I could say no word; never have I felt a profounder emotion than when,
at this moment, I drew so near one whose brow Art had crowned with a
living halo.
Students of German music and composers will need no word to bring before
them the fulness of this incident. But to others I may briefly mention
some facts connected with Schumann's "Carnival, or _Scènes Mignonnes_,
on Four Notes." Not by any means representing the pure depths of
Schumann's soul, this strange medley is yet pregnant with historic
associations. The composer wrote it in his young days, stringing
twenty-two little pieces on four letters composing the name of Asch, a
town of Saxony, "whither," according to Sobolewski, "Schumann's thoughts
frequently strayed, because at that time there was an object there
interesting to his sensitive soul." In the letters A, S, C, H, it must
be remembered that the H in German stands for our B natural, and S or
_es_ for E flat. The Leipsic "Neue Zeitschrift für Musik" was begun and
for ten years edited by Schumann,--in what spirit we may gather from his
own words:--"The musical state of Germany, at that time, was not very
encouraging. On the stage Rossini yet reigned, and on the piano Herz and
Hünten excluded all others. And yet how few years had passed since
Beethoven, Weber, and Schubert lived among us! True, Mendelssohn's star
was ascending, and there were wonderful whispers of a certain Pole,
Chopin; but it was later that these gained their lasting influence. One
day the idea took possession of our young and hot heads,--Let us not
idly look on; take hold, and reform it; take hold, and the Poetry of Art
shall be again enthroned!" Then gathered together a Protestant-league of
music, whose Luther and Melancthon in one was Schumann. The Devil at
which they threw their inkstands and semi-breves was the _Philistines_,
which is the general term amongst German students, artists, poets, etc.,
for prosaic, narrow, hard, ungenial, commonplace respectabilities.
"Young Germany" was making itself felt in all coördinate directions:
forming new schools of plastic Art in Munich and Dresden,--a sharp and
spirited Bohemian literature at Frankfort, under the lead of Heine and
Boerne; and now, music being the last to yield in Germany, because most
revered, as it is with religion in other countries, a new vitality
brought together in Kühne's cellar in Leipsic the revolutionists, "who
talked of Callot, Hoffmann, and Jean Paul, of Beethoven and Franz
Schubert, and of the three foreign Romanticists beyond the Rhine, the
friends of the new phenomenon in French poetry, Victor Hugo." This was
the _Davidsbund_, or League of David (the last of the "Scènes Mignonnes"
is named "Marche des _Davidsbündler_ contre les Philistines"). An
agreeable writer in the "Weimarer Somitagsblatt" has given us a fine
sketch of this company, which we will quote.
"The head of the table was occupied by a lively, flexible man of middle
age, intellectual in conversation, and overflowing with sharp and witty
remarks. He was the instructor of more than one of the young musicians
around him, who all listened to his observations with profound
attention. He was very fond of monopolizing the conversation and
suffering himself to be admired. For he called many a young, highly
promising musician his pupil, and had, besides, the certain
consciousness of having moulded his daughter Clara, at that time a girl
of fourteen, into a prodigy, whose first appearance delighted the whole
world, and whose subsequent artist-activity became the pride of her
native city, Leipsic. By his side sat a quiet, thoughtful young man of
twenty-three, with melancholy eyes. But lately a student in Heidelberg,
he had now devoted himself entirely to music, had removed to Leipsic and
was now a pupil of the 'old schoolmaster,' as the father of Clara Wieck
liked to be called. Young Robert Schumann had good reason to be
melancholy. After long struggles, he had only been able to devote
himself entirely to music comparatively late in life, and had been
obliged to pass a part of his precious youth in studies which were as
uncongenial as possible to his artist-spirit. He had finally decided for
the career of a _virtuoso_, and was pursuing the study of the piano with
an almost morbid zeal, when the disabling of one of his fingers, a
consequence of his over-exertions, obliged him to give up this career
forever. He did not yet suspect that this accident would prove fortunate
for him in the end, by directing him to his true vocation, composition.
Perhaps, too, it was the first germ of love, in the garb of admiration
for the wondrous talent of Clara, which made young Robert so quiet and
dreamy. His companions were all the more lively. There sat the eccentric
Louis Boehner,[A] who long ago had served as the model for E.T.A.
Hoffmann's fantastic pictures. Here J.P. Lyser, a painter by profession,
but a poet as well, and a musician besides. Here Carl Bauck, the
indefatigable, yet unsuccessful composer of songs,--now, in his capacity
of critic, the paper bugbear of the Dresden artists. He had just
returned from Italy, and believed himself in possession of the true
secret of the art of singing, the monopoly of which every singing-master
is wont to claim for himself. C.F. Becker, too, the eminent organist and
industrious collector, belonged to this circle, as well as many more
young and old artists of more or less merit and talent."[B]
[Footnote A: The "Florestan" of the "Scènes Mignonnes"; "Chiara" is
Clara herself; "Eusebius" was Robert Schumann.]
[Footnote B: See Dwight's _Journal of Music_, Vol. VIII. No. 3.]
Florestan then stood before me; and with him, although invisible, stood
that sacred circle, which had unconsciously borne within it the germs of
so many future sorrows and glories.
"With him," said Louis Boehner, "I began life, when we were boys
together at Heidelberg; with him I stood when the dawn of a better day,
which since has blessed hill and vale, was glowing for his eye alone;
this breast held his sorrows and his hopes, when he was struggling to
reach his Clara; these hands saved him when in his madness he cast
himself into the Rhine; these eyes dropped their hot tears on his
eyelids when they were closed in death."
Overcome by his emotion, he sat down and sobbed aloud.
At that moment, hearing my name called loudly in the hall, I went out,
and was informed that my audience was waiting at the Lyceum, and had
been waiting nearly fifteen minutes!