XXV BRUSSELS—PARIS OPERA CONCERT

To Franz Liszt.

“Paris, 6th August 1839.—I long, dear friend, to tell you all the musical news—at least all that I know. Not that you will find anything new in it. You must be quite blasé with studying Italian modes of thought; they are dreadfully like Parisian ones.

“I know you have not the heart to laugh at them, for you are not of those who find subject for mirth in the insults offered to our Muse—you would rather, at any cost, hide the blemishes upon her snowy robes and the woful rents in her shimmering veil of light.

“So I will content myself with calmly stating facts and retailing news, whereby I can preserve a dignified quiet, and can simply deal out remarks without theorising.

“The day before yesterday, as I was smoking a cigar in the Boulevard des Italiens, Batta caught me by the arm.

“‘What are they up to in London?’ I asked.

“‘Nothing whatever. They despise music and poetry and drama—everything. They go to the Italian Opera because the Queen goes, and that’s all. I feel quite thankful not to be out of pocket and to have been clapped at two or three concerts. That is all the British hospitality I can boast of. Even Artot, in spite of his Philharmonic success, was horribly bored.’

“‘And Doehler?’

“‘Bored also.’

“‘Thalberg?’

“‘Is cultivating the provinces.’

“‘Benedict——’

“‘Encouraged by the success of his first attempt, is writing an English opera.’

“‘Well, I’m off. Come to Hallé’s to-night, we are going to drink and have some music.’

“M. Hallé is a young German pianist—tall, thin, and long-haired—who plays magnificently, and seems to get at music by instinct rather than by notes—that is to say, he is rather like you. Real talent, immense knowledge, perfect execution, are among the gifts we all recognise in him.

“Hallé and Batta played Mendelssohn’s B flat sonata, then we had a chorus over our beer, then Beethoven’s A major sonata, of which the first movement excited us wildly, and the minuet and finale drove us to the verge of lunacy.

“Oh you untiring vagabond! when will you return, once more to preside over our nights of music?

“Between ourselves, you always had too many people at your gatherings—too much talk, too little listening. You, alone, wasted an amount of inspiration that was enough to turn one giddy, without all the rest of the folks in addition.

“Do you remember that evening at Legouvé’s when—the lights put out—you played the C sharp minor sonata, we five lying in the dark on the floor? My tears and Legouvé’s, Schoelcher’s wondering respect, Goubeaux’s astonishment! Ah me! you were indeed sublime that night!

“But to get back to news.

“There is a glorious row toward between our Opera troupe and the Italian; they want to unite them in the Rue Le Pelletier. It will be rather a shock. Lablache against Levasseur, Rubini against Duprez, Tamburini against Dérivis, Grisi against Mdlle. Naudin and the whole lot against the big drum.

“We mean to be there to pick up the dead and the dying. Lots of people find fault with the Opera orchestra, they say they do not keep in tune, that the right-hand side tends to get a quarter-tone higher than the left—which these gentlemen consider most unreasonable——

“‘You seem to suffer in silence,’ one of them said to me the other day.

“‘I? I did not say I suffered at all,’ I replied. ‘First, because I never said a word, and secondly, because....’

“Sometimes when they are at their wit’s end they play Don Giovanni. If Mozart could come back to this world, he would tell them (like Molière’s president) that he would not have it played.

“The other day, Ambroise Thomas, Morel, and I were saying we would give five hundred francs for a good performance of Spontini’s Vestale; that set us off—we know it by heart—and we went on singing it till midnight.

“But we missed you for our accompaniments.

“I am just pouring out news as it comes into my head. Hiller has sent me part of his Romilda from Milan. One of our enemies wished to throw himself off the Vendome Column the other day. He gave the keeper forty francs to let him go up—then changed his mind and walked down again.

“Chopin is still away; they said he was very ill, but there is no truth in it. Dumas has just written an exquisite thing—Mademoiselle de Belle Isle—but that is out of my province. There! no more news.

“My indifferentism does not extend to you and your long absence. Come back soon. It is high time you did, both for us and, I hope, for yourself too. Adieu.”

In 1840 the Government proposed celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Revolution by exceptional ceremonies, and the Minister of the Interior, M. de Remusat, who, like M. de Gasparin, had a soul for music, commissioned me to write a symphony, leaving form and all details entirely to me.

I planned a great symphony, on broad, simple lines, and as it was to be played in the open air where delicate orchestral effects would be lost, I engaged a military band of two hundred men.

Habeneck was anxious to conduct but, remembering the snuff trick, I preferred to do my own conducting.

Most fortunately, I invited a large audience to the final rehearsal, feeling sure that my work could not be properly judged on the day of performance.

And so it proved. On the great Place de la Bastille, ten yards away, you could make out nothing, and to make things worse, the legions of the National Guard marched off right in the middle, to the rattle of fifty kettledrums. That is the way music is always honoured in France at public fêtes, apparently they think it is meant to please—the eye.

Towards the end of this year I made my first musical venture out of France, as M. Snel, of Brussels, asked me to direct some of my works for the Société de la Grande Harmonie in the Belgian capital.

Nothing but a regular coup d’état at home made the execution of this plan possible. On one pretext or another, my wife had always set her face against my leaving Paris, her real reason being a most foolish and unfounded jealousy, for which there was absolutely no cause.

But constant accusations forced me, in time, to justify them and to take advantage of the position with which she credited me.

Smuggling my music out of the house by degrees, I finally departed secretly, leaving a letter of explanation and, accompanied by the lady who has since been my constant travelling companion,[17] I went off to Brussels.

To cut short these sad and sordid details—after many painful scenes, an amicable separation was arranged. I often saw my wife, my affection for her remained unchanged—indeed, the miserable state of her health but made her dearer to me.

This is sufficient to explain my conduct to those who have only known me since that time; I shall not recur to the subject as I am distinctly not writing confessions.

I gave two concerts in Brussels, where opinions were, as usual, divided about me as in Paris. Fétis chose to find fault with my (perfectly correct) harmony, and I was rather tempted to reply to him in one of the papers, but finally decided to stick to my invariable rule to reply to no criticism whatsoever.

This being merely a trial trip, I arranged to spend five or six months on tour in Germany, and therefore returned straight to Paris to give a colossal farewell concert.

I explained my wish to M. Pillet, director of the Opera, who was quite willing to allow me the use of the theatre.

But it was necessary to keep it secret so that Habeneck might not have time to counterplot, as he would hardly look with a favourable eye on anyone who supplanted him at the conductor’s desk.

I, therefore, prepared all my music and engaged my performers without telling them where the concert would be held, and when all was ready I asked M. Pillet to tell Habeneck that the concert was entirely in my hands. But he dared not face his terrible chief, and it fell to my lot to write and inform him of our arrangements.

He received my letter during a rehearsal, read it several times, looked very black, then went down to the office and said that the plan suited him exactly, as he wished to go into the country the day of the concert. Still his disgust was quite evident, and it was shared by a part of his orchestra, who thought to pay court to him by shewing it.

The concert was for the benefit of the Opera, but I was to have five hundred francs for my share and the Opera staff were to get no extra remuneration whatever. Mindful of my experience with the Théâtre Italien, I determined to devote my five hundred francs to the payment of these men, all the more readily that I felt thunder in the air in the form of Habeneck’s savage looks, the numbers of the Charivari (which cut me up tremendously) on the desks, and the constant little confabulations that went on in odd corners.

I engaged six hundred performers from different theatres and from the Conservatoire, and in a week managed to drill them into something like order, how I cannot imagine.

I was on foot, baton in hand, the whole day, going from the Opera to the Théâtre Italien, whence I engaged the chorus; thence to the Opera Comique and to the Conservatoire to superintend different parts, for I dared not relegate a single department to anyone else.

Then, in the foyer of the Opera, I took the stringed instruments from eight till twelve, and the wind from twelve to four. My throat was on fire, my voice gone, my right arm almost paralysed. One day I should have been ill with thirst and fatigue had not a kind chorus-singer had the humanity to bring me a large glass of hot wine.

The players of the Opera made me as much trouble as possible; they learnt that the outside performers were to have twenty francs a piece, so they demanded a like sum.

“Not for the money,” said they, “but for the honour of the Opera.”

“You shall have your twenty francs,” I cried; “but for heaven’s sake go on and let me have a little peace.”

On the day of the grand rehearsal all went fairly well, except the Queen Mab scherzo, which is too dainty to be treated by so large a body of players. Unfortunately I did not think, at the time, of entrusting it to a small band of picked musicians, so was reluctantly obliged to cut it altogether out of the programme.

On the day of the performance I had hoped to keep quiet until the evening, but my friend, Leon Gatayes, came in to tell me that a plot was being hatched by Habeneck’s partizans (who were indignant at his being passed over) to ruin the whole affair. The drum parchments were to be slit, the bows of the double-basses greased, and in the middle of the concert a section of the audience was to shout for the Marseillaise.

After this, needless to say, I did not take much rest. Prowling restlessly round the Opera, I had the good luck to meet Habeneck; I caught him by the arm.

“I hear your musicians are going to play me some tricks. I have my eye on them.”

“Oh, it’s all right,” he answered. “I have talked to them; you need not be afraid.”

“I am not afraid: on the contrary, I am comforting you. You see, if anything happened, it would fall pretty heavily on you. But make your mind easy; they won’t do anything.”

And they did not. My copyist had been all day in the theatre guarding the drum and double-basses, and I myself went round to all the desks to ensure each man having his own part.

Indeed I was made quite ashamed of myself when I got to the Dauverné brothers; one of them looked up and said reproachfully:

“Berlioz, surely you don’t doubt us? Aren’t we decent fellows and your friends?”

I grew quite hot and stopped my investigations, for which, it must be owned, there really was some excuse.

Nothing went wrong and my Requiem produced its due effect, but during the interval, according to rumour, Habeneck’s cabal howled for the Marseillaise. I went to the front of the stage and shouted at the top of my lungs:

“We will not play the Marseillaise; that is not what we are here for,” and peace reigned once more.

Although the receipts were eight thousand five hundred francs, the sum put aside to pay the musicians was not sufficient to fulfil my promises to them, and I had to supplement it by three hundred and fifty out of my own pocket, as the red ink entry in the cashier’s book at the Opera testifies to this day.

Thus I organised the most tremendous concert Paris had ever known, and was three hundred and fifty francs put of pocket for my pains. I was likely to grow rich!

M. Pillet is a gentleman and I never could understand how he allowed it; perhaps the cashier never told him.

I left for Germany a few days later on my pilgrimage. It was hard work truly, but it was at least musical hard work, and I had the untold happiness of being safe away from the intrigues and platitudes of Paris and among sympathetic musical people.