Gertner will remain here to paint the cathedral, which is a
splendid structure and eight hundred years old. I gave a concert
without any assistance, playing nearly two hours without
cessation. It was very fatiguing, but, at least, nothing was
ruined by a bad accompaniment, and the audience was pleased.
On the way from Bergen to Christiania, he stopped at several points to
play for the peasants. Especially memorable to him was the scene in
Sogn. He found many of the people in their Sunday dress, assembled in
the quaint Borgund church, which has stood there some eight hundred
years; and, with a driving storm outside, he played for them the
folk–songs, as old, probably, as the edifice which sheltered them. Ole
Bull visited this church again in 1879. On this, his last trip over the
mountains, knots of working–men had assembled to greet him. Every hat
was lifted and hearty cheers were given as the carriage rolled past.
Wergeland says:—
Ole Bull’s power, exercised through his violin over an audience,
was truly wonderful. Once, on a journey in Norway, he played for a
number of peasants whom he incidentally found gathered in an inn.
When he finished playing the deepest silence prevailed. Only the
ticking of the big watches in their pockets was heard, when
suddenly one of the men struck out his hand, and with great
emphasis cried aloud, “This is a lie.” If true mental power
consists in lifting the unconscious forces of life into the light
of the conscious, giving them form and shape, converting them into
thought and will, Ole Bull’s playing was not a lie. His tones fell
on his hearers, like the first warm rain of spring, with a
blessing.
His last months in Norway were spent in making preparations for the
great journey to America. August found him again in Christiania. On the
11th of September he gave his farewell concert, and left with his wife
and three children on the 16th, for Copenhagen. Wergeland, writing of
his departure, says: “He left for America, preceded by his fame, and
followed by thousands and thousands of grateful farewells from his
countrymen.”
On the 3d of October he gave a concert in Luneburg, which was attended
by the King of Hanover and other royal personages; and, sending his
family to Paris, he went himself, by way of Amsterdam and London, to
Liverpool, where he took passage. He wrote his wife from Liverpool,
November 4, 1843:—
Schubert has published the “Adagio Religioso,” which will be sent
you at Paris. You will find _your_ name on the title–page. The
“Bravura Variations” are dedicated to King Karl Johan (Bernadotte)
as follows: “Variazioni di Bravoura, Fantasy on a theme of
Bellini, dedicated to Karl Johan, King and Benefactor of my native
land, Norway.” It will be sent you, too....
I am well now, but in a fever of anxiety concerning you and our
children, whom I am about to leave. I must have patience. With a
firm will, talent, and God’s blessing, all will be well.... I
embrace you very tenderly. Kiss our children for me.
Wergeland’s celebrated poems to Ole Bull were published at this time,
and, like Welhaven’s, are valued as among the finest lyrics in the Norse
literature.[13]
[13] They are printed in the Appendix.
Ole Bull landed in Boston, in November, 1843, and went directly on to
New York. His belief in the sturdy common people of his own country and
his love of freedom made him anticipate with great interest an
acquaintance with a people who governed for themselves, and this
acquaintance resulted in giving him greater hopes for his own land,
which he proudly felt was able to show already the most liberal
constitution of all the European monarchical governments. He was then
and ever zealous to the utmost, that every precedent which had been
favorable to the growing power of the Norse people, through their
constitution, should be jealously guarded. He insisted that their only
safety and good lay in a demand for a fuller sovereignty of the people,
and in their better education for such power. To him, therefore, the
interest of his first visit and sojourn in the American Republic was not
confined to his profession. He was from the first, and to the last, an
earnest student of republican government and institutions.