BERLIN AND SOME OF ITS PEOPLE
One winter, about ten years ago, I went to Berlin in the company of
Mr Frederick Dawson, the famous English pianist, who had planned to
give two recitals there. We stayed at the Fürstenhof, a luxurious and
enervating hotel where we had a suite of rooms facing the front. In the
large drawing-room that Karl Klindworth had engaged for Dawson was a
good piano.
Now, music in Berlin is just a trade. Everyone plays or sings and
everybody teaches somebody or other to play and sing. Unless you are
an artist of colossal merit (and sometimes even if you are), you will
find it practically impossible to persuade anybody to listen to you if
you are not prepared to “square” the critics. In the season, twenty,
thirty, forty concerts are given nightly, and by far the greater number
of them are given to empty stalls. That does not matter: no artist of
any European experience expects anything else. A musician does not go
to Berlin to get money: he goes to get a reputation. Berlin’s cachet
is (or, most decidedly, I should say _was_) absolutely indispensable
for any pianist, violinist or singer who wishes to make a permanent
and wide reputation. Before the war, Mr Snooks could play as hard and
as fiercely and as long in London as he liked, but unless he was known
in Berlin, and unless it was known that he was known in Berlin, he
was everywhere considered but as a second-rate kind of person, a mere
talented outsider. So that it is quite within the facts to say that
few artists have gone to sing or play in Berlin except for the purpose
of obtaining Press notices, favourable Press notices, Press notices
that glow with praise and reek of backstairs influence. An American,
a French or a Danish artist will go to Berlin with a few years’
savings, give a short series of recitals, cut his Press notices from
the papers, go back to his native land, and then advertise freely—his
advertisements, of course, consisting of judicious excerpts (not always
very literally translated) from his Berlin notices. This visit to
Berlin, with the hire of a concert hall, etc., may cost a couple of
hundred pounds, but it is counted money well spent, well invested.
Frederick Dawson had already paid several visits to Berlin and Vienna,
and was so well known in both cities that his appearance in either
always attracted large and enthusiastic audiences; but, apart from
Dawson himself, d’Albert and Lamond, no other British artist or
semi-British artist had, I imagine, the power to do so.
I was introduced to many critics and many artists. The critic was
almost invariably a Herr Doktor and the Herr Doktor was almost
invariably a Herr Professor: they all had degrees and they all taught.
They were overworked, “doing” five or six concerts a night and
receiving very little pay. They would dash about from one concert hall
to another in taxi-cabs, jot down a few notes, and look down their
noses; when they wished to leave a particular hall, they would look
round furtively, gather their coat-tails together, and sidle slimly or
roll fatly to the door.
Some of these gentlemen, I heard, were very shady in their dealings
with young and inexperienced artists. They plied a trade of gentle
blackmail, kid-gloved blackmail, of course, but the kid gloves
contained the claws of a hungry eagle. The following describes one of
their pretty little customs.
Hearing of the arrival in Berlin of a singer or pianist whose agent had
been advertising the fact that his client would shortly give a series
of three recitals, the critic would call upon him, express interest
in his work, and ask to have the pleasure of hearing the artist sing
or play. The artist, flattered and already sure of one good “notice”
at least, would immediately accede; having done his best or worst,
something like the following conversation would take place:—
=Critic.= Quite good. But that A-minor study of Chopin’s is, of course,
rather hackneyed; you are not, I presume, including it in any of your
programmes?
=Artist= (_rather taken aback_). I must confess I had intended doing
so. But if you think....
=Critic.= I do. Most decidedly I do. There are in Berlin at least ten
thousand people who play it; why should you be the ten thousand and
first? Debussy, now. Why not Debussy? Or even Busoni. Busoni can write,
you know.
=Artist= (_eagerly_). Yes, yes; I’m playing some Debussy: _Les Poissons
d’Or_ and _Clair de Lune_.
=Critic.= _Clair de Lune_ is a little _vieux jeu_, don’t you think?
However, play it. Play it now, I mean.
The artist, half angry, but tremulously anxious to please, does as he
is told.
=Critic.= Oh yes; you have talent. I think, yes, I rather think I shall
be able to praise you in my paper. However, we shall see. But there
is something, just a little of something, lacking in your style. Your
rhythm is not sufficiently fluid. It should, if I may say so, _sway_
more. And your use of _tempo rubato_.... Well, now, I could show you.
You see, I have heard Debussy himself play that, and I know pre-cise-ly
how it should go.
=Artist= (_absolutely staggered_). Oh ... er ... yes. Quite.
=Critic= (_having allowed time for his remarks to sink in_). Now what
would you say if I were to suggest that I give you a few lessons—say
a couple. I would charge you a guinea and a half each: lessons of
half-an-hour, you know.
=Artist= (_looking wildly round_). If you were to suggest such a
thing—of course, you haven’t done so yet—but if you _were_ to suggest
it....
=Critic= (_with most un-German suavity_). Of course, when I said
“lessons,” I used entirely the wrong word. What I meant was hints and
suggestions. Mere indications. A passing on of a tradition—passing it
on, you understand, from Debussy to yourself. Not everyone, I need
scarcely say, has heard Debussy play. If you were to play Debussy as
I know he should be played, you would be one of the first to do so in
Berlin, and I in my paper should record the fact.
=Artist.= I see. Yes, I do see. I think that perhaps you are right. You
believe I could—I am rather at a loss for a word—you believe I could,
shall we say “absorb,” the tradition in a couple of lessons?
=Critic.= I don’t see why you shouldn’t, though, of course, I may
decide—I mean, we may agree—that a third lesson is necessary. Shall we
have our first lesson now?
=Artist= (_now quite at his ease, slyly_). Lesson? You mean my first
“hint,” “suggestion,” “indication.” Right-o.... Let’s get along with it.
They are friends: they understand each other. Within twenty-four hours
three guineas pass from the pocket of the artist to the pocket of the
critic, and, in due time, half-a-dozen lines of praise, golden-guinea
praise, appear in the critic’s paper.
After all, how simple, how friendly, how altogether right and jovial!
You may think the artist a fool to pay so much for so little, but,
really, you are quite wrong. It isn’t “so little.” It is a good deal.
Those half-dozen lines, in the old pre-war days, would help to secure
valuable engagements not only in New York, Boston, Philadelphia,
Chicago, and the scores of large towns that lie in between, but also
in London, Manchester, Bradford, Leeds; in Paris, Lyons, Rouen,
Marseilles, Bordeaux, Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp. But not in Germany.
Germany knows better. Not in Mannheim, Cologne, Hanover, Dresden. The
secrets of Berlin were known in all the cities and towns of Germany
some years before the war, and the playful little habits of the critics
of that most wonderful city were looked at askance ... were looked at
askance ... were looked at askance _and imitated_. And the imitators
had for their secret motto: _Honi soit._
* * * * *
A beastly city was Berlin. And yet not all of Berlin was beastly. But
the artistic, the musical, part of it was “low, very low,” as Chawnley
Montague said, on an historic occasion, of the slums of Sierra Leone.
But Karl Klindworth had nothing of beastliness in him. In writing about
Klindworth I shall, I am convinced, feel rather old, and you, when
reading about him, will, I greatly fear, also feel rather old. You see
Klindworth belongs so awfully to the past. Yet he was a very great man
in his day, and there must be still in London many people who knew him
in those silly, savage days when stupid people (and they were brutally
stupid) thought of Wagner what brutally stupid people think to-day of
Richard Strauss.
Klindworth was not only a disciple of Wagner’s but he was also
one of Wagner’s prophets: a forerunner. A great pianist, also: a
great conductor: a great man. Frederick Dawson, one of the most
generous-hearted of men, took me to Klindworth’s, and said some jolly,
flattering things about me to the great musician. Klindworth was very
old, about eighty years, and, when he spoke, it was like listening
to the voice of a man who had just got beyond the grave and was not
unhappy there.
I egged him on to speak of Wagner.
“What can I say?” he mused. “Nothing. Wagner was from God.”
His large eyes, two great ponds of colour in a face not white but
stained with ivory, smouldered and suddenly burst into flame. His
hands, always trembling a little, now shook rather violently. I could
not help feeling, as I gazed upon this old man, that Wagner lived in
him as strongly as he lives in the mighty scores of _Die Meistersinger_
and _Tristan und Isolde_.
We sat silent. Frau Klindworth, an Englishwoman speaking English most
charmingly with a foreign accent, folded her hands and gave a little
sigh. Dawson shot me a significant look which meant: “Keep quiet; if
you do, he will begin to talk.”
And for a little while he did. Without a gesture, without a movement,
Klindworth, looking with unfocussed eyes into space, began to talk. (He
spoke in English, for he knew that I knew very little German.)
“No one,” said he, “who was a gentleman, I mean no one who had ordinary
feelings of chivalry, could meet Wagner without feeling that he was
in the presence of one of the Kings of our world. Certain people,
both in England and Germany, have written stupid things of him; they
have pointed fingers at his faults, banged their fists upon his sins.
I hate those people. Faults and sins? Who has not faults? Who has
not committed sins? You English have a word ‘uncanny.’ Or is it you
Scottish people? Wagner was uncanny. He dived into things. Yes, he
dived. And every time he lost his body in the blue sea, he brought back
a pearl. A pearl? No: pearls have no mystery. He brought back, each
time, a hitherto undiscovered gem.... ‘Gem’! What silly sounds you
have in English.... Jem.... Djem!”
His old mind, outworn and very weary, appeared to cease its
functioning. He sat with no sign of life in him. It was as though a
clock had stopped, as though a light had gone out. And then, without
any apparent cause, he came to life again.
“Let us go to the piano,” he said, rising.
So we left the little room in which we were sitting and moved to the
large music-room at the far end of which was a grand piano. Frau
Klindworth, Dawson and I sat in the semi-darkness near the door;
Klindworth’s tall but rather shrunken figure moved down the room to
the little light that hung above the keyboard. He played some almost
unknown pieces of Liszt, interpreting them in a style at once noble and
half-ruined. The excitement of playing seemed to increase rather than
add strength to his physical weakness, and many wrong notes were struck.
It was very pathetic to see this old man trying to revive the fires
within him, trying and failing; and I felt that if, by some miraculous
effort, he had succeeded, if the ashes of long-spent fires had indeed
broken into hot flame, his frail body would have been consumed.
He gave me his photograph and wrote on the back some message, and
when I left him I thought I should never see him again. But, a few
days later, I saw him in the front row of one of Frederick Dawson’s
recitals, and I occasionally heard from him a deep-noted “Bravo!” as
Dawson electrified us with one of his stupendous performances.
Klindworth lingered on for some years later and, when I was in
Macedonia last year, I saw in some newspaper a few lines recording
his death. In the seventies he was a great figure in London, and
Wagner-worshippers of those days worshipped Klindworth also, not only
for his genius, but also for his loyalty, his noble-mindedness, his
devotion to his art.
* * * * *
Out of curiosity on the last day of my stay in Berlin, I went to
a famous concert agent’s office, ostensibly to make some business
inquiries, but, in reality, to have a look at the underworld of art;
for the business side of all art has almost invariably an underworld of
its own in which there is much irony and in which dwells a spirit of
strangely sardonic humour.
The office was crowded with artists, most of them prosperous, all of
them of recognised position. Though they were clients of the agent—that
is to say, people able and eager to engage his services and pay
handsomely for them—they were kept waiting an unconscionable time, as
though they had come to beg favours. As, indeed, they had. For Herr
Otto Zuggstein always made it perfectly clear by his manner that the
favour was his to confer, the honour yours to accept. He had a hot,
eager brain, cunning hands and hairy wrists.
And his work, his object in life? Well, he was the connecting-link
between the artist and the public, just as a publisher is the
connecting-link between authors and those who read. Otto Zuggstein
“published” pianists, singers, violinists. He engaged concert halls
for them, sold their tickets and collected the money, printed their
programmes, distributed tickets to the Press, advertised their
recitals, and so on. There are, of course, many such men, men engaged
honourably in an honourable profession, in all the big cities of
Europe; but Zuggstein was steeped in dishonour. It was freely said
of him that he had all the powerful music critics of Berlin in the
hollow of his hand. Instead of working for their respective editors
they really worked for him. He could command a long and enthusiastic
“notice” about almost any artist in almost any paper; he could also
secure the publication of the most damning criticisms. If you were
a really great artist desiring to “succeed” in Berlin and he, or his
friends, considered it against his own and his friends’ interest for
you to succeed, he could and would prevent you doing so.
He occasionally emerged from the inner room in which he sat, moved
among us for a minute or so, exchanging handshakes, smiles and other
insincerities, and, singling out a man or a woman with special business
claims upon him, returned with his companion to his private office. As
he disappeared, some of those who waited smiled significantly at each
other.
Zuggstein, as one used to write three or four years ago, “intrigued”
me. He was such an efficient rogue: a rogue working, as it appeared,
most openly, most flagrantly, but in reality working with an abundance
of prepared camouflage.
I waited most patiently and, in the course of time, when he again
issued from his private sanctum, he queried me with his right eyebrow,
beckoned me almost imperceptibly with his left elbow and, preceding me,
made a gangway to his room. I followed him with an air, recognising, as
I did so, that I was in for a bit of an adventure, and resolved to lie
like poor Beelzebub himself.
“Good-morning,” said he in English when the door was closed upon us.
“Will you take a chair and also a cigar?” Mysteriously, he produced a
box from the region of his knees and looked hard at me. “And a whisky?”
he added, with a smile. “I never drink myself,” he apologised, “but you
English!”
I accepted all three invitations.
“I have come,” said I, when I had lit my cigar and savoured it, “I have
come to see you about half-a-dozen recitals, piano recitals, that a
Norwegian friend of mine wishes to give here in Berlin next January.”
“To whom,” asked he—and a little chill descended upon him as he asked
the question—“to whom have I the honour of speaking?”
I smiled deprecatingly, and produced from my card-case a card bearing
the name “Gerald Cumberland.”
“I am staying at the Fürstenhof. Room 4001.”
Disarmed, but still cautious, he wrote the number of my room on the
pasteboard.
“I am, I think it is obvious, from England. This is my first visit to
your great city. I am interested in art, in music.” I used a careless,
all-embracing gesture. “And my Norwegian friend, Mr Sigurd Falk,
knowing that I was about to set out for Berlin, asked me to try to
arrange certain matters with you. He got your name from a compatriot of
his.”
By this time he had poured out, and I had drunk most of, the whisky. A
peculiar thing happened: whilst it was I who drank the whisky, it was
he who became genial—more than genial: almost friendly.
“What,” he inquired, “does your friend wish to do in Berlin?”
“Play the piano and make a little money.”
He grunted sympathetically, if a man may ever be said to grunt
sympathetically.
“Money is difficult to make in Berlin,” he said, looking at me keenly,
“but I will do my best for him. Six recitals, you say?”
“Six. And at this, our first interview, I wished to have just a rough
estimate of what those six recitals are likely to cost.”
“Why, it all depends.... Another whisky?... No?... It all depends.
Depends on all kinds of things. What hall do you want? I ought,
perhaps, to tell you, first of all, what hall you can _have_: you see,
you come rather late, very late, in the day. It is now November, and
your friend wishes to play in January. All the halls are usually booked
months in advance.”
We went into particulars of halls, dates, etc. And then he began to
scribble figures on a sheet of paper.
“Press?” he queried.
“I _beg_ your pardon?”
“You would, I mean your friend would, I imagine, like a favourable
Press?”
“Why, yes.”
“Audience?”
“Do you mean _any_ kind of audience?”
“I am afraid they will be mostly women, though, of course, I can get
you a certain number of male students. But the audience, I can promise
you, will be well disposed. Three or four encores at least.”
“Yes, then, both Press _and_ audience.”
He scribbled a little more.
“An inclusive estimate?” he asked.
“Please. You mean by inclusive...?”
“Everything,” he said impressively; “the hall, the printing, the
advertisements, a few invitations, the preliminary paragraphs, the
audience, the critics’ articles. And not only the critics’ notices, but
the presence of the critics themselves,” he added.
He worked hard for five minutes, looked up data in books, and at length
very gently pushed over to me, across the shining top of the table,
a properly written out estimate for the recitals my imaginary friend
intended to give. The total amount, as represented by English money,
was £325.
“Thank you so much,” said I; “I will call to see you to-morrow perhaps.
But I must first of all get an estimate from Herr Dorn.”
“Who is Herr Dorn?” he asked, in surprise.
I did not know: his name had slid into my mind that very moment, and I
was not quite sure whether, in the whole world, there was such a name.
Then, greatly daring, I greatly lied.
“He is a cousin of Sigurd Falk,” said I.
As I left, he gave me another cigar, shook my hand most warmly, and
looked me in the eyes very keenly.
* * * * *
Every night Dawson and I used to go either to the opera or to some
concert, and, when the music was finished, which was generally very
late, we would perhaps go to some supper-party or other.
I have a good appetite myself, but really some of the German ladies’
gastronomic feats were superb. I remember myself one night sitting
fascinated and awestruck as I saw a Wagner-heroine type of woman,
full-breasted, high-browed and majestic, eat plateful after plateful of
oysters, until I began to wonder how it was so many oysters came to be
in Berlin at one and the same time.
* * * * *
Elena Gerhardt, in those days, was large, white and serene. She was a
little bitter, perhaps, and certainly greatly disappointed. I met her
in Manchester shortly after my return to England, and found her mind
insipid, her soul tepid.
* * * * *
Egon Petri had phlegm almost British: a real slogger: most uninspired:
the possessor of faultless technique: the possessor of a brain that
retained everything but expounded nothing. He had business ability and
pushed ahead all the time: pushed ahead all the time, but never arrived
anywhere. Never will arrive anywhere in particular, except at his own
well-cleaned doorstep, where the polished knocker will respond to his
carefully gloved hand.
* * * * *
Richard Strauss I also met in Manchester at about the same time. I have
always maintained that, in at least one case out of three, it is unwise
to judge a man by his face.
But I must for a moment digress. This question of faces is most
interesting. Every man, of course, makes his own face: even the most
ugly of us will concede that much, for, if we are, and know we are,
ugly, we always console ourselves with the thought: “Yes, but it is a
special kind of ugliness. There is strength in my ugliness. There is
character; there is soul. My ugliness is original. There is no ugliness
_quite_ like my ugliness.” For, so long as we are different from other
people, that is all that matters. Now, in making our faces—a process
that is always continuous from the time we are born to the moment of
death—some of us are full of anxiety to make, not a face, but a mask.
Our faces do not express our souls: they hide them. The consequence
of this is that you will sometimes, though not often, meet a man with
a mean, insignificant face who is, in reality, the possessor of a
first-rate brain. But it is difficult to repress some facial hint of
intellect; try how one may, one can do little to modify the shape of
one’s brow or give the eye a sodden and unintelligent look.
Richard Strauss has disguised himself. At close quarters one sees at
once that his head is both shapely and well poised: one notices the
exceptionally high forehead, the firm rounded lips, the determined
chin. “A financier,” you say to yourself; “at all events, if not a
financier, a man of affairs, a man accustomed to deal with and order
facts. Certainly not a dreamer—not a poet or a musician or an artist of
any kind.”
He exhibits no emotion. Self-restrained, he speaks little but very much
to the point. Even in moments of great success, he is reserved and
businesslike. You can never take him unawares. He is guarded, on the
alert, watchful. “All mind but no heart,” you say; at least, you say
that if you are a careless observer.
His tastes are of the simplest and though, for a composer, he has
amassed a large amount of money, he is absurdly economical. He
rather likes abuse, and when a critic makes a fool of himself he is
inordinately amused. The spectacle of human vanity and human folly
excites him. His handshake is firm, his regard direct.
His piano-playing is beautifully neat and polished, but he is not a
virtuoso on the instrument.