OTHER MUSICAL ROMANCES
Although some of the great composers remained unmarried, many of them
were influenced by women, and the effect is frequently visible in their
compositions. Dedications of musical works to women are apparently a
matter of little moment, but often they are surface indications of some
deep feeling underneath, which is expressed in the music. Especially
will this be found true in Beethoven's case, but it applies also to
Schubert and other composers.
If George Frederick Handel never married, it was certainly not from lack
of an opportunity to do so. In 1703, while still in his teens, he
journeyed with his friend Mattheson, who was in search of a post as
organist, from Hamburg to Lübeck. The place was occupied by the renowned
Buxtehude, who was so advanced in age that he was forced to look for a
successor. The two young aspirants tried the organs and clavicembalos,
but did not care to accept the post. It seems that one of the conditions
bound the successful applicant to marry the organist's daughter, and
neither of them showed the slightest inclination to take this decisive
step.
It is said of Handel that during his Italian trip he became engaged to
the singer, Vittoria Tesi. But his biographer, Chrysander, disbelieves
the story, and the historian Burney speaks of an Italian count as her
lover. According to the latter account, she behaved very generously, and
tried to dissuade her noble admirer from a marriage that would disgrace
him and his family. Finding him insistent, she left her house one
morning, and for fifty ducats persuaded a baker's apprentice to marry
her, the pair to live separately, while the step would be used in
dismissing the poor count. If she had really been engaged to Handel, or
had loved him, she might have had a husband at less expense; and
probably a musician is a more valuable article than a baker's
apprentice.
During his long career in England, Handel was twice nearly married. In
one case the mother of the fair charmer objected to her daughter's union
with a "mere fiddler." Handel drew back with becoming pride, and was
probably not much hurt. Certainly he never lost the magnificent appetite
for which he was famous. Soon afterward the mother died, and the
father, apparently put in control of the family by this event, stated to
the composer that there was now no objection to the match. But Handel
declined the offer, saying that it was too late. The situation was
different from that at Lübeck, and his musical career now stood in the
way of matrimonial ventures. At a later time he wished to marry a lady
of wealth and position, but, as she made it a condition that he should
give up his profession, he declined to pursue the match. None of these
women were of especial influence upon him or his music, and he composed
his long series of operas and oratorios in complete bachelor freedom.
Gluck owed much of his musical success to the aid of a woman. While in
Vienna, gaining fame by his earlier works in Italian style, he won the
interest and esteem of the ladies of the imperial court, among them the
Empress Maria Theresa. He was chosen to direct music at court festivals,
and after one of his later Parisian successes, the empress honoured him
with the post of court composer. Gluck's wife had not the position or
influence to help him in the musical side of his career, as Clara Wieck
did Robert Schumann, but in the cultivated atmosphere of the court he
found one woman who afterward aided him with all the force of her rank
and influence,--his pupil, Marie Antoinette, the future Queen of France.
Even at Vienna Gluck was planning the reforms in opera that were to
banish the prevailing vocal inanities from the stage, and make his name
immortal. He did not minimize the beauty of contemporary operatic music,
but claimed that it consisted merely of a set of conventional arias and
scenas, and that the music did not in any way emphasize or illustrate
the meaning of the words. As in the well-known sextet from "Lucia,"
which divides the sheep from the goats in our own day, the character of
the music was often directly at variance with the spirit of the words.
His memorable production of "Orfeo," though not remodelling the world at
a single stroke, won a full triumph, and showed all music lovers the
force of the new theories.
[Illustration: MARIE ANTOINETTE]
It was the French attaché, Du Rollet, actuated by a sincere admiration
of the Vienna master's works, who first proposed to have Gluck come to
Paris. One of the directors of the Royal Academy of Music, to whom Du
Rollet addressed himself, made the matter public in France, but did not
reply. After some time Gluck himself renewed the agitation for a
hearing, with no better results. That his work was understood is shown
by a note from the Academy to Du Rollet, wherein one of the directors
promises to accept Gluck's opera if he will contract to furnish six
more; for one such work would overthrow all the French operas produced
up to that time. Finding the directors unable to come to a decision,
Gluck appealed directly to the Dauphine Marie Antoinette, who gave the
necessary orders, removed all difficulties, and invited Gluck to the
city where she was to be his faithful friend and patroness through all
struggles and trials.
Of the success of Gluck in Paris, this is hardly the place to speak.
Through all the intrigues of his musical enemies, the queen remained a
firm adherent of the new school. The contest was long and fierce.
Singers left or pleaded some excuse at the last moment; rival composers
produced opera after opera in hope of eclipsing him; critics, for and
against, entered into a protracted war of words and wit; and finally
Gluck's opponents, under the lead of Madame Du Barry, brought in the
Italian Piccini, with the avowed intention of obliterating Gluck's fame.
Great as his genius was, he might have had a harder fight for justice
but for his firm friend at court. He always had access to the queen, and
was always accorded more respect at court than his rivals, Piccini or
Sacchini. Realizing the worth of his own works, he often laid himself
open to the charge of conceit, but the queen was ever ready to defend
him warmly.
Marie Antoinette was herself a composer, and no doubt Gluck's early
tuition was responsible for her musical attainments. Hers was not the
rank nor the period in which a woman could attempt to work in the larger
forms, but her songs were eminently successful. One of those, since made
familiar by a more modern setting, is reproduced for the benefit of the
reader. Its grace and charm will speak for themselves.
With Haydn and Mozart ranking among the married men, the next tonal
master who claims attention is the great Beethoven. He was a mental
giant endowed with intense emotional vigour,--hearing inwardly the
beautiful strains that he wrote down, dreaming of the millennium and
human brotherhood, and expressing in the most heartfelt terms his
yearning for the one and only love who would share his lot with him. Yet
when we come to search for this one and only love, we find that her name
is legion. We also find that Beethoven remained single through it all,
and never won a helpmate to guide his destinies and curb his
eccentricities. His love for women was pure and sincere, if not lasting,
and many indications of the strength of his passion are to be found in
the great works that bear his name.
That Beethoven stood in sore need of a wife to regulate his personal
habits may well be assumed. Probably there never was a lodger who was
more constantly in trouble than this irritable and absent-minded genius.
Wholly absorbed in his music, he never seemed to realize that thumping
the piano at all hours of the day and night might prove disagreeable to
his fellow boarders. Even when not playing, he would think out his great
themes, and fall into a fit of abstraction that might last for hours. He
would stand beating the time, or he would pace the room shouting out his
melodies with full voice. As an antidote to this excitement, he would
pour water over his hands at frequent intervals, regardless of the
damage to the floor and the ceiling below. He was fond of taking long
walks, which he would not omit in wet weather, and when he returned on
rainy days the furniture was sure to suffer. He indulged in the habit of
shaving at his window, to the great amusement of the people passing by,
and the intense chagrin of his landladies. As a result of these traits,
he was forced to make frequent changes of base, and at one time he was
paying rent in four different places at once.
The following story of Beethoven's absent-mindedness is vouched for by
Moscheles: "When I came in early to find Beethoven, he was still abed;
but feeling wide-awake and lively, he jumped up and placed himself at
the window just as he was, in order to examine the 'Fidelio' numbers
which I had arranged. Naturally a crowd of boys gathered under the
window, whereupon he roared out, 'Now, what do those ---- boys want?'
Upon my pointing to his own scantily clad figure, he said, 'Yes, yes,
you are quite right,' and immediately put on a dressing-gown."
Beethoven and his servants usually had hard times getting along with
each other. He was utterly careless and untidy, and the utmost confusion
reigned in his room. "Books and music were scattered in all directions,"
says a visitor. "Here the residue of a cold luncheon; there some full,
some half-emptied, bottles. On the desk the hasty sketch of a new
quartette; in another corner the remains of breakfast; on the pianoforte
the scribbled hints for a noble symphony, yet little more than in
embryo; hard by, a proof-sheet waiting to be returned; letters from
friends, and on business, spread all over the floor; between the windows
a goodly Stracchino cheese; on one side of it ample vestiges of a
genuine Verona salami; and notwithstanding all this confusion, he
constantly praised, with Ciceronian eloquence, his own neatness and
love of order!" When something did go astray, he would complain bitterly
that everything was done to annoy him; but, after a few moments of
raving, he recovered his natural good humour.
Though never married, Beethoven was always in love. He had several
attachments during his youthful days in Bonn, though none were really
serious. Meeting again in later life with one of his early flames, the
gifted singer, Magdalena Willman, he begged her to become his wife, but
met with a refusal. "He was very ugly and half crazy," she said
afterward in excuse. Most of the objects of his later affections were
women of rank and position, but in early years he fell a prey to the
charms of damsels in much more humble stations. According to his pupil,
Ries: "Beethoven never visited me more frequently than when I lived in
the house of a tailor, with three very handsome but thoroughly
respectable daughters."
At twenty, he fell in love with Babette, daughter of the proprietress of
a coffee-house that he frequented. That Babette's charms impressed
others may be gathered from the fact that she afterward became the
Countess Belderbusch. Three years later, Eleonora von Breuning was the
recipient of his devotion, and he would no doubt have found a good wife
in her if she, too, had not finally married some one else. The next
important figure on the list was the Countess Babette de Keglevics,
afterward Princess Odeschalchi, to whom Beethoven showed his feelings in
the shape of the Sonata, Opus 7. The Baroness Ertmann he addressed as
"Liebe, werthe, Dorothea Cecilia," while the Countess Erdödy received
the still warmer greeting of "Liebe, liebe, liebe, liebe Gräfin." All of
these women, and many others, were ready to stand almost any liberty
from Beethoven, and they entertained the warmest affection for him. At a
later date, the Countess Erdödy erected a temple in her park to the
memory of Beethoven. That his affections were changeable, if intense,
was admitted by the composer himself. On being teased about his conquest
of a beautiful woman, he admitted that she had interested him longer
than any of the others,--namely, seven whole months.
More serious was his feeling for the lovely young Countess Giulietta
Giucciardi, one of his pupils. "Life has been made a little brighter to
me lately," he writes, adding later, "This change has been brought about
by a dear, fascinating girl, whom I love, and who loves me. After two
years, I bask again in the sunlight of happiness, and now, for the first
time, I feel what a truly happy state marriage might be." But,
unfortunately, she was not of his rank in life, and later on we find
her, too, marrying another. Beethoven would certainly have married her
if he could have done so, and his epistles to her are full of many
fervid expressions of love. At his death, some letters of the most
passionate description were found in his desk, and for a time it was
thought they were addressed to her, but they are now ascribed to the
influence of her successor.
The Countess Therese von Brunswick, who next received Beethoven's
devotion, had been one of his pupils, and had once been rapped over the
knuckles by him for inefficiency. Twelve years later, in 1806, pupil and
teacher were actually engaged,--secretly, to be sure, but with full
knowledge and consent of her brother. Yet after four years of varying
conditions the match was broken off, and the composer again forced to
take refuge in the lonely comfort of his art.
But he found other consolation in the charms and the companionship of
Bettina von Brentano, whom he met at this time. According to his
letters, she was no whit behind any of the others in being his "dearest
friend," "dearest girl," and "dearest, fairest sweetheart." Soon
Beethoven was to see her, too, married to another, and, if he never
succeeded in taking the fatal plunge himself, he could at least have
the melancholy satisfaction of knowing that all the objects of his
adoration had entered safely into the holy state of matrimony.
In 1811 he met Amalia Seebald, and soon afterward inscribed in her album
the sentiment:
"Ludwig von Beethoven,
Whom if you ever would,
Forget you never should."
His feeling for her was not exactly the effervescent feeling of youth,
but the quieter, deeper sentiment of personal esteem and affection,
which comes later in life, and is therefore more lasting. Her influence
is visible in much of his later music, and the seventh and eighth
symphonies were inspired by her.
That Beethoven took a friendly interest in other love-affairs besides
his own is shown by an incident taking place in Töplitz, where the
actor, Ludwig Loewe, was in love with the landlord's daughter of the
"Blue Star," at which Beethoven used to dine. Conversation was usually
impossible because of stern parents and a multitude of diners. "Come at
a later hour," said the girl; "only Beethoven is here, and he cannot
hear." This answered for a time, but at length the parents forbade the
actor the house. Despite Beethoven's serious reserve, Loewe had often
noticed a kindly smile on his face, and now resolved to trust him.
Finding the composer in the park, he begged him to take charge of a
letter for the girl. Satisfied with the honesty of the young man's
intentions, Beethoven did this, and next day brought back the answer,
keeping up his rôle of messenger during the whole of the five weeks that
he remained in the town.
Franz Peter Schubert was a true son of Vienna. Sprung from the lower
classes, he never felt wholly at ease among the aristocracy, and made no
such deep impression upon them as Beethoven did. He was most at home in
the informal society of his few chosen friends, all men of talent in
some direction, whom he drew about him by his own genius and
good-fellowship. His very nickname, "Kanner-was," taken from his usual
question about newcomers, bears witness to the fact that he would have
nothing to do with any one who did not show intellectual ability in some
direction,--poetry or art, if not music.
Schubert's brief schooling, where his natural gifts were left to
flourish by themselves, was succeeded by three years of musical drudgery
in the shape of school-teaching. But his genius was restless, and he
threw up that post. How he existed during the next few years is a
complete mystery. He lived for a while rent-free, and his wants were
never many, but for some time he apparently got along with no income
whatever. His fertility in composing songs showed itself already. His
later feat of writing "Hark, Hark, the Lark" on the back of a bill of
fare, finishing it within half an hour of his first seeing the poem, is
well known. It seems that he could forget as easily as he invented. At
one time he sent a set of songs to his friend Vogl for inspection, but
the latter was unable to look them over for two weeks. On finding one of
especial interest, Vogl had it transposed to suit his voice, and gave it
to Schubert to play. The composer, after trying it, cried in admiration:
"I say, that's not bad; whose is it?"
At last he obtained the post of private teacher in the family of Count
Esterhazy. It was the Countess Caroline, younger of the two daughters,
who was to become the object of Schubert's later adoration. On the first
visit, however, she was only nine, and we find Schubert, with his usual
promiscuous taste, more at home with the servants than in the
drawing-room. "The cook is a pleasant fellow," he writes; "the ladies'
maid is thirty; the housemaid very pretty, and often pays me a visit;
the nurse is somewhat ancient; the butler is my rival; the two grooms
get on better with the horses than with us. The count is a little
rough; the countess proud, but not without heart, and the two young
ladies good children."
Eight years later he spent another period of six months at the château,
and at this time felt the passion for the young countess that has been
so often alluded to in his biographies. According to Bauernfeld, she
inspired an ideal devotion that sustained and comforted him to the end
of his life. There can be no doubt that etiquette and their difference
in position prevented much intercourse between the two, but his devotion
was apparently as lasting as it was unselfish. According to Kreissle, it
found expression once, on her asking him, in jesting reproach, why he
never dedicated anything to her. "Why should I," came the reply;
"everything I ever did is dedicated to you." One of his posthumous works
bears her name, which would hardly have been printed unless found on the
manuscript in the handwriting of this greatest of tone-poets.
Mendelssohn came of a family that boasted an eminent intellectual leader
of Judaism in the shape of Moses Mendelssohn, the composer's
grandfather. Abraham, the father, brought up his two children, Fanny and
Felix, in the Lutheran faith. Between the brother and sister there
existed the most intimate understanding and affection, lasting through
their entire lives. Both were musically gifted, possessing delicate
hands and taper fingers that were often spoken of as if made expressly
for playing Bach fugues.
Growing to maturity in the delightful family atmosphere that
characterizes the better class of Jews and their descendants, Fanny
Mendelssohn met and loved the young painter, Wilhelm Hensel. Her mother
would not hear of an immediate engagement, but, after five years of art
study in Rome, Hensel returned to become Fanny's betrothed. Felix, now
launched on his professional career, produced an organ piece especially
for the wedding. Another work for family use was his cantata, or opera,
"Son and Stranger," composed for the silver wedding of his parents. This
was prepared without their knowledge, and in order that the non-musical
Hensel might take part with the rest of the family, Mendelssohn wrote
for him a number consisting wholly of one note repeated. Even with this
aid the Muses were unpropitious in the performance, and Hensel could not
hit the right pitch for this note, while all his neighbours tried to
prompt him, and the young composer sat at the piano convulsed with
laughter.
Fanny Hensel led a life of happy activity. She and her brother drew
around them a circle of celebrities that included scientific as well as
artistic leaders. Like her brother, she was a composer. At first,
however, he objected to her publishing her works, on account of her sex,
and half a dozen of her songs without words were brought out among his
own. In 1846 she ventured at last to issue some piano melodies and vocal
works, in compliance with flattering offers from Berlin publishers. Then
her famous brother sent his blessing on her becoming "a member of the
craft," and hoped she would taste only the sweets and none of the
bitternesses of authorship. Her greatest work is a piano trio,[5] which
was not published until after her death. Among other compositions, she
wrote several choruses for Goethe's "Faust," and a number of part-songs.
Her life came to an untimely close. In the year 1847, while conducting
the little choir that she led on Sundays, she met an end as sudden as it
was unexplained. Her hands dropped in an instant from the keyboard of
the piano, and fell limp at her side. In spite of medical aid, death
came after a short interval. It is highly probable that the early
exertions of herself and her brother, which made their talents so
wonderful, resulted in lessening their vital strength.
Mendelssohn himself was married. After his father's death he had wedded
Cécile Jeanrenaud, daughter of a French pastor, and with her he passed a
life of happiness. Fanny speaks in admiration of her beautiful eyes and
expression, and praises her constant gentleness, which so often soothed
her brother's nervous and irritable moods. But not even her kindness
could make Mendelssohn forget the death of his sister, who had been a
second self to him. When he first heard of it, he uttered a shriek, and
fell senseless to the ground. His own death came directly from this
fall, for it caused the breaking of a blood-vessel in his head,
according to his physician. A holiday in Switzerland did some good, but
the sight of Fanny's rooms on his return more than neutralized this
effect. He grew weaker and weaker, until he met his death, less than six
months after that of his sister. The bereaved wife, who had given such
bright domestic charm to the home circle, lingered on for six years, but
drooped in her loneliness until at last consumption carried her off.
In direct contrast to the clean and sunny happiness of Mendelssohn is
the passionate and morbid æstheticism of Chopin. Like Beethoven, the
Polish pianist never married, but, unlike Beethoven, he was not
actuated by the highest of ideals. The first object of his devotion was
the young soprano, Constantia Gladkowska, who was just ready to graduate
from the Warsaw Conservatory when he was attracted by her. He became her
champion in criticism, and his letters are full of emotional outpourings
about her. He gave concerts with her, and found some moments of real
bliss in her society, but she finally married another.
A second affair was his love for Marie Wodzinski, whom he had known in
childhood and met at Dresden. She was just nineteen, and endowed with
charming beauty. The pianist-composer spent many an evening with her at
the house of her uncle, and often joined the family in their walks. But
this affair, too, came to no result. The hour for farewell struck, she
gave him a rose, and he improvised a _valse_ for her. This waltz, which
he afterward sent her from Paris, was the one called "L'Adieu."
That Chopin was fickle in his passions is shown by an anecdote of George
Sand's. According to her, he was in love with a young _Parisienne_, who
received him very kindly. All went well until one day he visited her
with another musician, who was at that time better known than Chopin in
Paris. Because the young lady offered this man a chair before thinking
of asking Chopin to be seated, he never called on her again, and
apparently forgot her immediately. George Sand avers that during all
this period he was considering a marriage in Poland, but other
acquaintances do not confirm this part of the story.
During the ten years passed together by Chopin and George Sand, in
Majorca, Genoa, Nohant, and Paris, Chopin produced most of his important
works. How much they were inspired by her, no one can say. But it is
certain that her care of him in his usually ailing condition must have
been of great aid to him. It is certain that she became an integral part
of his life, for he did not survive their separation longer than two
years. This separation at any rate, was responsible for some of the
Polish master's compositions, for he comforted his wounded spirit by
pouring out his emotions in such works as the great A flat Polonaise.
[Illustration: SYBIL SANDERSON]
A figure of lesser though more recent prominence was Sybil Sanderson.
Her fame on the operatic stage is a matter of the present, in spite of
her death. She inspired the composer Jules Massenet to produce many of
his best works, notably the opera, "Esclarmonde," which was written with
her in view as performer. Another tribute to her is found in the song,
"Femme, Immortelle Été." These are but a few of the more important
instances in musical history, which go to show that woman's influence is
responsible for many works in connection with which her name does not
appear at first glance. The actual women composers, however, form a long
and honourable list, and are by no means confined to the present period
of female emancipation.