AULD LANG SYNE
[Illustration: F. Max Müller]
AULD LANG SYNE
BY
THE RT. HON. PROFESSOR F. MAX MÜLLER
AUTHOR OF THE “SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE,” ETC.
_WITH A PORTRAIT_
New York
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1899
COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK
PREFACE
What are you to do when you are sent away by your doctor for three or
four weeks of perfect rest? You are made to promise that you will lie
perfectly fallow, take no books and allow no proofsheets to reach you. A
very eminent German professor, the late Dr. Neander, the famous Church
historian, solved the difficulty in his own way. He had faithfully
promised his physician that he would take no books with him to Karlsbad,
but had at last, as a great favour, obtained permission to take at least
one work with him on his journey. On the morning of his departure the
doctor wished to say good-bye to his patient, and calling at his door
saw a cart laden with heavy folios. “But, dear professor,” he said, with
considerable surprise and displeasure, “you had promised me to take no
books with you.” “Yes, doctor,” the professor replied, “but you allowed
me one work, so I thought I might take the Fathers with me to Karlsbad.”
I might have done the same, if I had taken the “Rig Veda” only, or the
Sacred Books of the East with me, but my conscience would not allow it,
so that I found myself in small lodgings at an English watering place
with nothing to do all day long but to answer a number of accumulated
letters and to read _The Times_, which always follows me. What was I to
do? Doctors ought to know that to a man accustomed to work enforced rest
is quite as irritating and depressing as _travaux forcés_. In
self-defence I at last hit on a very simple expedient. I began to write
what could be written without a single book, and taking paper, pen and
ink—these I had never forsworn—I jotted down some recollections of
former years. The fancy took me, and I said with Goethe:—
Ihr naht euch wieder, schwankende Gestalten—
and after a day or two I was so absorbed in my work, if work it could be
called, that I said again with Goethe:—
Ihr drängt euch zu! Nun gut, so mögt ihr walten....
Of course I had to leave many a gap in my sketch of Auld Lang Syne.
Dates, even names, would now and then leave me in the lurch, and as I
had no means of verifying anything, I had to wait till I was settled
again among my books and letters and papers at home. But though I
corrected some glaring anachronisms and some mistaken names, I could
leave my MS. very much as it had been written down in my temporary
exile, and I can therefore vouch for its truth so far that it is an
exact copy of the negative developed by long exposure in my memory.
Whether it is accurate, who can tell? I know from sad experience that my
memory is no longer what it was. All I can say is that the positive copy
here published is as true and as exact as the rays of the evening sun of
life, falling on the negative in my memory, could make it. Though I have
suppressed whatever could possibly have given offence to any sensible
person, however sensitive, I have not retouched the pictures of my
friends or acquaintances, nor have I tried, as is now so much the
fashion, to take out all the lines and wrinkles so that nothing remains
but the washed-out faces of angels.
What I give here is but a small portion of the panorama of life that has
passed before my eyes. Of myself there is but little, for the spectator
or interpreter in a panorama should remain unseen and in the dark. It is
a pleasure to him, though often a sad pleasure, to see once more what he
has seen before, to live the old time over again, to look once more at
dear faces, once so full of love and life, to feel the touch of a
vanished hand, and hear a voice that is still.
As we grow old it is our fate to lose our friends; but the friends we
have lost are often nearer to us than those who remain. Will they never
be quite near to us again? Stars meet stars after thousands of years,
and are we not of more value than many a star?
F. MAX MÜLLER.
CONTENTS
PAGE
MUSICAL RECOLLECTIONS 1
LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS—
I. 40
II. 86
III. 120
IV. 164
RECOLLECTIONS OF ROYALTIES—
I. 205
II. 245
BEGGARS 289
INDEX 321
AULD LANG SYNE
MUSICAL RECOLLECTIONS
The man that has no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils:
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted.
Thus wrote Shakespeare; but with all due respect for the immortal bard,
he was wrong for once. Did not my dear friend, Arthur Stanley, hate
music, and was he not to be trusted? Were his affections dark as Erebus?
True it is, music gives us a new life, and to be without that life is
the same loss as to be blind, and not to know the infinite blue of the
sky, the varied verdure of the trees, or the silver sparkle of the sea.
Music is the language of the soul, but it defies interpretation. It
means something, but that something belongs not to this world of sense
and logic, but to another world, quite real, though beyond all
definition. How different music is from all other arts! They all have
something to imitate which is brought to us by the senses. But what does
music imitate? Not the notes of the lark, nor the roar of the sea; they
cannot be imitated, and if they are, it is but a caricature. The
melodies of Schubert were chosen, not from the Prater, but from another
world.
For educational purposes music is invaluable. It softens the young
barbarian, it makes him use his fingers deftly, it lifts him up, it
brings him messages from another world, it makes him feel the charm of
harmony and beauty. There is no doubt an eternal harmony that pervades
every kind of music, and there are the endless varieties of music, some
so strange that they seem hardly to deserve to be called a gift of the
Muses. There is in music something immortal and something mortal. There
is even habit in music; for the music that delights us sounds often
hideous to uneducated ears.
Indian music is thoroughly scientific, based on mathematics, and handed
down to the present age after many centuries of growth. But when we hear
it for the first time, it seems mere noise, without melody, without
harmony, without rhythm. The Maoris have their own music too, but send a
New Zealander to hear a long symphony of Beethoven, and, if he can, he
will certainly run away long before the finale.
In a lesser degree it is the same with us. Beethoven’s compositions were
at first considered wild and lawless. Those who admired Mozart and Haydn
could not endure him. Afterwards the world was educated up to his Ninth
Symphony, but some of his later sonatas for pianoforte and violin were
played by Mendelssohn and David in my hearing, and they both shrugged
their shoulders, and thought that the old man had been no longer quite
himself when he wrote them. We have grown into them, or up to them, and
now many a young man is able to enjoy them, and to enjoy them honestly.
I remember the time when Schumann’s songs were published at Leipzig, and
the very same songs which now delight us were then by the best judges
called curious, strange, interesting, promising, but no more. Yes, there
is habit in music, and we are constantly passing through a musical
education; nay, the time comes when our education seems finished, and we
can learn and take in no more. I have passed through a long school. I
began with Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, lived on with Mendelssohn, rose
to Schumann, and reached even Brahms; but I could never get beyond, I
could never learn to enjoy Wagner except now and then in one of his
lucid intervals. No doubt this is my fault and my loss, but surely the
_vulgus profanum_ also has its rights and may protest against being
tired instead of being refreshed and invigorated by music. Would
Mendelssohn have admired Wagner? Would Beethoven have listened to his
music, would Bach have tolerated it? Yet these were musicians too,
though perhaps not sufficiently educated. To be honest, a great deal of
Wagner’s music seems tiresome to me, and I do not see why it should ever
end.
My musical education began very early, so early that I cannot remember
ever passing through any drudgery. As long as I remember I could play,
and I was destined to become a musician, till I went to the University,
and Mendelssohn advised me to keep to Greek and Latin. I was born and
brought up in Dessau, a small German town in an oasis of oak-trees where
the Elbe and the Mulde meet, a town then overflowing with music. Such
towns exist no longer.
When I went to school at Dessau, this small capital of the small Duchy
of Anhalt-Dessau counted, I believe, not more than ten or twelve
thousand inhabitants. Everybody knew everybody. As a boy I knew not only
the notables of Dessau, I knew the shops and the shopmen, the servants,
the day-labourers (_Tagelöhner_) who sawed and split wood in the street,
every old woman that sold apples, every beggar that asked for a
Pfennig—mark, not a penny, but the tenth part of a penny. It was a
curious town, with one long street running through it, the
_Cavalierstrasse_, very broad, with pavements on each side. But the
street had to be weeded from time to time, there being too little
traffic to prevent the grass from growing up between the chinks of the
stones. The houses had generally one storey only; those of two or three
storeys were mostly buildings erected by the Duke for his friends and
his higher officials. Many houses were mere cottages, consisting of a
ground floor and a high roof. Almost every house had a small mysterious
looking-glass fastened outside the window in which the dwellers within
could watch and discuss an approaching visitor long before he or she
came within speaking distance. It was the fashion not only to whitewash
the plastered walls of houses, but to green-wash, or to blue-wash, or to
pink-wash them. All this is changed now; few people remember the old
streets, with distant lamps swinging across to make darkness more
visible at night, and with long waterspouts frowning down on the
pavement like real gurgoyles, and not frowning only, but during a
thunderstorm pouring down buckets of water on the large red and green
umbrellas of the passers-by.
Dessau was then a very poor town, but a _læta paupertas_ reigned in it;
everybody knew how much everybody else possessed or earned, and no one
was expected to spend more than was justified by his position. We can
hardly understand now with how little people then managed, not only to
live, but thoroughly to enjoy the highest pleasures of life. My
grandfather, who was the Duke’s Prime Minister, received, I believe, no
more than two thousand thalers (£300) salary, though there may have been
additional allowances for rent, carriages and horses. But there was a
curious mixture of simplicity of life and enjoyments of the highest
kind. I remember in my grandfather’s house delightful social gatherings,
musical and literary performances. I remember Mozart’s “Don Juan,”
Beethoven’s “Fidelio” being performed there, the latest works of Goethe
and Jean Paul being read and appreciated with a cup of tea or a glass of
wine. A more select circle enjoyed their Shakespeare, their Dante, their
Calderon in English, Italian, and Spanish. I remember my grandfather
(the son of Basedow, the reformer of national education in Germany) in
his Court uniform, driving to Court in his carriage and pair, servants
in full livery, everybody making room for him and bowing deep on each
side, hat in hand. And when he came back from Court, was it not a real
holiday for his grandchildren to turn the pockets of his uniform inside
out—the pockets were lined on purpose with soft leather—to see what
bonbons and cakes he had brought home for us from _Tafel_—_i.e._, dinner
at Court? Almost my first recollections come from my grandfather’s
house. My mother, after the very early death of my father, who died
before I was four years old, had gone back to live at her father’s
house. This was a very common arrangement then. Two or three generations
often lived together in the same house, and among the better families
the house was looked upon as a common home, descending from father to
son and grandson. There was a large garden stretching out behind the
house, which was our playground. Our neighbours’ gardens were separated
on each side from our own by a low hedge only. Next door to us was the
house of a soap and candle maker, and I still remember the disagreeable
smells on the day when soap was boiled and candles were drawn. People
talked across the garden hedge to their neighbours, and all the affairs
of the town were discussed there. Our neighbour on the right side took
lodgers, and one of them was a young man who had come to Dessau to study
music under F. Schneider, and at the same time to give music lessons. He
had been a theological student, but had _umgesattelt_ (changed saddles),
and now tried to support himself as best he could at Dessau. He often
talked to me across the garden hedge (I was only five years old). One
day he lifted me across into his own garden, and asked whether I would
like to learn the pianoforte. I, of course, said yes, and he then bade
me promise to come to him every day for half an hour, but not to say a
word to my mother or to anybody else. The bargain was struck; I kept my
music quite secret, till, after about half a year or so, I sat down at
my grandfather’s pianoforte, and to the amazement of everybody played
some easy pieces of Mozart or Diabelli. Of course the young theological
student—his name was Kahle—was engaged at once to be my music-master. He
charged five Groschen (sixpence) for a lesson, and I made very rapid
progress. My mother was very musical; she had a splendid alto voice, and
was often invited to sing the solos at the great musical festivals in
Germany. My aunts, too, sang very well, and as a little boy I could sing
all the songs which they sang, and well remember being put on a table to
sing Händel’s great arias, “Schnell wie des Blitzes Strahl,” etc. Dessau
at that time was steeped in music.
The reigning Duke kept a first-rate orchestra, and at the head of it was
Friedrich Schneider, a well-known composer of the old school, a cantor,
like Bach, but also Ducal Capellmeister, and the head of what was then
called a musical school, now a conservatorium. This school was
frequented by students from all parts of Germany, and it has produced
some excellent musicians and well-known composers. There were public
concerts given regularly every fortnight at a very low charge, and there
were rehearsals twice a week, at which a few people only were allowed to
be present. I was one of the few, and every Tuesday and Friday after
school I sat there for an hour or two hearing the very best music
excellently performed, and being deeply impressed, nay, awed by old
Schneider, who stormed at the players when a single note went wrong, and
used language which I was not allowed to repeat. He was a character. A
small, square man, with greyish hair flowing down to his shoulders, his
black eyes full of fire, and sometimes of fury. He was very fond of his
glass of wine, which had given to his whole face, and particularly to
his nose, a glowing ruddy complexion. He brooked no opposition from
anybody, and he was the terror of all the young musicians who showed
themselves at Dessau. His orchestra had such a reputation at that time
that some of the greatest celebrities considered it an honour either to
have their compositions performed or to be allowed to sing or play at
his concerts. I remember Paganini, Sonntag, Spohr, Mendelssohn (then
quite a young man), and many more passing through their ordeal at
Dessau. Mendelssohn’s visit left a deep impression on my mind. I was
still a mere child, he a very young man, and, as I thought, with the
head of an angel. Mendelssohn’s was always a handsome face, but later in
life the sharpness of his features betrayed his Jewish blood. He
excelled as an organ player, and while at Dessau he played on the organ
in the _Grosse Kirche_, chiefly extempore. I was standing by him, when
he took me on his knees and asked me to play a choral while he played
the pedal. I see it all now as if it had been yesterday, and I felt
convinced at that time that I too (_anch’ io_) would be a musician. Was
not Weber, Karl Maria von Weber, my godfather, and had he not given me
my surname of Max? My father and mother had been staying with Weber at
Dresden, and my father had undertaken to write the text for a new opera,
which was never finished. Weber was then writing his “Freischütz,” and
my mother has often described to me how he would walk about the whole
day in his room composing, not before the pianoforte, but with a small
guitar, and how she heard every melody gradually emerging from the twang
of his little instrument. Both his wife and my mother were expecting
their confinement, and it was arranged that if the children should be
boys, they should be called Max, if girls, Agathe. We were both boys,
and Weber’s son, Max Maria von Weber, became a distinguished traveller,
a most charming writer, and at last an influential financier in the
Austrian service. He stayed with me several times at Oxford, and we
exchanged notes about our respective fathers. He published a life of his
father, which has, I believe, been translated into English.
Old Schneider was kind to young Mendelssohn, whenever he came to Dessau;
they were both ardent admirers of Händel and Bach, but the more modern
and romantic compositions of the young composer did not quite meet the
approval of the severe Maestro. Schneider was terribly outspoken, and
apt to lose his temper and become violent. He once had a most painful
scene with Madame Sonntag, or rather with Countess Something, as she was
then. First of all, he thought very little of any composer whose name
ended in _ini_ or _ante_, and he would but seldom yield to the Duke and
Duchess when they wished now and then to have some of Rossini’s or
Mercadante’s music performed by their own orchestra. But when the
Italian Countess ventured to speak to his orchestra and to ask them for
a _ritardando_ of her own, he flourished his bâton and broke out:
“Madame,” he said, “you may sing as you like, but I look after of my
orchestra,” and there was an end of it.
Life went on, and what time I could spare from school work, perhaps too
much, was given to music. There was not an air or a symphony of
Beethoven’s which at that time I could not have hummed from beginning to
end, and even now I often detect myself humming, “Ich bin’s, du bist’s,
O himmlisches Entzücken!” Who does not know that duet between Fidelio
and Florestan? Much of that humming repertorio has remained with me for
life, though I cannot always tell now where an Allegro or Adagio comes
from. It comes without being called, I cannot drive it away when I want
to be quiet. I hum the bass, I whistle the piccolo, I draw out the notes
from the violoncello, I blow the trumpet, in fact I often feel like
Queen Bess, “And she shall have music wherever she goes.”
When I was about eleven or twelve, old Schneider allowed me to play with
accompaniment of the full orchestra some concertos of Mozart, etc. This
was a great event in my quiet life, and everything looked as if music
was to be my profession. When afterwards I went to the Nicolai School at
Leipzig, the school at which Leibniz (not Leibnitz) had been educated, I
lived again in the musical house of Professor Carus. His wife sang
sweetly; his son, my old friend, Professor V. Carus, was an excellent
violin player, a pupil of David. I myself began to play the violoncello,
but without much success, and I joined a chorus under Mendelssohn, who
was then director of the famous Gewandhaus Concerts at Leipzig. We often
had to sing anything he had composed and wished to hear before
performing it in public. As a friend of my father and my mother,
Mendelssohn was always most charming to me, but he did not encourage my
idea of a musical career. The fact was I had not time to serve two
masters. I could not practise and study music as it ought to be
practised and studied without neglecting Greek and Latin, and, as life
became more serious, my mind was more and more drawn to the thoughts of
antiquity, to Homer and Cicero, and away from the delights of music. I
heard excellent music at the house of Professor Carus. I still have an
old slip of paper on which Mendelssohn, Liszt, David, Kalliwoda and
Hiller wrote their names for me one evening after they had been playing
quartettes at Professor Carus’s house. (See page 14.)
[Illustration]
I even ventured while at Leipzig to play sometimes at public concerts in
the neighbourhood. But when I began to look forward to what I should
make of my life, and how I should carve out for myself a useful career,
I saw that music was out of the question. There was another
consideration which determined my choice. There was much deafness in my
family. My mother became deaf when she was still quite young, my
grandmother, several of my uncles and cousins, all had lost their
hearing, and this induced me, young as I was, to choose a profession
which would be possible even if I should share the same misfortune. I
could not think of medicine, or law, or the Church—so I said to myself,
keep to Greek and Latin, try to be a scholar. A professorship was my
highest ambition, but I thought that even if that should fail, I might
find a quiet Benedictine cell somewhere, and support myself by my pen.
So music had to step into the background, not altogether, but so as not
to interfere with more serious work. No, music, though somewhat
slighted, has remained a true and faithful friend to me through life. I
have enjoyed music until very late in life when I began to feel
satisfied, and would much rather hum a symphony to myself than hear it
played, often not half so well as I remembered it at Dessau, at the
Gewandhaus Concerts at Leipzig, and at the marvellous Conservatoire
Concerts in Paris. These were the perfection of instrumental music.
Never has any other performance come near them. It was difficult to get
a ticket. People used to form _queue_ and stand the whole night in order
to secure the next morning an _abonnement_ for the season. To buy a
ticket was beyond my means, for when I was at Paris I had entirely to
support myself. But a friend of mine took me to the Conservatoire, and I
often sat in the corridor without seeing the orchestra, listening as if
to organ music. It was perfect. Every instrument of the orchestra was
first-rate—the players had mostly passed through the same school, the
conductor was an old man with a German name which I forget. Was it
Habeneck? He reminded me of Schneider, and certainly his orchestra
marched like a regiment of soldiers.
And besides being a constant source of the highest enjoyment to me,
music has often helped me in my pilgrimage through life. Both in Paris
and later on in London, many a house was open to me which would have
remained closed to a mere scholar. Musicians also always took an
interest in the son of the poet, Wilhelm Müller, whose songs had been
set to music, not only by Schubert, but by many other popular composers.
I well remember, when telling Jenny Lind whose son I was, how she held
up her hands and said: “What? the son of the poet of the ‘Müllerlieder’!
Now sit down,” she said, “and let me sing you the ‘Schöne Müllerin.’”
And she began to sing, and sang all the principal songs of that sad
idyll, just moving her head and hands a little, but really acting the
whole story as no actress on the stage could have acted it. It was a
perfect tragedy, and it has remained with me for life. Stockhausen also
(who, as I saw too late, has just been celebrating his seventieth
birthday) once sang the “Winterreise” to me in the same way, but as I
had to accompany him I had only half the pleasure, though even that was
great.
How many memories crowd in upon me! I heard Liszt when I was still at
school at Leipzig. It was his first entry into Germany, and he came like
a triumphator. He was young, theatrical, and terribly attractive, as
ladies, young and old, used to say. His style of playing was then
something quite new—now every player lets off the same fireworks. The
musical critics who then ruled supreme at Leipzig were somewhat coy and
reserved, and I remember taking a criticism to the editor of the
_Leipziger Tageblatt_ which the writer did not wish to sign with his own
name. Mendelssohn only, with his well-tempered heart, received him with
open arms. He gave a _matinée musicale_ at his house, all the best known
musicians of the place being present. I remember, though vaguely, David,
Kalliwoda, Hiller; I doubt whether Schumann and Clara Wieck were
present. Well, Liszt appeared in his Hungarian costume, wild and
magnificent. He told Mendelssohn that he had written something special
for him. He sat down, and swaying right and left on his music-stool,
played first a Hungarian melody, and then three or four variations, one
more incredible than the other.
We stood amazed, and after everybody had paid his compliments to the
hero of the day, some of Mendelssohn’s friends gathered round him, and
said: “Ah, Felix, now we can pack up (‘jetzt können wir einpacken’). No
one can do that; it is over with us!” Mendelssohn smiled; and when Liszt
came up to him asking him to play something in turn, he laughed and said
that he never played now; and this, to a certain extent, was true. He
did not give much time to practising then, but worked chiefly at
composing and directing his concerts. However, Liszt would take no
refusal, and so at last little Mendelssohn, with his own charming
playfulness, said: “Well, I’ll play, but you must promise me not to be
angry.” And what did he play? He sat down and played first of all
Liszt’s Hungarian Melody, and then one variation after another, so that
no one but Liszt himself could have told the difference. We all trembled
lest Liszt should be offended, for Mendelssohn could not keep himself
from slightly imitating Liszt’s movements and raptures. However,
Mendelssohn managed never to offend man, woman, or child. Liszt laughed
and applauded, and admitted that no one, not he himself, could have
performed such a _bravura_. Many years after I saw Liszt once more, at
the last visit he paid to London. He came to the Lyceum to see Irving
and Ellen Terry act in “Faust.” The whole theatre rose when the old,
bent Maestro appeared in the dress circle. When the play was over, I
received an invitation from Mr., now Sir Henry, Irving to join a supper
party in honour of Liszt. I could not resist, though I was staying with
friends in London and had no latch-key. It was a brilliant affair. Rooms
had been fitted up on purpose with old armour, splendid pictures,
gorgeous curtains. We sat down, about thirty people; I knew hardly
anybody, though they were all known to fame, and not to know them was to
profess oneself unknown. However, I was placed next to Liszt, and I
reminded him of those early Leipzig days. He was not in good spirits; he
would not speak English, though Ellen Terry sat on his right side, and,
as she would not speak German or French, I had to interpret as well as I
could, and it was not always easy. At last Miss Ellen Terry turned to me
and said: “Tell Liszt that I can speak German,” and when he turned to
listen, she said in her girlish, bell-like voice: “Lieber Liszt, ich
liebe Dich.” I hope I am not betraying secrets; anyhow, as I have been
indiscreet once, I may as well say what happened to me afterwards. It
was nearly 3 A.M. when I reached my friend’s house. With great
difficulty I was able to rouse a servant to let me in, and when the next
morning I was asked where I had been, great was the dismay when I said
that I had had supper at the Lyceum. Liszt had promised to come to stay
with me at Oxford, but the day when I expected him, the following note
arrived from Amsterdam, probably one of the last he ever wrote:—
[Illustration]
A few weeks after, I saw his death announced in the papers.
And thus Liszt left the stage. I saw his entrance and his exit, and when
I asked myself, What has he left behind? I could only think of the new
school of brilliant executionists of which he may truly be called the
founder and life-long apostle. I confess that, though I feel dazzled at
the impossibilities which he and his pupils perform with their ten
fingers, I often sigh for an Allegro or an Andante by Haydn and Mozart
as they were played in my young days with simplicity and purity on very
imperfect instruments. Players now seem to think of themselves only, not
of the musical poets whose works they are to render. Mendelssohn, Clara
Wieck (Madame Schumann) even Moscheles and Hummel acted as faithful
interpreters. On listening to them, exquisite as their execution was,
one thought far more of what they played than how they played. That time
is gone, and no one has now, or will ever have again, the courage to
bring it back. If one wants to enjoy a sonata of Haydn one has to play
it oneself or hum it, because the old fingers will not do their work any
longer.
And Mendelssohn also, whom I had known as a young man, said good-bye to
me for the last time in London. It was after the first performance of
his “Elijah” in 1847. He too said he would come again next year, and
then came the news of his sudden death. I saw him last at Bunsen’s
house, where he played at a _matinée musicale_ always ready to please
and oblige his friends, always amiable and charming, even under great
provocation. Only once I remember seeing him almost beside himself with
anger, and well he might be. He possessed a most valuable album, with
letters, poems, pictures, compositions of the most illustrious men of
the age, such as Goethe and others. The binding had somewhat suffered,
so it was sent to be mended, and I was present when it came back. It was
at his sister’s house, Fanny Hensel’s, at Berlin. Mendelssohn opened the
album, jumped up and screamed. The binder had cut off the blue skies and
tree-tops of all the Italian sketches, and the signatures of most of the
poems and letters. This was too much for _Felix_, he was for once
_infelix_. Still, happy and serene as his life certainly was, for he had
everything a man of his talents could desire, there were bitter drops in
it of which the world knew little, and need not know anything now. There
are things we know, important things which the world would be glad to
know. But we bury them; they are to be as if they had never been, like
letters that are reduced to ashes and can never be produced again by
friends or enemies.
He was devoted to his sister Fanny, who was married to Hensel the
painter, an intimate friend of my father. When I was a student at
Berlin, I was much in their house in the _Leipziger Strasse_, and heard
many a private concert given in the large room looking out on the
garden. Mendelssohn played almost every instrument in the orchestra, and
had generally to play the instrument which he was supposed to play
worst. When he played the pianoforte, he was handicapped by being made
to play with his arms crossed. All the celebrities of Berlin (and Berlin
was then rich in celebrities) were present at those musical gatherings,
and Mendelssohn was the life of the whole. He was never quiet for a
moment, moving from chair to chair and conversing with everybody.
Boeckh, the great Greek scholar, lived in the same house, and
Mendelssohn had received so good a classical education that he could
hold his own when discussing with the old master the choruses of the
Antigone. Mendelssohn was, in fact, a man _teres et rotundus_. He was at
home in classical literature, he spoke French and English, he was an
exquisite draughtsman, and had seen the greatest works of the greatest
painters, ancient and modern. His father, a rich banker in Berlin, had
done all he could for the education of his children. He was the son of
Mendelssohn the philosopher, and when his son Felix had become known to
fame, he used to say with his slightly Jewish accent: “When I was young
I was called the son of the great Mendelssohn; now that I am old I am
called the father of the great Mendelssohn; then, what am I?” Well, he
found the wherewithal that enabled his son, and his other children too,
to become what they were, all worthy of their great grandfather, all
worthy of the name of Mendelssohn.
[Illustration: Die glückliche Fischerin.]
Felix was attached to both his sisters, Fanny and Rebekah (Dirichlet),
but he was more particularly devoted to Fanny (Hensel). They had been
educated together. She knew Greek and Latin like her brother, she played
perfectly, and composed so well that her brother published several of
her compositions under his own name. They were one spirit and one soul,
and at that time ladies still shrank from publicity. Everybody knew
which songs were hers (I remember, for instance, “Schöner und Schöner
schmückt sich die Flur”), and it was only later in life that she began
to publish under her own name. I give the beginning of a song which she
wrote for my mother. The words are my father’s, the little vignette was
drawn by her husband, who was an eminent artist at Berlin.
The struggles which many, if not most men of genius, more particularly
musicians, have had to pass through were unknown to Felix Mendelssohn
Bartholdy. Some people go so far as to say that they miss the traces of
those struggles in his character and in his music. And yet those who
knew him best know that his soul, too, knew its own bitterness. His
happiest years were no doubt spent at Leipzig, where I saw much of him
while I was at school and at the University. He was loved and admired by
everybody; he was undisputed master in the realm of music. He was at
first unmarried, and many were the rumours as to who should be his
bride. News had reached his friends that his heart had been won by a
young lady at Frankfurt; but nobody, not even his most intimate friends,
knew for certain. However, one evening he had just returned from
Frankfurt, and had to conduct one of the Gewandhaus Concerts. The last
piece was Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. I had sung in the chorus, and
found myself on the orchestra when the concert was over, the room nearly
empty, except his personal friends, who surrounded him and teased him
about his approaching engagement. His beaming face betrayed him, but he
would say nothing to anybody, till at last he sat down and extemporised
on the pianoforte. And what was the theme of his fantasy? It was the
passage of the chorus, “Wer ein holdes Weib errungen, mische seinen
Jubel ein.” That was his confession to his friends, and then we all
knew. And she was indeed “ein holdes Weib” when she arrived at Leipzig.
One thing only she lacked—she could not express all she felt. She was
soon called the “Goddess of Silence” by the side of her devoted husband,
who never could be silent, but was always bubbling over like champagne
in a small glass. They were a devoted couple, not a whisper was ever
heard about either of them, though Mendelssohn had many friends, the
greatest of all being his sister Fanny. With her he could speak and
exchange whatever was uppermost or deepest in his heart. I have heard
them extemporise together on the pianoforte, one holding with his little
finger the little finger of the other. Her death was the heaviest loss
he ever suffered in life. He was so unaccustomed to suffering and
distress that he could never recover from this unexpected blow. Nor did
he survive her long. She died on the 14th of May, 1847; he followed her
on the 4th of November of the same year.
During most of the time when Mendelssohn celebrated his triumphs as
director of the Gewandhaus Concerts, young Robert Schumann was at
Leipzig, but he was little seen. Mendelssohn, so bright and happy
himself, wished to see the whole world around him bright and happy, and
was kind to everybody. The idea of jealousy was impossible at that time
in Mendelssohn’s heart. Neither could Schumann, as a young and rising
musician, have thought himself then to be in any sense an equal or rival
of Mendelssohn. But there are natures which like to be left alone, or
with a very few intimate friends only, and which shrink from the too
demonstrative happiness of others. It is not envy, it often is modesty;
but in any case it is not pleasant. Schumann was conscious of his own
strength, but he was still struggling for recognition, and he was also
struggling against that adversity of fortune which seems to decree
poverty to be the lot of genius. There was another struggle going on, a
struggle which is generally fought out in private, but which in his case
was carried on before the eyes of the world, at least the musical world
of Leipzig. He was devoted to a young pianoforte player, Clara Wieck.
But her father, a great teacher of music, would not allow the marriage.
He had devoted years of his life to the musical education of his
daughter, and then, as she was just beginning to earn applause for
herself and her master, as well as the pecuniary reward for their
combined labours, a young musician, poor, and not yet recognised, wished
to carry her off. Parents have flinty hearts, and the father said “No.”
Many a time have I watched young Schumann walking alone in the
neighbourhood of Leipzig, being unexpectedly met by a young lady, both
looking not so happy as I thought that under the circumstances they
ought. This went on for some time, till at last, as usual, the severe or
flinty-hearted father had to give way, and allow a marriage which
certainly for many years was the realisation of the most perfect
happiness, till it ended in a terrible tragedy. There was the seed of
madness in the genius of Schumann as in that of so many really great
men, and in an access of mania he sought and found rest where Ophelia
sought and found it.
I did not see much of Schumann, nor of Madame Schumann, in later life,
though in concerts in London I often admired her exquisite rendering of
her husband’s compositions. I only recollect Schumann as a young man
sitting generally in a corner of the orchestra, and listening to one of
his works being performed under Mendelssohn’s direction. I remember his
very large head, his drooping eyes; I hardly ever remember a smile on
his face. And yet the man must have been satisfied, if not happy, who
could write such music as his, who could write, “Wohlauf noch getrunken
den funklenden Wein!” and he lived to see his own creations admired more
even than those of Mendelssohn. He lived to see his critics turned into
admirers; in fact he educated his public, and gained a place for that
thoughtful, wistful, fairy-like music which is peculiarly his own.
Many celebrated musicians stayed at Leipzig during Mendelssohn’s reign.
I remember Moscheles, Thalberg, Sterndale Bennett, Clara Novello, young
and fascinating, and many more. Another friend of Mendelssohn who stayed
some time at Leipzig was Ferdinand Hiller. We heard several of his
compositions, symphonies and all the rest, performed at the Gewandhaus
Concerts under Mendelssohn’s direction. In his life there was, perhaps,
too little of the _dira necessitas_ that has given birth to so many of
the masterpieces of genius. He might, no doubt, have produced much more
than he did; but that he was striving to the very end of his life was
proved to me by an interesting letter I received from him about a year
before his death. His idea was to write a great oratorio, and he wanted
me to supply him with a text. It was a colossal plan, and I confess it
seemed to me beyond the power of any musician, nay, of any poet. It was
to be a historical drama, representing first of all the great religions
of the world, each by itself. We were to have the hymns of the Veda, the
Gâthas of the Avesta, the Psalms of the Old Testament, the Sermons and
Dialogues of Buddha, the trumpet-calls of Mohammed, and, lastly, the
Sermon on the Mount, all of them together forming one mighty symphony in
which no theme was lost, yet all became in the end an accompaniment of
one sweet song of love dominating the full chorus of the ancient
religions of the world. It was a grand idea, but was it possible to
realise it? I was ready to help, but before a year was over I received
the news of Hiller’s death, and who is the musician to take his place,
always supposing that he could have achieved such a World Oratorio?
It was in the last year of his life that Mendelssohn paid his last visit
to England to conduct his last oratorio, the “Elijah.” It had to be
performed at Exeter Hall, then the best place for sacred music. Most of
the musicians, however, were not professionals, and they had only bound
themselves to attend a certain number of rehearsals. Excellent as they
were in such oratorios as the “Messiah,” which they knew by heart, a new
oratorio, such as the “Elijah,” was too much for them; and I well
remember Mendelssohn, in the afternoon before the performance, declaring
he would not conduct.
“Oh, these tailors and shoemakers,” he said, “they cannot do it, and
they will not practise! I shall not go.” However, a message arrived that
the Queen and Prince Albert were to be present, so nothing remained but
to go. I was present, the place was crowded. Mendelssohn conducted, and
now and then made a face, but no one else detected what was wrong. It
was a great success and a great triumph for Mendelssohn. If he could
have heard it performed as it was performed at Exeter Hall in later
years, when his tailors and shoemakers knew it by heart, he would not
have made a face.
It was at Bunsen’s house, at a _matinée musicale_, that I saw him last.
He took the liveliest interest in my work, the edition of the Rig Veda,
the Sacred Hymns of the Brâhmans. A great friend of his, Friedrich
Rosen, had begun the same work, but had died before the first volume was
finished. He was a brother of the wife of Mendelssohn’s great friend,
Klingemann, then Hanoverian Chargé d’Affaires in London, a poet many of
whose poems were set to music by Mendelssohn. So Mendelssohn knew all
about the Sacred Hymns of the Brâhmans, and talked very intelligently
about the Veda. He was, however, subjected to a very severe trial of
patience soon after. The room was crowded with what is called the best
society of London, and Mendelssohn being asked to play, never refused.
He played several things, and at last Beethoven’s so-called “Moonlight
Sonata.” All was silence and delight; no one moved, no one breathed
aloud. Suddenly in the middle of the Adagio, a stately dowager sitting
in the front row was so carried away by the rhythm, rather than by
anything else, of Beethoven’s music, that she began to play with her
fan, and accompanied the music by letting it open and shut with each
bar. Everybody stared at her, but it took time before she perceived her
atrocity, and at last allowed her fan to collapse. Mendelssohn in the
meantime kept perfectly quiet, and played on; but, when he could stand
it no longer, he simply repeated the last bar in arpeggios again and
again, following the movements of her fan; and when at last the fan
stopped, he went on playing as if nothing had happened. I dare say that
when the old dowager thanked him for the great treat he had given her,
he bowed without moving a muscle of his inspired face. How different
from another player who, when disturbed by some noise in the audience,
got up in a rage and declared that either she or the talker must leave
the room.
And yet I have no doubt the old lady enjoyed the music in her own way,
for there are many ways of enjoying music. I have known people who could
not play a single instrument, who could not sing “God save the Queen” to
save their life, in eloquent raptures about Mendelssohn, nay, about
Beethoven and Bach. I believe they are perfectly honest in their
admiration, though how it is done I cannot tell. I began by saying that
people who have no music in them need not be traitors, and I alluded to
my dear friend Stanley. He actually suffered from listening to music,
and whenever he could, he walked out of the room where there was music.
He never disguised his weakness, he never professed any love or
admiration for music, and yet Jenny Lind once told me he paid her the
highest compliment she had ever received. Stanley was very fond of Jenny
Lind, but when she stayed at his father’s palace at Norwich he always
left the room when she sang. One evening Jenny Lind had been singing
Händel’s “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” Stanley, as usual, had left
the room, but he came back after the music was over, and went shyly up
to Jenny Lind. “You know,” he said, “I dislike music; I don’t know what
people mean by admiring it. I am very stupid, tone-deaf, as others are
colourblind. But,” he said with some warmth, “to-night, when from a
distance I heard you singing that song, I had an inkling of what people
mean by music. Something came over me which I had never felt before; or,
yes, I had felt it once before in my life.” Jenny Lind was all
attention. “Some years ago,” he continued, “I was at Vienna, and one
evening there was a tattoo before the palace performed by four hundred
drummers. I felt shaken, and to-night while listening to your singing,
the same feeling came over me; I felt deeply moved.” “Dear man,” she
added, “I know he meant it, and a more honest compliment I never
received in all my life.”
However, unmusical as Stanley’s house was, Jenny Lind, or Mrs.
Goldschmidt as she was then, often came to stay there. “It is so nice,”
she said; “no one talks music, there is not even a pianoforte in the
house.” This did not last long however. A few days after she said to me:
“I hear you have a pianoforte in your rooms at All Souls’. Would you
mind my practising a little?” And practise she did, and delightful it
was. She even came to dine in College, and after dinner she said in the
most charming way: “Do you think your friends would like me to sing?” Of
course, I could not have asked her to sing, but there was no necessity
for asking my friends. In fact, not only my friends listened with
delight to her singing, but the whole quadrangle of All Souls’ was black
with uninvited listeners, and the applause after each song was immense,
both inside and outside the walls of the College.
Stanley’s feeling about music reminds me of another music-hater at
Oxford, the late Dr. Gaisford, the famous Dean of Christ Church. It was
he who put my name on the books of “The House,” a very great honour to
an unknown German scholar on whom the University, at his suggestion, had
just conferred the degree of M.A. What the Dean’s idea of music was may
best be judged from his constantly appointing old scouts or servants who
were too old to do their work any longer as bedmakers to be singing men
in the Cathedral choir. The Dean’s stall was under the organ, and one
day in every month, when “The voice of Thy thunder was heard round
about, and the lightnings shone upon the ground, and the earth was moved
and shook withal,” a certain key in the organ made the seat on which the
Dean sat vibrate under him. On that day, before he left the Cathedral,
he invariably thanked the organist, Dr. Corfe, for the nice tune he had
played.
Music, in fact, was at a very low ebb at Oxford when I arrived there.
The young men would have considered it almost _infra dignitatem_ to play
any instrument; the utmost they would do was now and then to sing a
song. Yet there was much love of music, and many of my young and old
friends were delighted when I would play to them. There was only one
other person at Oxford then who was a real musician and who played well,
Professor Donkin, a great mathematician, and altogether a man _sui
generis_. He was a great invalid; in fact, he was dying all the years I
knew him, and was fully aware of it. It seemed to be quite admissible,
therefore, that he, being an invalid, and I, being a German, should
“make music” at evening parties; but to ask a head of a house or a
professor, or even a senior tutor, to play would have been considered
almost an insult. And yet I feel certain there is more love, more honest
enjoyment of music in England than anywhere else.