XXVII MENDELSSOHN—WAGNER

To Stephen Heller.

“On leaving Weimar, my dear Heller, my easiest plan seemed to be to go to Leipzig, but I hesitated because Felix Mendelssohn was musical dictator there, and, in spite of our Roman days together, we had since followed such divergent lines that I could not be sure of a sympathetic reception. Chélard, however, made me ashamed of my misgivings. I wrote, and Mendelssohn replied so warmly and promptly, bidding me welcome to Leipzig, that I could not resist such an invitation, but set off at once, regretfully leaving Weimar and my new friends.

“My relations with Mendelssohn in Rome had been rather curious. At our first meeting I had expressed a great dislike to the first allegro in my Sardanapalus.

“‘Do you really dislike it?’ he said, eagerly. ‘I am so glad. I was afraid you were pleased with it, and I think it simply horrid.’

“Then we nearly quarrelled next day because I spoke enthusiastically of Gluck. He said disdainfully:

“‘Do you like Gluck?’ as much as to say, ‘How can a music-maker like you appreciate the majesty of Gluck?’

“I took my revenge a few days after by putting on Montfort’s piano a manuscript copy of an air from Telemaco without the author’s name to it. Mendelssohn came, picked it up thinking it was a bit of Italian opera, and began parodying it. I stopped him in assumed astonishment, saying:

“‘Hallo, don’t you like Gluck?’”

“‘Gluck?’”

“‘Why yes, my dear fellow. That is Gluck, not Bellini as you seem to think. You see I know him better than you do, and am more of your own opinion than you are yourself.’”

“One day, speaking of the uses of the metronome, he broke in—

“‘What’s the good of one? A musician who can’t guess the time of a piece of music at sight is a duffer.’”

“I might have replied, but did not, that there were lots of duffers. Soon after he asked to see my King Lear. He read it through slowly, then, just as he was going to play it (his talent for score-reading was incomparable), said:

“‘Give me the time.’

“‘What for? You said yesterday that only duffers needed to be told the time of a piece.’

“He did not show it, but these home thrusts annoyed him intensely. He never mentioned Bach without adding ironically, ‘your little pupil.’ In fact, over music he was a regular porcupine; you could never tell where to have him. In every other way he was perfectly charming and sweet-tempered.

“In Rome I learnt to appreciate the beauties of his marvellous Fingal’s Cave. Often, worn out by the scirocco and thoroughly out of sorts, I would hunt him out and tear him away from his composition. With perfect good humour—seeing my pitiable state—he would lay aside his pen, and, with his extraordinary facility in remembering intricate scores, would play whatever I chose to name—he properly and soberly seated at the piano, I curled up in a snappy bunch on his sofa.

“He liked me, with my wearied voice, to murmur out my setting of Moore’s melodies. He always had a certain amount of commendation for my—little songs!

“After a month of this intercourse—so full of interest for me—he disappeared without saying good-bye, and I saw him no more.

“His Leipzig letter, therefore, the more agreeably surprised me, for it showed an unexpected and genial kindness of heart that I found to be one of his most notable characteristics.

“The Concert Society has a magnificent hall—the Gewandhaus—of which the acoustic is perfect. I went straight to see it, and stumbled into the middle of the final rehearsal of Mendelssohn’s Walpurgis Nacht.

“I am inclined to think[18] that this is the finest thing he has yet done, and I hardly know which to praise most—orchestra, chorus, or the whole combined effect.

“As Mendelssohn came down from his desk, radiant with success, I went to meet him. It was the right moment for our greetings, yet, after the first words, the same thought struck us both—‘Twelve years since we wandered day-dreaming in the Campagna!’

“‘Are you still a jester?’ he asked.

“‘Ah no! my joking days are past. To show you how sober and in earnest I am, I hereby solemnly beg a priceless gift of you.’

“‘That is——’

“‘The baton with which you conduct your new work.’

“‘By all means, if I may have yours instead?’

“‘It will be copper for gold, still you shall have it.

“Next day came Mendelssohn’s musical sceptre, for which I returned my heavy oak cudgel with the following note, which I hope would not have disgraced the Last of the Mohicans:—

“‘Great Chief! To exchange our tomahawks is our word given. Common is mine, plain is yours. Squaws and Pale-faces alone love ornament. May we be brethren, so that, when the Great Spirit calls us to the happy hunting grounds, our warriors may hang our tomahawks side by side in the door-way of the Long House.’”

To Joseph D’Ortigue.

“28th February 1843.—My trade of galley-slave is my excuse for not having written sooner. I have been, and am still, ill with fatigue, the work involved in conducting rehearsals in both Leipzig and Dresden is incredible.

“Mendelssohn is most kind, friendly, and attentive—a master of the highest rank. I can honestly say this in spite of his admiration for my songs—of my symphonies, overtures, and Requiem he says never a word!

“His Walpurgis Nacht is one of the finest orchestral poems imaginable.

“Can you believe that Schumann, the taciturn, was so electrified by my Offertorium that he actually opened his mouth, and, shaking my hand, said:

“This Offertorium surpasses all.’”

To Heller.

“It really pains me to see a great master like Mendelssohn worried with the paltry task of chorus-master. I never cease marvelling at his patience and politeness. His every remark is calm and pleasant, and his attitude is the more appreciated by those who, like myself, know how rare such patience is.

“I have often been accused of rudeness to the ladies of the Opera chorus—a reputation which I own I richly deserve—but the very minute there is question of a choral rehearsal a sort of dull anger takes possession of me, my throat closes up, and I glare at the singers very much like that Gascon who kicked an inoffensive small boy, and, when reproached because the child had done nothing, replied:

“‘But just think if he had!’

“A charming little incident concluded my Leipzig visit. I had again been ill, and, on leaving, asked my doctor for his account. ‘Write me the theme of your Offertorium,’ he said, ‘and sign it, and I shall be your debtor.’

“I hesitated, but finally did as he wished, and then, will you believe that I missed the chance of a charming compliment? I wrote: ‘To Dr Clarus.’

“‘Oh,’ said he, ‘you have added an l to my name.’

“I thought:

“‘Patientibus Carus, sed inter doctes Clarus,’ and had not the sense to say it!

“There are times when I am really quite idiotic.

“Now for your questions. You ask me to tell you—

“Is there a rival to Madame Schumann as a pianist? I believe not.

“Is the musical tendency of Leipzig sound? I will not.

“Is it true that the confession of faith here is ‘there is no God but Bach, and Mendelssohn is his prophet?’ I ought not.

“If the public is at fault in being contented with Lortzing’s little operas? I cannot.

“If I have heard any of those old five-part Masses they think so much of here? I know not.

“Good-bye. Write more of your lovely capriccios, and the Lord preserve you from Choral Fugues!”

To Ernst.

“And now about Dresden. I was engaged to give two concerts there, and found chorus, orchestra, and a noble tenor all complete! Nowhere else in Germany have I happened on such wealth. Above all, I found a friend—devoted, energetic, and enthusiastic—Charles Lipinski, whom I knew in Paris. He so worked upon the musicians, by firing them with ambition to do better than Leipzig, that they were rabid for rehearsals. We had four, and they would gladly have had a fifth had there been time.

“The Dresden Kapelle is directed by Reissiger, of whom we know little in Paris, and by young Richard Wagner, who spent a long time with us, without, however, making himself known except by a few articles in the Gazette Musicale. He has only just received his appointment, and, proud and pleased, is doing his very best to help me.

“He bore endless privations in France, with the added bitterness of obscurity, yet he returned to Saxony and boldly wrote and composed a five-act opera, Rienzi, of which the success was so great that he followed it up with the Flying Dutchman.

“A man who could, twice over, write words and music for an opera must be exceptionally gifted, and the King of Saxony did well to give him the appointment.

“I only heard the second part of Rienzi, which is too long to be played in one evening, and I cannot, in one hearing, pretend to know it thoroughly, but I particularly noted a fine prayer and a triumphal march.

“The score of the Flying Dutchman struck me by its sombre colouring, and the clever effect of some tempestuous motifs. But there, as in Rienzi, I thought he abused the use of the tremolo—sign of a certain lazy attitude of mind against which he must guard.

“In spite of that, all honour to the royal remembrance that has saved from despair such a highly endowed young artist.

“My concerts were successful, the second even more so than the first. What the public liked best were the Requiem—although we could not give the most difficult numbers of it—and the 5th May Cantata, no doubt because the memory of Napoleon is as dear to the Germans now as to us French.[19]

“I made the acquaintance of that wonderful English harpist, Parish-Alvars. He is indeed the Liszt of the harp! He produces the most extraordinary effects, and has written a fantasia on Moses that Thalberg has most happily arranged for the piano.

“Why on earth does he not come to Paris?

“When I left Dresden to go back to Leipzig, Lipinski heard that Mendelssohn had put the finale of Romeo and Juliet in rehearsal, and told me that if he could get a holiday he should go over and hear it.

“I thought it was a mere compliment, but judge of my consternation when, on the day of the concert, he turned up. He had travelled thirty-five leagues to hear a piece that was not given after all, because the singer who was entrusted with Friar Lawrence’s part refused to learn his notes!

To H. Heine.

“So great has been my happiness in your good town of Brunswick that I should like to tell it all to my dearest foes instead of to you, my friend, to whom it can hardly give pleasure!

“But a truce to irony; it is mere vanity that makes me begin like this, taking a leaf out of your book—inimitable satirist!

“How often in our talks have I regretted that nothing would make you serious, that nothing would stop the restless working of those feline claws, even when you were under the delusion that they were safely sheathed in your velvet paws—you tiger-cat!

“Yet look at the sensitive, delicate imagery of your writings—for you can sing major when you choose; at your enthusiasm when you let yourself go; at your tender hidden love for your old grandmother, Germany!

“She, too, speaks of you with wistful tenderness; her elder sons are dead and gone; there remains but you, whom she calls, with a smile, her naughty boy.

“It would be easy for you to make splendid travesties of my Brunswick visit, yet such is my fearless confidence in you, that to you I mean to tell everything.

“That ideal family of musicians, the Müllers, received me and arranged my concert. I counted altogether seven of them, brothers, sons, and nephews, and never in all my travels did I see so devoted and impassioned a set of men.

“As soon as they grasped the chief difficulties of my symphonies (which they did at the first rehearsal), their progress between each meeting was simply incredible. On my expressing surprise, I found that they were deceiving me about the time, and that the whole orchestra actually arrived each morning an hour before I did to practise the intricate passages.

“At Zinkeisen’s request we actually dared to try Queen Mab, which I had never hitherto dared do in Germany. ‘We will practise so hard,’ said he, ‘that we must do it.’

“He did not misjudge his colleagues; my dainty little lady in her microscopic car, drawn by humming gnats at full gallop, disported herself with all her tricksey caprices—to the delight of the good Brunswickers.

“You—own brother to fairies and will-o’-the-wisps and their chosen poet laureate—will realise my misgivings; but never did my tiny invisible queen glide more happily and gaily through her world of silent harmonies.

“Then, in contrast, with what magnificent fury did they not seize on the Orgie in Harold.

“There was something absolutely terrifying and supernatural in their diabolic rhythm as they bounded, roared, and clashed. Ah, you poets! No joy is yours equal to the joy of conducting!

“I longed to fold the whole orchestra in one comprehensive embrace, but all I could do was cry in French—

“‘Gentlemen, you are sublime! You are stupendous brigands!’

“The concert was crowded and the audience quite carried away; hardly was the last chord struck when a frantic noise shook the hall; it was compounded of the shouts of the listeners, the discordant blare of the wind instruments, the tapping of bows on the violins, and the clang of percussion instruments.

“At first I felt perfectly savage at this ruin to my finale, but I calmed down when George Müller, laden with flowers, stepped forward and said in French:

“‘Monsieur, allow me to offer these in the name of the Ducal Kapelle.’

“The shouts and noise redoubled, my baton fell from my hand, and my head whirled.

“Hardly had I left the theatre when I was invited to a supper given in my honour by artists and amateurs. There were a hundred and fifty guests.

“Toasts, speeches in French and German, to which I responded as well as I could, then a most musical and effective hurrah was chanted by all in chorus. The basses began on D, tenors on A, and the ladies following on F♯, made up the chord of D major, to which succeeded the sub-dominant, tonic, dominant, tonic. It was most beautiful, most worthy of a really musical nation. Will you laugh and call me a great simpleton for repeating all this, dear Heine? I must candidly own that I enjoyed it.

“From Brunswick I journeyed on to your native city of Hamburg, where I again had the pleasure of a crowded house and appreciative audience, and made many friends among the orchestra. Krebs alone was reserved in his praise. ‘My dear fellow,’ said he, ‘in a few years your music will be all over Germany, and will be popular, and that will be an awful misfortune! Think of the imitations, the eccentricities, the style it will let us in for! For Art’s sake it were better you had never been born!!’

“Let us hope my poor symphonies are not as contagious as he thinks. And so, O maker of poems, adieu!”

From Hamburg I went to Berlin and Hanover, finishing at Darmstadt where the Grand Duke insisted not only on my taking the full receipts from my concert (so far Weimar—city of artists—was the only one that had extended to me this courtesy) but, in addition, refused to let me pay any of the expenses.

Everywhere I met with success and made friends.

Thus ended the longest and perhaps the most arduous pilgrimage ever taken by a musician; its memory will, to me, be ever green.

How can I thank thee, Germany, noble foster-mother to the sons of music? How express my gratitude, admiration, and regret? I know not. I can but bow before thee humbly and murmur brokenly—