From a photograph.
In this house Auber lived for forty years, and it was here that he
died in May, 1871, during the battle with the Paris Commune.
]
It has been a matter of astonishment that this French musician, who did
not know Italy, who never left Paris—with the exception of a journey to
London when he was a very young man—should have been able to introduce
into “La Muette” so much of Italian local color, and assimilate in so
wonderful a manner the musical genius of the Neapolitans. We are in
imagination as thoroughly in Naples as it is possible to be without
actually being there, the moment we hear that victorious march, so full
of freedom, rhythm and melody, and see on the stage the crowd of
triumphant lazzaroni now masters of the land. One would gladly learn in
what circumstances this beautiful and marvellously characteristic air
came into the mind of the Parisian composer. Jouvin will tell us, and he
has made no mistake, for this curious information reached him from the
lips of the composer himself: “Would you know where the composer found
the _motif_ of this march, the melody of which is so free and
unconventional? He found it in a shaving dish! It was when he was
shaving himself, with his face covered with soap, that there came upon
him the rhythm and melody of this inspiration; and he seized and secured
it before it was lost. Such is the origin of the inspiration which twice
in the overture and at the end of the fourth act, so powerfully appeals
to the spectator in the auditorium. O Genius, behold thy handiwork! Have
not sixty winners of the grand Prix de Rome passed no inconsiderable
time seeking inspiration in the land of classic song and returned home
without a single idea? M. Auber, who could never tear himself away from
Paris, discovers the sky of Naples in the lather at the bottom of a
basin!”
[Illustration: