a finger to help me in my need; nevertheless, I was not going to
condemn good principles on account of the men who represented them not
very worthily. Do you know what was the result of this determination not
to be unjust if others were? I embarked my little savings in a concern
presided over by one of them. I lost every penny of it; since then I
have never been able to save a penny."
Felicien David was right--he never made money; first of all, "because,"
as Auber said, "he was too great an artist to be popular;" secondly,
because the era of cantatas and oratorios had not set in in France;
thirdly, because he composed very slowly; and fourthly, "because he had
no luck." The performances of his principal theatrical work were
interrupted by the Coup-d'Etat. I am alluding to "La Perle du Bresil,"
which, though represented at the Opera-Comique in 1850, only ran for a
few nights there, divergencies of opinion having arisen between the
composer and M. Emile Perrin, who was afterwards director of the Grand
Opera, and finally of the Comedie-Francaise. When it was revived, on
November 22, 1851, the great event which was to transform the second
republic into the second empire was looming on the horizon. In 1862,
Napoleon III. made Felicien David an officer of the Legion d'Honneur;
Louis-Philippe had bestowed the knighthood upon him in '46 or '47, after
a performance of his "Christophe Colomb" at the Tuileries. When Auber
was told of the honour conferred, he said, "Napoleon is worse than the
fish with the ring of Polycrates; it did not take him eleven years to
bring it back." Alexandre Dumas opined that "it was a pearl hid in a
dunghill for a decade or more." When, towards the end of the Empire, a
street near the projected opera building was named after Auber, and when
he could see his bust on the facade of the building, the scaffolding of
which had been removed, Auber remarked that the Emperor had been good
enough to give him credit. "Now we are quits," he added, "for he was
David's debtor for eleven years. At any rate, I'll do my best to square
the account, so you need not order any hat-bands until '79." When '79
came, he had been in his tomb for nearly eight years.
I wrote just now that Felicien David composed very slowly. But for this
defect, if it was one, Verdi would have never put his name to the score
of "Aida." The musical encyclopedias will tell you that Signor
Ghislanzoni is the author of the libretto, and that the khedive applied
to Signor Verdi for an opera on an Egyptian subject. The first part of
that statement is utterly untrue, the other part is but partially true.
Signor Ghislanzoni is at best but the adapter in verse and translator of
the libretto. The original in prose is by M. Camille du Locle, founded
on the scenario supplied by Mariette-Bey, whom Ismail-Pasha had given
_carte blanche_ with regard to the music and words. Mariette-Bey
intended from the very first to apply to a French playwright, when one
night, being belated at Memphis in the Serapeum, and unable to return on
foot, he all at once remembered an old Egyptian legend. Next day he
committed the scenario of it to paper, showed it to the khedive, and ten
copies of it were printed in Alexandria. One of these was sent to M. du
Locle, who developed the whole in prose.
M. du Locle had also been authorized to find a French composer, but it
is very certain that Mariette-Bey had in his mind's eye the composer of
"Le Desert," though he may not have expressly said so. At any rate, M.
du Locle applied to David, who refused, although the "retaining fee" was
fifty thousand francs. It was because he could not comply with the first
and foremost condition, to have the score ready in six months at the
latest. Then Wagner was thought of. It is most probable that he would
have refused. To Mariette-Bey belongs the credit furthermore of having
entirely stage-managed the opera.
Thus Felicien David, who had revealed "the East in music" to the
Europeans, no more reaped the fruits of his originality than Decamps,
who had revealed it in painting. Was not Auber right when he said to
young Coquelin that the verdict on all things in this world might be
summed up in the one phrase, "It's an injustice"?