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CAMILLA:
_A TALE OF A VIOLIN._
BEING THE ARTIST LIFE OF
CAMILLA URSO.
By CHARLES BARNARD.
LORING, Publisher,
COR. WASHINGTON AND BROMFIELD STREETS,
_BOSTON._
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
A. K. LORING,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
Rockwell & Churchill, Printers and Stereotypers,
122 Washington Street, Boston.
PREFATORY NOTE.
The intelligent reader, on opening a new book, asks why it was
written,--what excuse has it for existence. In this particular case the
author has more reasons than it is worth while to repeat. If there is
any one thing that is attracting the general attention of the American
people, it is the art of music. It is a good sign. It shows we are
getting beyond the mere tree-felling and prairie-clearing stages of our
existence, and coming to something better. This true "Tale of a Violin"
has to do with music. It is the story of a real musical life; not wholly
American, and therefore instructive. It has much, also, to do with our
people and country and our own times, and is therefore interesting and
home-like. It has to do with methods of teaching music in foreign
countries; and for the student this artist-life is full of valuable
suggestions. All of this can be properly said, because it is the
artist-life of a person now living among us. These are the excuses for
its existence.
The facts and incidents were supplied by Madam Camilla Urso herself at
such stray moments of leisure as could be found during a busy concert
season at Boston, in the months of January and February, 1874; and the
work was done at such spare moments as the writer could find in the
midst of journalistic cares. Such events as could be noted in one
evening having been written out, they were read aloud before Madam Urso
and others, and when brought up to the exact truth in every detail, and
fully approved by such persons as were entitled to an opinion, were
given to the printer.
So the book came to be. If it leads one reader to see the value of a
life devoted to art,--if it helps one lonely student struggling for a
musical education, by the splendid example of a life of toil and poverty
crowned by a great reward,--the work will not be wholly vain, nor will
it want excuse for being.
The author would express his thanks for the kind assistance of the Urso
family of New York, and Mr. John S. Dwight and others, of Boston.
THE AUTHOR.
BOSTON, September, 1874.
PART I.
CHAPTER I.
BEFORE DAWN.
About thirty miles from the sea, on the River Loire, in France, stands
the quaint, sleepy old town of Nantes. The Erdre and the Sevre, two
smaller streams unite with the Loire just here and the town is spread
out in an irregular fashion over the islands, the little capes between
the rivers, and the hills that stand round about. The old part of the
town is on the hill-side and occupies the two islands called Freydean
and Gloriette, the more modern city has spread over the surrounding
country among the groves of chestnut, and the vineyards that fill every
available spot where the grapes can get a good look at the sun all
through the long sunny days.
The river runs swift and bright through the town and flashes under the
handsome bridges with their long rows of stone arches. In the river are
boats, ships, and steamers, for the good people there spend much of
their time in commerce and in catching and curing the silver-white
pilchards that swim in such great schools in the neighboring sea.
The broad quays that skirt the river are planted with trees, making a
most delightful walk, and near the eastern end of the town one of the
quays ends at what remains of an old chateau or palace. The houses are
mostly of stone, with slated roofs. There are some fine stores in the
Place Royal that are quite as grand as those in Paris. There are also
some old, old churches black with age, dim and vast inside, with
statuary on the outer walls, and splendid gothic towers that seem to
blossom all over with stone flowers as they climb so far up into the sky
above the quaint old town.
Round about the town are gardens and summer houses, pleasant walks and
drives, vineyards, groves and all the things that go to make a charming
rural scene.
In the Place Graslin is a fine theatre and a handsome Town Hall. Of
these buildings more presently when we come to see what happened within
them.
In this old French town in June 1846 there lived a very little girl just
four years old. Her home was on the first floor of a small house on a
narrow street not far from the Place de la Monnaie, an open square that
led into one of the principal streets known as the Rue Voltaire. The
house was built in the usual French fashion with a large arch-way under
the house that led into a court-yard in the centre. The front door
opened into the shady arch-way, and the window balconies were filled
with flowering plants in pots.
Her name was Camilla. Her father Monsieur Salvatore Urso played the
flute in the orchestra at the theatre, or opera house, and on Sundays
played the organ at the Church of the Holy Cross that stood facing a
little square not far from the river.
Her mother Madame Emelie Urso was a young and very handsome woman, and a
fine singer. She also helped her husband in his music lessons. She was
born in Lisbon in Portugal, but as she had come to France when quite
young, she had forgotten her mother tongue and now spoke French and
Italian. This last may have been owing to the fact that her husband was
from Palermo, Sicily. With Camilla's parents lived her mother's sister,
Caroline, whom we shall know as aunt Caroline. This made the Urso
household.
Both of Camilla's parents were young and she was their oldest child and
only daughter. There was at this time a baby brother and later there
were three more brothers. The first four years of the little one's life
were passed in an uneventful manner, very much in the fashion of other
children everywhere. When she was four years old she began to go to the
theatre with her father. Every night she put her small hand in his and
trotted off to the Place Graslin to sit with him in the orchestra among
the violins and close beside her father's flute. He was a noted player
in those days and the little one shared his seat, with the music book
spread before her, and the stage in full view.
It was quite a fine theatre and many notable things took place there.
Operas, both new and old, were given, and often between the acts, a
piano was brought out and such famous players as traveled in that part
of France appeared and showed what they could do. Celebrated violinists
and great singers also appeared at times. So it happened that the little
Camilla almost lived in the midst of an orchestra and before she was
five years old had heard many of the best players and singers of the
times.
The orchestra became almost a second home to her. The lights, the crowds
of people, the music were every day matters and she grew up to be quite
indifferent to the public character of such a life. Most children would
have soon learned to go to sleep in the midst of it all. Camilla never
thought of such a thing. While the music went on she was content. If she
could only nestle down in a corner where she could hear those violins
and her father's flute she was perfectly happy in a demure and sober
fashion that was infinitely amusing in such a very small girl.
On Sundays and on fête days when the church was open she went with her
father to the church of the Holy Cross.
The church was an old one and to reach the organ loft high up over the
great portal they had to climb a steep and winding stair in the great
tower. The stairs were worn deep with footsteps so that it was hard
climbing for the little one. Still, she always went with her father and
mother. Did he not play the tall organ with its great white pipes, and
did her mother not sing? She had a good seat where she could look up at
the black arches springing so high overhead, or down on the people who
seemed so small in the church far below.
When there was no theatre or church she played about her mother's room
or under the trees in the public gardens, very much in the fashion of
other French girls.
Playing in an orchestra is not the road to wealth. The pay was very
small, and even with the organ salary and the music lessons things did
not prosper very happily and the little Camilla had to content herself
with such juvenile joys as could be procured without very much money.
This, happily, did not make much difference. There was enough to eat and
pretty good things to wear and no end of music. This last seemed to
quite satisfy her. The orchestra, the organ and the choir afforded her
perpetual amusement, and her life was as happy as that of the most
favored child in the town.
When not listening to music she was very active and merry and displayed
an abundant fund of good health and spirits. She early learned to talk
and walk and was considered an unusually bright and precocious girl. Her
earliest months gave a hint of her love for music. If fretful or peevish
with weariness or ill-health she could soon be pacified by a gentle song
from her father as he carried her about in his arms.
The first intimation of a desire to make music herself came when she was
three years old. Hearing a hand-organ play in the street while the
family were at dinner she softly left the table and went into the next
room. Presently the tune on the hand-organ was repeated on the piano in
the parlor. Her father opened the door quickly only to find the child
trying to hide, as if she had done something wrong.
Before she could talk she could hum over or sing a number of songs, and
at four years of age could repeat in a thin piping voice many of the
songs and airs sung by her mother and always insisting that the
accompaniment should be played while she sang.
She did not go to school. Hardly any children in the town had any such
advantage. There were a few small primary schools and that was about all
the chance that was open to the young people of Nantes for an education.
So far in Camilla's life it did not make any particular difference.
Things were going on quite to her satisfaction and she was perfectly
happy even if she could not read or write.
Thus in a quiet way with much music the months had slipped away till
she was five years old. Then suddenly came the awakening of a new life.
Something happened that cast the rosy glow of coming day over the
twilight of her life. The morning star that shone out clear and bright
before her young eyes took the shape of a violin solo in a mass called
St. Cecilia. She was in the church when its promise-speaking light
flashed upon her. There was an orchestra, and a full chorus, with the
organ. The little Camilla now almost six years old sat in the old organ
loft and heard it all. She listened and dreamed and wondered and wished
and wished she could only do something like that solo for the first
violin. An ordinary piece of music, indifferently played, but somehow it
enchained her whole attention. It threw wide open the pearly gates of a
new and fairer life.
Many a time she had heard famous players at the theatre. They had never
interested her as did this one. He was not a very fine player. His music
was not particularly wonderful, but there was something about it that
pleased her greatly. She had been already excited by the music. The
majestic and noble character of the mass, the chorus sounding so loud
and grand through the church, the orchestra, her father's organ with its
great thunder tones rolling under it all, had sent the blood tingling
through her veins. The great company kneeling on the floor so far below.
The lights and flowers on the altar. The blue clouds of incense rising
softly on the air and the dusky bars of colored light slanting across
the springing arches. The scene, the music, everything affected her.
Then that song on the violin. It was beautiful--and--if she could.
No--she never, never could--and it was all a dream. She was even
reluctant to leave for home after the service was over and wanted to
linger in the vast, dim church and dream it all over again.
If she only could play like that--if she could have a real violin, all
her own and play on it, why, that would be just too wonderfully grand
and splendid for anything. There were not words in the French language
that could express the pleasure it would give her. She could not speak
of it. It was too good to talk about.
For several days she thought about it and dreamed of it and wondered if
it would do to tell her father and ask him to give her a violin. At last
the secret became unbearable and on creeping into her mother's bed
before daylight one morning for her regular petting she ventured to lisp
to her mother that she wanted a violin--"a real one, to play upon
herself."
The morning star faded away quickly, and there was only the dull grey
dawn in the child's sky. Her mother treated her request with laughter
and put out the little Camilla's hope with a flat refusal.