Concerts. Joachim again. The Siege of Paris. Peace Declared.
Wagner. A Woman's Symphony. Ovation to Wagner in Berlin.
BERLIN, _December 11, 1870_.
I haven't been doing much of anything lately, except going to concerts,
of which I have heard an immense number, and all of them admirable.--I
wish you _could_ hear Joachim! I went last night to his third soiree,
and he certainly is the wonder of the age. Unless I were to _rave_ I
never could express him. One of his pieces was a quartette by Haydn,
which was perfectly bewitching. The adagio he played so wonderfully, and
drew such a pathetic tone from his violin, that it really went through
one like a knife. The third movement was a jig, and just the gayest
little piece! It flashed like a humming bird, and he played every note
so distinctly and so fast that people were beside themselves, and it was
almost impossible to keep still. It received a tremendous encore.
Joachim is so bold! You never imagined such strokes as he gives the
violin--such tones as he brings out of it. He plays these great _tours
de force_, his fingers rushing all over the violin, just as Tausig
dashes down on the piano. So free! And then his conception!! It is like
revealing Beethoven in the flesh, to hear him.
I heard a lady pianist the other day, who is becoming very celebrated
and who plays superbly. Her name is Fräulein Menter, and she is from
Munich. She has been a pupil of Liszt, Tausig and Bülow. Think what a
galaxy of teachers! She is as pretty as she can be, and she looked
lovely sitting at the piano there and playing piece after piece. I
envied her dreadfully. She plays everything by heart, and has a
beautiful conception. She gave her concert entirely alone, except that
some one sang a few songs, and at the end Tausig played a duet for two
pianos with her, in which he took the second piano. Imagine being able
to play well enough for such a high artist as he to condescend to do
such a thing! It was so pretty when they were encored. He made a sign to
go forward. She looked up inquiringly, and then stepped down one step
lower than he. He smiled and applauded her as much as anybody. I thought
it was very gallant in him to stand there and clap his hands before the
whole audience, and not take any of the encore to himself, for his part
was as important as hers, and he is a much greater artist. I was charmed
with her, though. She goes far beyond Mehlig and Topp, though Mehlig,
too, is considered to have a remarkable technique.
I regret so much that M. will have to go back to America without seeing
Paris--the most beautiful city in the world! Nobody knows how long the
war is going to last. The Prussians have so surrounded Paris that it is
cut off from the country, and can't get any supplies. They have eaten up
all their meat, and now the French are living upon rats, dogs and cats!
Just think how horrid! They catch the rats in the Paris sewers, and
cook them in champagne and eat them. (At least that is the story.) It
seems perfectly inconceivable. The poor things have no milk, no salt, no
butter and no meat. I wonder what they do with all the little babies
whose mothers can't nurse them, and with young children. They will not
give up, however, for they have bread and wine enough to last all
winter, and they declare that Paris is too strong to be taken. Of course
if the Prussians remain where they are, eventually Paris will be starved
out, and will be obliged to surrender.
It is a difficult position for the Prussians, for they must either
bombard the city, or starve it out. If they bombard it, they must be in
a situation to begin it from all sides, or else the French will break
through their lines, and establish a communication with the rest of
France. Now the circle round Paris is twelve miles long, so that it
would take an enormous army to keep up such a bombardment, and although
the Prussian army _is_ enormous, I don't know whether it is equal to
that, for the French have so much the advantage of position that they
can fire down on the Prussians, and kill them by thousands. On the other
hand, if they starve Paris out, the poor soldiers will have to lie out
in the cold all winter, and many of them will die from the exposure.
The men are getting very restless from so many weeks of inactivity.
Nobody knows how it is to end. The King is opposed to bombardment, for
aside from the terrible loss of life it would cause, it seems too
inhuman to lay such a splendid city in the dust. Fresh troops are sent
on all the time, and every day the trains pass my windows packed with
soldiers. It seems as if every man in Germany were being called out, and
that looks like bombardment. It is a terrible time, and everybody feels
restless and disturbed. One sees few soldiers on the streets except
wounded ones. I often meet a young man who is wheeled about in a chair,
who has had both legs cut off. The poor fellow looks so sad--and I know
of another who has lost both hands and both feet.
It is curious to note the condescending attitude taken by people here
toward the French in this war. They never for a moment speak of them as
if they were antagonists on equal ground, but always as if they were a
set of fools bent on their own destruction, who must be properly
chastised and restored to their equilibrium by the Germans. "_Ja!--die
Franzosen!_" the Germans will say with a shrug which implies the deepest
conviction of their entire imbecility. They admit, however, that the
French are an "amusing people," and that "_Paris ist_ DOCH _die
Welt-Stadt_. (Paris is _the_ city of the world.)"
* * *
BERLIN, _February 26, 1871_.
I am going to send you a song out of the Meistersänger, which I think is
one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard. It is called Walther's
Traumlied (Walter's Dream Song). The idea of it is that he sees his love
in a dream or vision as she will be when she is his wife. You must
begin to sing in a dreamy way, as if you were in a trance, and then you
must gradually become more and more excited until you end in a grand
gush of passion. You will be quite in the music of the future if you
sing out of the Meistersänger. It is one of Wagner's greatest operas,
and is very beautiful, in my opinion. It caused a grand excitement when
it came out last winter.
The whole musical world is in a quarrel over Wagner. He is giving a new
direction to music and is finding out new combinations of the chords.
Half the musical world upholds him, and declares that in the future he
will stand on a par with Beethoven and Mozart. The other half are
bitterly opposed to him, and say that he writes nothing but dissonances,
and that he is on an entirely false track. I am on the Wagner side
myself. He seems to me to be a great genius.--Pity he is such a moral
outlaw!
Since I began this letter Paris has capitulated, and PEACE has been
declared. The anxiety and suspense have lasted so long, however, that
the news did not cause much excitement or enthusiasm. Nothing like that
with which the capture of Napoleon was received. But that was decidedly
_the_ event of the war. The politic Bismarck would not allow the troops
to march triumphantly through Paris, but only permitted them to pass
through as small a corner of it as was consistent with the national
honour. This has caused a good deal of murmuring and discontent among
the Germans.--"Our poor soldiers! after all their fatigues and
hardships, they ought have been allowed the satisfaction of marching
through the city!"--is the general opinion I hear expressed. However,
they will probably acquiesce in Bismarck's wisdom in not triumphing over
a fallen foe when they come to think it over. We are now to have six
weeks of mourning for those who have been killed in the war, and then in
May the army will come back in triumph. The King is to meet them at the
Brandenburger Gate, and lead them up the Linden. All Berlin will be wild
with excitement, and I expect it will be a great sight. The windows on
Unter den Linden are already selling at enormous prices for the
occasion.
The Germans, by the way, "take no stock" at all in the King's pious
expressions throughout the campaign. They laugh at him greatly for
calling himself victorious "by the grace of God." "Such a nonsense!"
Herr J. says, contemptuously.
* * *
BERLIN, _April 22, 1871_.
I haven't a mortal thing to say, for all the little I have done I
communicated in a letter to N. S. Kullak has been praising my playing
lately, but I cannot believe in it myself. I have been learning a
Ballade of Liszt's. It is beautiful but very hard, and with some
terrific octave passages in it. It has the double roll of octaves in it,
and this is the first time I ever learned how it was done. I am now
studying octaves systematically. Kullak has written three books of them,
and it is an exhaustive work on the subject, and as famous in its way as
the Gradus ad Parnassum. The first volume is only the preparation, and
the exercises are for each hand separately. There are a lot of them for
the thumb alone, for instance. Then there are others for the fourth and
fifth fingers, turning over and under each other in every conceivable
way. Then there are the wrist exercises, and, in short, it is the most
minute and complete work. Kullak himself is celebrated for his octave
playing. That I knew when I was in Tausig's conservatory, as Tausig used
to tell his scholars that they must study Kullak's Octave School.
Wagner has come to Berlin for a visit, and next week he will have a
grand concert, when some of his compositions are to be brought out, and
he will, himself, conduct. Weitzmann says that he is a great conductor.
I heard his opera of Tannhaüser the other day, and I was perfectly
carried away with the overture, which I had not heard for a long time.
The orchestra played it magnificently, and I think it quite equal to
Beethoven. Wagner's theory is that music is a cry of the mind, and his
compositions certainly illustrate it. All other music pales before it in
passion and intensity.
Did you read my letter to N. S. in which I told her about Alicia Hund,
who composed and conducted a symphony? That is quite a step for women in
the musical line. She reminded me of M., as she had just such a
high-strung face. All the men were highly disgusted because she was
allowed to conduct the orchestra herself. I didn't think myself that it
was a very _becoming_ position, though I had no prejudice against it.
Somehow, a woman doesn't look well with a bâton in her hand directing a
body of men.
* * *
BERLIN, _May 18, 1871_.
Wagner has just been in Berlin, and his arrival here has been the
occasion of a grand musical excitement. He was received with the
greatest enthusiasm, and there was no end of ovations in his honour.
First, there was a great supper given to him, which was got up by Tausig
and a few other distinguished musicians. Then on Sunday, two weeks ago,
was given a concert in the Sing-Akademie, where the seats were free. As
the hall only holds about fifteen hundred people, you may imagine it was
pretty difficult to get tickets. I didn't even attempt it, but luckily
Weitzmann, my harmony teacher, who is an old friend of Wagner's, sent me
one.
The orchestra was immense. It was carefully selected from all the
orchestras in Berlin, and Stern, who directed it, had given himself
infinite trouble in training it. Wagner is the most difficult person in
the world to please, and is a wonderful conductor himself. He was highly
discontented with the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipsic, which thinks
itself the best in existence, so the Berlinese felt rather shaky. The
hall was filled to overflowing, and finally, in marched Wagner and his
wife, preceded and followed by various distinguished musicians. As he
appeared the audience rose, the orchestra struck up three clanging
chords, and everybody shouted _Hoch!_ It gave one a strange thrill.
The concert was at twelve, and was preceded by a "greeting" which was
recited by Frau Jachmann Wagner, a niece of Wagner's, and an actress.
She was a pretty woman, "fair, fat and forty," and an excellent speaker.
As she concluded she burst into tears, and stepping down from the stage
she presented Wagner with a laurel crown, and kissed him. Then the
orchestra played Wagner's Faust Overture most superbly, and afterwards
his Fest March from the Tannhäuser. The applause was unbounded. Wagner
ascended the stage and made a little speech, in which he expressed his
pleasure to the musicians and to Stern, and then turned and addressed
the audience. He spoke very rapidly and in that child-like way that all
great musicians seem to have, and as a proof of his satisfaction with
the orchestra he requested them to play the Faust Overture under _his_
direction. We were all on tiptoe to know how he would direct, and indeed
it was wonderful to see him. He controlled the orchestra as if it were a
single instrument and he were playing on it. He didn't beat the time
simply, as most conductors do, but he had all sorts of little ways to
indicate what he wished. It was very difficult for them to follow him,
and they had to "keep their little eye open," as B. used to say. He held
them down during the first part, so as to give the uncertainty and
speculativeness of Faust's character. Then as Mephistopheles came in, he
gradually let them loose with a terrible crescendo, and made you feel as
if hell suddenly gaped at your feet. Then where Gretchen appeared, all
was delicious melody and sweetness. And so it went on, like a succession
of pictures. The effect was tremendous.
I had one of the best seats in the house, and could see Wagner and his
wife the whole time. He has an enormous forehead, and is the most
nervous-looking man you can imagine, but has that grim setting of the
mouth that betokens an iron will. When he conducts he is almost beside
himself with excitement. That is one reason why he is so great as a
conductor, for the orchestra catches his frenzy, and each man plays
under a sudden inspiration. He really seems to be improvising on his
orchestra.
Wagner's object in coming here was to try and get his Nibelungen opera
performed. It is an opera which requires four evenings to get through
with. Did you ever hear of such a thing? He lays out everything on such
a colossal scale. It reminded me of that story they tell of him when he
was a boy. He was a great Shakespeare enthusiast, and wanted to write
plays, too. So he wrote one in which he killed off forty of the
principal characters in the last act! He gave a grand concert in the
opera house here, which he directed himself. It was entirely his own
compositions, with the exception of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, which he
declared nobody understood but himself. That rather took down Berlin,
but all had to acknowledge after the concert that they had never heard
it so magnificently played. He has his own peculiar conception of it.
There was a great crowd, and every seat had been taken long before. All
the artists were present except Kullak, who was ill. I saw Tausig
sitting in the front rank with the Baroness von S. There must have been
two hundred players in the orchestra, and they acquitted themselves
splendidly. The applause grew more and more enthusiastic, until it
finally found vent in a shower of wreaths and bouquets. Wagner bowed and
bowed, and it seemed as if the people would never settle down again. At
the end of the concert followed another shower of flowers, and his
Kaiser March was encored. Such an effect! After the tempest of sound of
the introduction the drums came in with a sharp tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
Then the brass began with the air and came to a crescendo, at last
_blaring_ out in such a way as shivered you to the very marrow of your
bones. It was like an earthquake yawning before you.
The noise was so tremendous that it was like the roaring of the surf. I
never conceived of anything in music to approach it, and Wagner made me
think of a giant Triton disporting himself amid the billows and tossing
these great waves of sound from one hand to the other. You don't see his
face, of course--nothing but his back, and yet you know every one of his
emotions. Every sinew in his body speaks. He makes the instruments
prolong the tones as no one else does, and the effect is indescribably
beautiful, yet he complains that he never _can_ get an orchestra to
_hold_ the tone as they ought. His whole appearance is of arrogance and
despotism personified.
By the end of the concert the bouquets were so heaped on the stage in
front of the director's desk, that Wagner had no place left big enough
to stand on without crushing them. Altogether, it was a brilliant
affair, and a great triumph for his friends. He has a great many bitter
enemies here, however. Joachim is one of them, though it seems
unaccountable that a man of his musical gifts should be. Ehlert is also
a strong anti-Wagnerite, and the Jews hate him intensely.--Perhaps his
character has something to do with it, for he has set all laws of
honour, gratitude and morality at defiance all his life long. It is a
dreadful example for younger artists, and I think Wagner is depraving
them. In this country everything is forgiven to audacity and genius, and
I must say that if Germany can teach _us_ Music, we can teach _her_
morals!