I once asked Ole Bull what had inspired his weird and original
melodies. His answer was that from his earliest childhood he had
taken the profoundest delight in Norway’s natural scenery. He grew
eloquent in his poetic description of the grand and picturesque
flower–clad valleys, filled with soughing groves and singing
birds; of the silver–crested mountains, from which the summer sun
never departs; of the melodious brooks, babbling streams, and
thundering rivers; of the blinking lakes that sink their deep
thoughts to starlit skies; of the far–penetrating _fjords_ and the
many thousand islands on the coast. He spoke with especial
emphasis of the eagerness with which he had devoured all myths,
folk–tales, ballads, and popular melodies; and all these things,
he said, “have made my music.” And we would emphasize the fact
that these things made his music, not alone by their influence
upon his mind, but also by the impression they had made upon
several generations of his ancestors who had contemplated them.
Ole Bull’s ancestors have, on both sides, been people of culture
and refinement for many generations. When we see a beautiful and
thoughtful face, we do not always consider how much the ancestors
of that man or woman must have suffered and labored and thought
before that beauty and intelligence became possible.
It happened that the hospitality of Ole’s father was the means of
bringing the boy his first teacher. Herr Paulsen was a Dane, a good
artist, a man of solid musical acquirements and knowledge, who could
play the fiddle “as long as there was a drop in the decanter before
him.” He chanced to meet Ole one day at the house of a more humble
colleague, with whom he would condescend to take his schnapps, and began
to visit the apothecary’s house, “to educate the little artist,” as he
said. And he would sit and play till he _had_ drained the last drop from
the decanter, which the hospitality of the time could not deny him. So
thoroughly had he enjoyed the social, and we may say convivial, life of
Bergen—for the suppers were often more than social at that time—that he
had delayed his return home from month to month, and stayed on
indefinitely. When his clothes grew threadbare, his friends would give
him a new suit and a benefit concert, from which he often received some
hundreds of dollars.
Ole’s parents were not pleased with the neglect of his studies, caused
by his fondness for the violin, and their intention of entirely
forbidding him the instrument was hanging like a thunder–cloud above his
head, when, on his eighth birthday, he gained a decisive victory.
One Tuesday evening Paulsen played, as usual, the first violin in Uncle
Jens’s quartette. But when they left the supper–table he was hopelessly
_hors de combat_. In this unfortunate dilemma good–natured Uncle Jens
shouted, “Now, Ole, you shall play in Paulsen’s stead! Come, my boy, do
your best, and you shall have a stick of candy!” at the same time
handing him Paulsen’s violin. The half–serious, half–joking command Ole
accepted in earnest. A quartette of Pleyel, which he had heard several
times, was chosen, and his memory served him faithfully; to the
astonishment of all, he played each movement correctly. He not only
executed the difficult passages, but marked the rests,—in short, gave it
as an artist should.
This was his first triumph, with all its train of consequences. His
delighted uncle immediately had him elected an active member of the
Tuesday club, of whose performances he had before been but a clandestine
and often ingeniously hidden listener; and, through his mother’s
intercession, it was arranged that Paulsen should give him lessons
regularly.
About this time a Frenchman arrived in Bergen with violins for sale. One
of them, bright red in its color, gained the boy’s heart at first sight,
and he pleaded with his father till he consented to buy it. It was
purchased late in the afternoon, and put away in its case. Ole slept in
a small bed in the same apartment with his parents, and the much–coveted
instrument was in the adjoining room. Ole Bull, telling this incident in
later years, said,[1]—
[1] This story is given as written by Mrs. Lydia Maria Child, who heard
Ole Bull tell it when he first came to the United States. Mrs. Child
always preserved better than any one else his peculiar manner of
narration.
I could not sleep for thinking of my new violin. When I heard
father and mother breathing deep, I rose softly, and lighted a
candle, and in my night–clothes did go on tiptoe to open the case,
and take one little peep. The violin was so red, and the pretty
pearl screws did smile at me so! I pinched the strings just a
little with my fingers. It smiled at me ever more and more. I took
up the bow and looked at it. It said to me it would be pleasant to
try it across the strings. So I did try it, just a very, very
little; and it did sing to me so sweetly! Then I did creep farther
away from the bedroom. At first, I did play very soft. I make
very, very little noise. But presently I did begin a capriccio
which I like very much; and it do go ever louder and louder; and
I forgot that it was midnight and that everybody was asleep.
Presently, I hear something go crack! and the next minute I feel
my father’s whip across my shoulders. My little red violin dropped
on the floor, and was broken. I weep much for it, but it did no
good. They did have a doctor to it next day, but it never
recovered its health.
The tears would always fill Ole Bull’s eyes when he spoke of this great
childish sorrow.
The violin with which he now practiced was too large for him. When he
placed it in the usual position for playing, it hurt his neck and
fingers, and compelled him to hold his arm in the way which from that
time became a habit with him. At ten years of age he could play passages
which his teacher found it impossible to perform; but nothing would come
to him by the mechanical process. His genius positively refused to go
into the strait–jacket; and when father and teacher coaxed and scolded,
the nervous child at last screamed with agony. This untamable freedom
was his strongest characteristic. At school the confinement of four
walls would sometimes become so oppressive that he would suddenly
spring out of the window into God’s sunshine and air. His father often
gave him permission to go to the woods of a holiday, and not seldom
released him from the Sunday morning service, which was very tedious in
the cold, dreary church with its close air, and where he must listen to
the singing of the congregation so dreadfully out of tune to his ears.
He realized in later years how his father must have sympathized with him
in relaxing, as he did, the discipline which was much more strict then
than nowadays. An indication that his father was yielding to a
recognition of his son’s determination to study music, was the fact
that, on his ninth birthday, he presented him Fiorillo’s “Studies,”
which he had ordered from Copenhagen. During that year Waldemar Thrane,
the violinist, visited Bergen, and Ole played one of the Studies for
him.
We have heard from his own lips and from others that he was very fond of
composing original melodies, and in these he took especial pains to
imitate the voices of nature; the wind in the trees, the rustle of the
leaves, the call of birds, the babble of brooks, the roar of waterfalls,
and the weird sounds heard among his native mountains.
As a boy he became passionately fond of Lysekloster, a large estate to
the south of Bergen, which he visited with his father when he was eight
years old. His brothers relate how his glowing descriptions would tempt
them to start out with him to take the twenty–mile walk from Bergen to
Lysekloster, and how, one after another, they would fall behind, while
he would run the whole distance with but one or two stops. Lysekloster
is, indeed, one of the most charming spots in all Norway, and to Ole
Bull was “the loveliest on earth.” In its noble forests and streams, its
broad outlook upon sea and _fjords_ with their many islands, upon
mountains and glaciers glittering in the distance, will be found Ole
Bull’s weird music transformed into landscape. Lysekloster was the chief
delight of his boyhood, his manhood, and his age. A rock, which he
climbed when a boy to get a splendid view, is still pointed out by the
peasants, who called it at that early day “Ole Bull’s Lookout.”
Ole was exceedingly fond of beautiful cocks, and when eight or nine
years old, after he had played in public, while walking home carrying
his violin in a gingham bag, he discovered one of the finest specimens
he had ever seen, and was so fascinated and bewitched that in watching
it he forgot himself, stumbled, and fell into the muddy gutter. But a
kind lady had watched the boy with amusement from her window, and came
to his rescue. She took him into her house, washed and dried the bag,
gave him apples, and sent him home happy, telling him not to let the
cock lead him astray again. He adopted later for his crest a cock with
the motto, “Bellum vita, vita bellum.”
Ole and his six brothers used to select sea–shells of different tones to
blow upon, and under his direction they practiced until they produced
some very musical and pleasant effects. At other times he and his
brothers Jens and Randulf would improvise songs with accompaniments,
taking turns in improvising and accompanying.
The mother took great pains in training her children in manners. They
had to go out, rap at the door, and enter the room again and again until
they acquired the desired bearing, and this exercise was often repeated.
After they were grown up, one of the brothers was about to pay a visit
to some friends in town one evening. He had said his “Farvel” and gone
through the form of leave–taking, but on reaching the hall, he
remembered that he had left something in the sitting–room. With his hat
on his head he rushed back to get what he had forgotten; but his mother,
who observed him, quietly crossed the room and gave him a box on the
ear, saying: “That is the way he must be treated who has forgotten to
show due respect to his mother!”
The family spent their summers at Valestrand, a country house about
twenty miles east of Bergen, which had long been in the possession of
the Bull family. The children always looked eagerly forward to the
sojourn there, and there Ole was always very happy. He would seek out
the most solitary places, where he could sit and play undisturbed.
Occasional solitude was already in his childhood a necessity; so many
thoughts and melodies crowded in upon him that he felt a desire to run
away from everybody and wander off into the world of fancy, where no
human being could disturb his quiet dreams. Soon alarming rumors about
ghosts, hobgoblins, trolls, and other supernatural beings went abroad at
Valestrand. It was whispered among the peasants that fiddle strains had
been heard at most unseasonable hours from the very mountains. The
_Hulder_ had come back to take possession of them again. Old
half–forgotten stories and traditions were revived and circulated; it
was considered no longer safe to go abroad alone. But one of the men
ventured at last to investigate the matter more closely. He cautiously
approached the place whence the tones proceeded; trembling with fear he
came nearer and nearer, and there, way down in the bottom of a “giant’s
cauldron,” of which there are many at Valestrand, sat the goblin
perfectly concealed playing the weirdest marches and dances on a little
violin. The secret was out. There was the little Ole, utterly
unconscious of all the excitement and terror he had caused in the
neighborhood, and merely provoked that anybody should have discovered
his secret chamber so well hidden by the bushes.
At Valestrand he was free, and the impressions he received were very
vivid. The atmosphere was filled with music, and in music all he felt or
experienced had to be expressed. If he could not make his instrument
utter his thoughts to suit him, he would, after patient trials, at last
fling it away and be angry with it for many days. He would not even look
at it. Then he would perhaps suddenly get up in the middle of the night,
seat himself at the open window in his night–dress, and play the
strangest airs and melodies. He was frequently scolded for disturbing
the peace of the night, but seemed not to hear when he was in this mood.
At other times he would play almost incessantly for days together,
hardly eating or sleeping in the mean time.
He was a mere boy when he began to study the nature and construction of
the violin. Frequently he would take it all to pieces when he was
dissatisfied with it, put each part by itself, dry them in the sun, and
then put them together again, more or less pleased with the result.
No place could have been better fitted than Valestrand to give a
healthful impulse and development to the lads, who scaled the cliffs and
mountains, swam the lakes, and sailed their boats on the _fjords_. They
used to pride themselves on living out–of–doors as woodsmen, and would
have liked to sleep as well as eat in the woods. Ole led his younger
brothers in all their games and sports, except fishing and shooting. He
always had an aversion to these pursuits, which could not yield him
pleasure enough to compensate for the pain inflicted; and he never
overcame this feeling.
With all their activity it was remarkable, the brothers have since said,
that they escaped whole–limbed, and sometimes with their lives. When
grandmother was questioned once by a friend as to how she could rest
when the boys were with her at Valestrand, she answered: “Why, my dear,
if we sent nurses after each one, what would their guardian angels have
to do?” So for their summer vacation they were given their freedom. The
sisters were, of course, kept more at home, but they, too, had a good
time in the hay–field, and joined in some of their brothers’ frolics.
The death of a baby sister made a deep impression on Ole, and he told,
in one of the last years of his life, how he had stolen into the room
where the little one lay so still, but so beautiful, and alone kept
watch while his heart seemed breaking. When he grieved he could seldom
speak of his sorrow, and he passed through that experience alone, none
of the family knowing then, or later, of the watch he had kept with the
dead child.
At the age of nine years Ole played the first violin in the orchestra,
when his father acted at the theatre; and it may be added that his
father was one of the best amateur actors in Bergen, and knew all
Holberg’s and Wessel’s dramas by heart.
From 1819 to 1822 Ole received no musical instruction whatever. He had
outgrown his former teacher, Paulsen, who, to the astonishment of his
friends, suddenly left Bergen. Mr. Goldschmidt says: “This act of his
was variously interpreted; I prefer to explain it by an allusion to an
old Danish tale of the elf king, who must vanish when a real king enters
his dominions.”
In 1822 a Swedish violinist, Lundholm by name and a pupil of Baillot,
settled in Bergen. From him Ole now received instruction; but a coldness
soon sprang up between pupil and teacher. The latter was very strict,
and insisted that no deviations from established rules should be
permitted. He made the lad stand erect with his head and back against
the wall while playing, and this, no doubt, gave him that repose and
grace of bearing so noticeable in later years. But fortunately Mr.
Lundholm did not succeed in making Ole hold his violin according to the
accepted rule, as the boy would go almost frantic at times when this was
attempted; and this independence of study and method developed later
into an interesting episode, to be related after a slight digression.
One of his father’s assistants played the flute, and used to receive
musical catalogues from Copenhagen. Ole devoured the names, and for the
first time saw that of Paganini in connection with his famous
twenty–four “Caprices.” One evening his father brought home two
Italians, the first Ole had ever seen. He was then fourteen years of
age, and their talk was a new revelation to him. They told him all they
knew of Paganini, the very mention of whose name excited him. He
afterwards related the story to a friend thus:—
I went to my sympathizer and said: “Dear grandmother, can’t I have
some of Paganini’s music?” “Don’t tell any one,” said the dear old
woman, “but I will try to buy a piece of his for you if you are a
good child;” and she did try, and I was wild when I at last had
the Paganini music. How difficult it was, but oh, how beautiful!
The garden–house was more than ever my refuge, and perhaps the
cats, who were still my only listeners, were not so frightened at
my attempts as at my earlier efforts to play Fiorillo’s “Studies,”
when I really drove them from their food.
On a Tuesday quartette evening, Herr Lundholm played Baillot’s
“Caprizzi,” and I was greatly disappointed at the pedantic,
phlegmatic manner in which he rendered the passionate passages. A
concerto of Spohr’s lay on the leader’s stand, and while the
company were at supper I tried the score. Carried away with the
music, I forgot myself, and was discovered by Lundholm on his
return, and scolded for my presumption.
“What impudence! Perhaps you think you could play this at sight,
boy!” “Yes, I think I could.” And as I thought so, I don’t know
why I should not have said so—do you? The rest of the company had
now joined us, and insisted that I should try it. I played the
allegro. All applauded save the leader, who looked angry. “You
think you can play anything, then?” he asked, and taking a caprice
of Paganini’s from the stand, he said: “Try this.” Now it happened
that this very caprice was my favorite, as the cats well knew. I
could play it by heart, and I polished it off. When I had finished
they all shouted, and, instead of raving, as I thought he would,
Lundholm was more polite and kind than he had ever been before,
and told me that with practice I might hope to equal himself some
day.
About this time Ole’s fiddle brought him his first gift. There lived an
old man on the outskirts of the city who passed his life in solitude,
occupying a house with a small garden around it. Ole had heard many
stories of his miserly and eccentric ways, and magnified them till he
felt a fear of him. When he took his walks in the country, he would
always run as fast as he could past this lonely house, and he never
breathed freely till he was well beyond the garden fence. One day the
old man stood at the gate and called to Ole. The boy trembled, but his
training made him instinctively greet the stranger with respect, though
he would fain have taken to his heels.
“Are you the son of Johan Bull? Are you the boy that plays the fiddle?”
“Yes, sir.” “Then come with me,” he said, as he turned and walked up the
path to the door. Ole hesitated, but when his companion added, as he
looked back and observed that Ole was still at the gate, “I have a
fiddle I bought in England that I want to show you,” the boy bounded up
the walk; and he soon found that the old man had a kind face, now that
he dared to look at him.
The fiddle proved to be in need of bridge and sounding–post, but the boy
was happy enough when told that he might whittle out the missing parts.
After adjusting these as well as he could and tuning the strings, he
tried the old bow, which was much the worse for wear and neglect. His
new friend sat by interested, and kept time with his head and foot while
Ole played the folk dances and songs. Then he asked the boy if he had
ever heard “God save the King.” “Yes, I can play it for you if you
like,” said Ole, who soon perceived by the old man’s brightening face
and interested nods that he had hit upon his favorite tune. Many times
he had to repeat it, and finally, when he improvised two or three
variations on the air, his delighted listener made him promise that
whenever he passed the house he would come in and play that tune for
him. Ole was treated to cakes and milk, and felt himself a distinguished
guest.
The following afternoon towards dusk the door–bell rang and a basket was
found in the hall. On opening the basket Ole’s mother discovered four
pair of doves, all rare and very beautiful. A card attached to a blue
ribbon round the neck of one bore Ole’s name. The delighted boy
recognized at once the choicest birds of the cote which his friend had
shown him the day before, and he told his parents all about his visit.
He did not forget his promise, but often went and played “God save the
King” for the old man.
Ole’s father wished him to become a clergyman, and thinking that the boy
would do better in his studies with a private tutor, who could have an
eye to him constantly, engaged a Mr. Musæus (known later as the rector
Musæus). This man, it is said, had great abilities, but afterwards, when
appointed master of a public school, brought disgrace upon himself by
his cruelty. At the slightest offense given by a boy he would summon the
school together and, after offering a fervid prayer that the punishment
he was about to inflict might benefit the culprit, he would fall on him
like a savage. This tutor, declaring Ole’s musical tastes incompatible
with his studies, forbade him to play the violin; and thus the boy could
only indulge at night in an inclination that now, under this restraint,
became a passion.
The boys had long and patiently borne both cross words and blows from
Musæus, but at last they ceased to consider patience a virtue. A council
of war was held, and they solemnly resolved that when occasion offered
they would teach the tyrant a lesson. But this required courage. Ole had
developed into an athletic fellow, even more robust than his brothers,
and they naturally looked to him as leader in the bold enterprise.
One morning when at half past four their tormentor appeared and dragged
out the youngest from his warm bed, Ole sprang upon him with a growl. A
violent struggle followed, but Musæus was no match for the lithe and
powerful lad. The younger brothers, who had promised to assist,
uncovered their heads now and then to cry, “Don’t give up, Ole! Don’t
give up! Give it to him with all your might!” In the midst of this
excitement the maid came up to make the fire, and with the tongs in one
hand and shovel of coals in the other she stood rooted to the spot with
astonishment, though at the same time she was evidently not displeased
at the schoolmaster’s plight. A moment later the mother came running up
the stairs in her green wrapper and with nightcap on her head. She
supposed the house had caught fire. But Ole neither heard nor saw
anybody, till Musæus, all out of breath, collapsed on the floor and gave
up beaten. “That will do now,” said the father, who had just appeared on
the scene. Ole expected a storm, but felt a sense of relief when he saw
his parents exchange an amused look as they left the room. From that day
he felt that he could go to his father with any real grievance, and be
listened to. He was more consulted, too, as to his inclination for
certain studies and work. All this made him very happy and more desirous
than ever of carrying out his father’s wishes.
After having spent three years in study with the private tutor, Ole
Bull was sent in August, 1828, to the University in Christiania. His
fame preceded him. His originality and the independent control he had
gained over his instrument had secured for him a position far above that
of the amateur, and his reputation as a remarkable player may be said to
have been pretty well established at the capital before he came there to
take his _Examen Artium_.
When restrained by his tutor from playing, Ole resorted to whistling and
singing, and he soon found that he could do both at the same time. In
this way he studied the laws of harmony. Ere long he was able to whistle
and sing and accompany himself on two strings, and later he succeeded in
playing on all four strings at once. These studies enabled him at length
to combine six different themes at the same time, a sort of fugue study
which he always enjoyed.
His father, aware of his passion for music, earnestly entreated him not
to yield to it, and Ole’s way to Christiania was paved with the best
intentions to obey. But on arriving there he was met by friends—students
from Bergen—who invited him to play at a concert to be given that very
night, for a charitable purpose. “But,” said Ole, “my father has
forbidden me to play.” “Would your father prevent your doing an act of
charity?” “Well, this alters the case a little; and I can write to him
and claim his pardon.”
The performers at this concert were all _dilettanti_, and two of them
became later ministers of state. The next evening a young professor of
the University had a quartette at his home, and Ole, on being pressed to
take a part, thought, “Well, my father himself would no doubt wish me to
be on a good footing with one of the professors;” and he went. They
played all night, until seven o’clock in the morning, and at nine
o’clock Ole was to go up for his written examination. Scarcely able to
keep his eyes open, he wrote a Latin exercise that could not pass, and
according to the severe rules of the University, he was _rejected_ for
the year. In the deepest despair he went to his host the professor, who
laughingly said: “My good fellow, this is the very best thing that could
have happened to you! Do you believe yourself fitted for a curacy in
Finmark or a mission among the Laps? certainly not! It is the opinion of
your friends that you should travel abroad: meanwhile, old Thrane having
been taken ill, you are appointed _ad interim_ musical director of the
Philharmonic and Dramatic Societies.” A month later, on the death of
Thrane, Ole Bull was regularly installed in these offices, and thus at
once attained independence, having gained a somewhat reluctant pardon
from his father.