_Den 21ten April, 1858._
Ole Bull met Fanny Elssler in Vienna, in 1877. She recalled with
interest many of the incidents of her visit to the United States, which
she said seemed then like a dream to her. Still handsome, the noble
graceful carriage as striking as ever, her face with its winning smile
was one to attract a stranger’s eye in the crowded audience room of the
great Musik Verein Hall.
From Hamburg Ole Bull went to Vienna and Pesth, and his success, as
reported by the papers, was extraordinary. He wrote to his son, from
Vienna, May 8, 1858:—
Thanks for your dear letter, which I would have answered at once
if important changes in my plans had not made it necessary to
defer my return to Bergen. I received offers from the directors in
Pesth and Gratz, and after the conditions and dates were fixed I
was asked to make later dates. I leave for Pesth this evening. Day
after to–morrow the first concert, and the fourth on the 17th!
Therefore I cannot be in Bergen. I hope, though, to reach there
the end of this month.
You know what stress I lay on the observance of this
Thanksgiving–festival, and if pecuniary obligations did not compel
me otherwise, I would instantly go to you; but _ratio pro
voluntate_!
In Berlin I met my old friend Bettina von Arnim, who, sad to say,
is fast approaching the end. She was so glad to see me that I
delayed my departure two days, to celebrate her birthday with my
violin. The next day Joachim came from Hanover, to make my
acquaintance: I of course staid one day more on his account. I see
that he is now playing in London. Ernst is very ill in
Baden–Baden; he, poor man, is crippled by gout!... I have also
seen Liszt after an interval of sixteen years: he has taken holy
orders....
He writes on the 27th of May from Pesth, which he now revisited after
the lapse of nineteen years:—
I leave in an hour for Vienna. I have taken a course of bitter
salt waters at Ofen; my blood is benefitted. It was necessary, as
the fever had come again, and although not so serious as in the
United States, still to a degree that caused me much
inconvenience. I shall now hurry home.
The enthusiasm has been so great here, that I have been obliged to
promise to return at the end of the year....
He did not return directly, however, as it was deemed advisable for him
to go to Carlsbad, where he spent the summer. Among the friends he
especially enjoyed meeting there were Mr. and Mrs. Henry A. Wise, of
Virginia, whom he had known intimately in the United States.
In October he was again in Norway, and on his return to Bergen he bought
of his mother the ancestral home, Valestrand. He spent that winter in
improving the place; he commenced the thorough drainage of the land,
which work he pushed vigorously for years, and it was not interrupted by
the winters, so mild is the climate on that coast. The estate now
belongs to his son, Mr. Alexander Bull. The following picturesque
description of the place is from an article by H. H. in the _Atlantic
Monthly_ for June, 1881:—
Another memorable Bergen day was a day at Valestrand, on the
island Osteröen. Valestrand is a farm which has been in the
possession of Ole Bull’s family for several generations, and is
still in the possession of Ole Bull’s eldest son. It lies two
hours’ sail north from Bergen,—two hours, or four, according to
the number of lighters loaded with cotton bales, wood, etc., which
the steamer picks up to draw. Steamers on Norway fjords are like
country gentlemen who go into the city every day and come out at
night, always doing unexpected errands for people along the road.
No steamer captain going out from Bergen may say how many times he
will stop on his journey, or at what hour he will reach its end:
all of which is clear profit for the steamboat company, no doubt,
but is worrying to travelers; especially to those who leave Bergen
of a morning at seven, as we did, invited to breakfast at
Valestrand at nine, and do not see Osteröen’s shore till near
eleven. People who were not going to Valestrand to breakfast that
day were eating breakfast on board, all around us: poor people
eating cracknels and dry bread out of baskets; well–to–do people
eating sausage, eggs, and coffee, neatly served at little tables
on deck, and all prepared in a tiny coop below–stairs, hardly big
enough for one person to turn around in. It is an enticing sight
always for hungry people to see eating going on; up to a certain
point it whets appetite, but beyond that it is both insult and
injury.
The harbor of Valestrand is a tiny amphitheatre of shallow water.
No big craft can get to the shore. As the steamer comes to a stop
opposite it, the old home of Ole Bull is seen on a slope at the
head of the harbor, looking brightly out over a bower of foliage
to the southern sun. It appears to be close to the water, but, on
landing, one discovers that he is still a half hour’s walk away
from it. A little pathway of mossy stones, past an old boat–house,
on whose thatched roof flowering grasses and a young birch–tree
were waving, leads up from the water to the one road on the
island. Wild pansies, white clover and dandelions, tinkling water
among ferns and mosses along the roadsides, made the way
beautiful; low hills rose on either side, softly wooded with firs
and birches feathery as plumes; in the meadows peasant men and
women making hay,—the women in red jackets and white blouses, a
delight to the eye. Just in front of the house is a small, darkly
shaded lake, in which there is a mysterious floating island, which
moves up and down at pleasure changing its moorings often.
The house is wooden, and painted of a pale flesh color. The
architecture is of the light and fantastic order of which so much
is to be seen in Norway,—the instinctive reaction of the Norwegian
against the sharp, angular, severe lines of his rock–made,
rock–bound country,—and it is vindicated by the fact that
fantastic carvings, which would look trivial and impertinent on
houses in countries where Nature herself had done more decorating,
seem here pleasing and in place. Before the house were clumps of
rose–bushes in blossom, and great circles of blazing yellow
eschscholtzias. In honor of our arrival, every room had been
decorated with flowers and ferns; and clumps of wild pansies in
bloom had been set along the steps to the porch. Ole Bull’s own
chamber and music–room are superb rooms, finished in yellow pine,
with rows of twisted and carved pillars, and carved cornices and
beams and panels, all done by Norwegian workmen.
Valestrand was his home for many years, abandoned only when he
found one still more beautiful on the island of Lysöen, sixteen
miles southwest of Bergen.
A Norwegian supper of trout freshly caught, and smothered in
cream, croquettes, salad, strawberries, goat’s–milk cheese, with
fine–flavored gooseberry wine, served by a Norwegian maid in a
white–winged head–dress, scarlet jacket, and stomacher of gay
beads, closed our day. As we walked back to the little moss–grown
wharf, we found two peasants taking trout from the brook. Just
where it dashed foaming under a little foot–bridge, a stake–lined
box trap had been plunged deep in the water. As we were passing,
the men lifted it out, dripping, ten superb trout dashing about
wildly in it, in terror and pain; the scarlet spots on their sides
shone like garnet crystals in the sun, as the men emptied them on
the ground, and killed them, one by one, by knocking their heads
against a stone with a sharp, quick stroke, which could not have
been so cruel as it looked.
On our way back to Bergen we passed several little row–boats,
creeping slowly along, loaded high with juniper boughs. They
looked like little green islands broken loose from their places,
and drifting out to sea.
“For somebody’s sorrow!” we said thoughtfully, as we watched them
slowly fading from sight in the distance....
In the winter of 1860 Ole Bull went to Stockholm, giving seventeen
concerts in that city, and then to Finland.
In 1861–1862 he gave forty–six concerts in England, Scotland, and
Ireland. He left the settlement of his accounts with the impressario
till the end of the trip, and then giving up the memorandum before the
money was handed him, received not one penny of the proceeds, all of
which remained in the pockets of the manager.
While he was in Paris, in 1862, the sad intelligence of his wife’s death
reached him. She had suffered much the last years of her life from
ill–health, and, living in an adopted country, the misfortunes and
sorrows of her husband, added to her own, were more than she could bear.
The following letter to his son was written from Hamburg, September 18,
1862:—
Instead of coming myself with the steamer to Bergen, as I had
hoped, I am obliged to wait for—my trunk, which went astray
between Cologne and this place, and for which I have waited now
three whole days. Notwithstanding my troubles, my health was
better, and would have kept improving had I not broken a rib in my
left side, just as I was about to leave Godesberg, after giving a
concert for the benefit of the organ in the Catholic church there,
by request of the authorities. The concert was a brilliant affair,
but I had to pay for it. It seemed that it had been planned to
convert me to Catholicism, and a young Jesuit, who was taking the
water–cure, sought, partly by charges against Protestantism,
partly by flattery or threats, to make himself interesting; and
when I declined his entertainment he turned about suddenly and
claimed to be greatly interested in my views. One morning he came
to meet me just as I had returned from a walk in the mountains and
was going to breakfast, handing me a newspaper. As I accepted it
and bowed, he threw his arms about my neck and pressed his knee
against my breast; I felt and heard a crack in my side, as I
pushed him from me. I went to the hotel, but did not feel well,
and the doctor found a rib was broken. I had to keep my bed day
and night for a week’s time, using wet bandages to prevent
inflammation. When I got out, I exerted myself too much, so the
bone has not knit together as well as could be desired.
I went recently to Aix–la–Chapelle to get my Guarnerius, which I
had confided to a Frenchman, Monsieur D., to repair; but on my
arrival I found all the parts were separated; the side–pieces by
themselves, the top and back also; the neck divided, and the man
himself in despair! I was obliged to put it together again myself,
but what a task! He helped me. Poor fellow, I was sorry for him.
When he saw what wretched work he had made of it, I could neither
take the violin from him, and thereby ruin his reputation, nor
scold him more. At last it was finished, and now I have three
Guarneriuses beside my pearl, the Nicholas Amati, large pattern,
that has the most beautiful tone of them all. I exchanged another
for it in London last year, and Mr. Plowden, an amateur, offered
me a considerable advance; but I would rather part with all my
other violins than this, which is remarkable for its peculiar
softness and clearness. Besides, it fits the hand well, and has
the greatest variety of tone–color, that is to say, versatility of
expression. I have had and am having a hard time. I must try to
keep up courage. If I am to go under, I will still fight as long
as I can,—perhaps the sun will shine when I least expect it!...
In 1863 he visited Christiania, and hoped to induce the people there to
establish an Academy of Music. It was but a continuation of his earlier
programme and thought of “a Norse Orchestra in a Norse Theatre.” He
explained himself in an article published in the _Illustrated News_:—