THE STATUE SUMMONS DON GIOVANNI. 
 
 Thou bad'st me to thy supper, 
 I would return the courtesy: 
 Come answer me, come answer me, 
 
 wilt thou too 
 Banquet with me now ? 
 
 (Don Giovanni).
 
 DAYS 
 
 WITH THE 
 
 GREAT 
 COMPOSERS 
 
 MOZART 
 
 SCHUMANN 
 
 TSCHA1KOVSKY 
 
 HODDER & 
 STOUGHTON *
 
 A DAY WITH MOZAKT. 
 
 N a dull November morning in 
 the year 1791, a small insigni- 
 ficant-looking man, about thirty- 
 five years of age, arose from a 
 sleep of utter exhaustion ; for 
 he had been working late into 
 the previous night. It was about nine a.m. ; his 
 wife Gonstanze had long been up and employed 
 in the duties of that small, poverty-stricken 
 household, man, wife, and two small children 
 and their little home in an unimportant street 
 of Vienna. These duties, to Constanze, were 
 not the easiest of tasks : for she was but a poor 
 domestic manager, and an inefficient, though 
 devoted, mother and wife. 
 
 As the slight, undersized man moved to and 
 fro, dressing, with rapid, graceful gestures, 
 paying a great deal of attention to the powder- 
 ing and peruking of his profuse brown hair, and 
 decking out his person with nearly all the scanty 
 
 2051153
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 ornaments he possessed, there was nothing in 
 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart outwardly to denote 
 that amazing genius which made its dwelling in 
 his slender frame. A dull fire smouldered in 
 his languid, absent-minded eyes : but it was the 
 fire of incipient fever. A slight flush tinged his 
 usually pale cheeks : but it was a hectic and 
 unhealthy flush. A certain child-like simplicity 
 still remained as though he were a case of 
 "arrested development" in his features, ex- 
 pression and deportment. The boy whose fame 
 began at four years old had never yet really 
 quite grown up. 
 
 He had now discontinued his one-time 
 practice of taking a ride, by medical advice, first 
 thing in the morning. A species of curious 
 nervousness, induced by the rapid deterioration 
 of his strength, rendered him unequal to horse- 
 exercise and his attenuated purse hardly 
 allowed of it. For this man's life was a continual 
 sheer fight for existence, a fight with fate and 
 circumstances. It has been said that, "all the 
 music created, since Guido d* Arezzo, who 
 invented musical notation, to the end of the 
 eighteenth century, had only one aim and object
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 to create Mozart," "the greatest composer of 
 whom I have ever heard," avowed his contem- 
 porary Haydn. But he was by no means a 
 prophet in his own country. His honorary 
 appointment as Court conductor only brought 
 him in 80 a year. And the master-musician 
 who at twelve had been the wonder of Europe, a 
 prodigy, a Kleiner Hexenmeister (little magician), 
 was now eking out his difficult days in an 
 atmosphere of anxious penury, unrecognised, 
 unacknowledged, over-worked, his vitality al- 
 most expended. 
 
 For a few minutes the composer knelt in 
 prayer : the despondency which was gradually 
 enshrouding him fell off for a while, revealing 
 rifts of heavenly sunshine to his troubled mind. 
 Again he reflected, in the words he had written 
 as a youth : "I have God always before my 
 eyes, I acknowledge His omnipotence. I fear 
 His wrath, but I also acknowledge His love, 
 His pity and His mercy towards His creatures. 
 Whatsoever is according to His will, is also 
 according to mine : therefore I cannot fail to 
 be happy and contented." And he rose from 
 his knees refreshed.
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 ornaments he possessed, there was nothing in 
 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart outwardly to denote 
 that amazing genius which made its dwelling in 
 his slender frame. A dull fire smouldered in 
 his languid, absent-minded eyes : but it was the 
 fire of incipient fever. A slight flush tinged his 
 usually pale cheeks : but it was a hectic and 
 unhealthy flush. A certain child-like simplicity 
 still remained as though he were a case of 
 "arrested development" in his features, ex- 
 pression and deportment. The boy whose fame 
 began at four years old had never yet really 
 quite grown up. 
 
 He had now discontinued his one-time 
 practice of taking a ride, by medical advice, first 
 thing in the morning. A species of curious 
 nervousness, induced by the rapid deterioration 
 of his strength, rendered him unequal to horse- 
 exercise and his attenuated purse hardly 
 allowed of it. For this man's life was a continual 
 sheer fight for existence, a fight with fate and 
 circumstances. It has been said that, "all the 
 music created, since Guido d j Arezzo, who 
 invented musical notation, to the end of the 
 eighteenth century, had only one aim and object
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 to create Mozart," "the greatest composer of 
 whom I have ever heard," avowed his contem- 
 porary Haydn. But he was by no means a 
 prophet in his own country. His honorary 
 appointment as Court conductor only brought 
 him in 80 a year. And the master-musician 
 who at twelve had been the wonder of Europe, a 
 prodigy, a Kleiner Hexenmeister (little magician), 
 was now eking out his difficult days in an 
 atmosphere of anxious penury, unrecognised, 
 unacknowledged, over-worked, his vitality al- 
 most expended. 
 
 For a few minutes the composer knelt in 
 prayer : the despondency which was gradually 
 enshrouding him fell off for a while, revealing 
 rifts of heavenly sunshine to his troubled mind. 
 Again he reflected, in the words he had written 
 as a youth : "I have God always before my 
 eyes, I acknowledge His omnipotence. I fear 
 His wrath, but I also acknowledge His love, 
 His pity and His mercy towards His creatures. 
 Whatsoever is according to His will, is also 
 according to mine : therefore I cannot fail to 
 be happy and contented." And he rose from 
 his knees refreshed.
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 He went into the little living-room, and, 
 without waiting for the somewhat unattractive 
 breakfast which Gonstanze was preparing, he 
 set to work upon a manuscript in his small 
 neat handwriting. He wrote standing up, for 
 health's sake : any cramped attitude was 
 repugnant to his flexible and freedom-loving 
 limbs. But, indeed, he could write in any 
 position, or under any circumstances. "I am, 
 so to speak, so swallowed up in music," he 
 averred, "that I am busy with it all day long, 
 speculating, studying, considering :" and there- 
 fore the actual setting down of his ideas had 
 become almost a mechanical, automatic process, 
 like that which a clairvoyant might achieve. 
 Even during the intervals of play, at his beloved 
 billiards or skittles, he was evolving or accumu- 
 lating fresh matter : and he had but recently 
 written down the score of Don Giovanni upon a 
 stone table in a garden near Prague, while his 
 friends laughed and talked at their game of 
 bowls around him. To those who remember 
 the solitary Beethoven communing with his 
 own heart, or the long hours of isolation spent 
 by many a great master at his pianoforte, this 
 self-concentration of Mozart, amid a crowd,
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 seems almost inconceivable : but he was one 
 who "took his greatness easily," and for whom 
 difficulties artistic ones had, it may be said, 
 no more than a momentary existence. " He 
 writes music, " his wife declared, * ' as other 
 people write letters." 
 
 Upon what, however, was he so sedulously 
 engaged this morning, as he covered page after 
 page of music-paper with his small neat hand- 
 writing ? while the air of depression which 
 daily deepened on him, sat heavily on his 
 pleasant simple face. Not here, for certain, 
 was he transcribing some superb symphonic 
 movement, some brilliant operatic scene. Here 
 was no outcome of that almost "antique joy of 
 existence" which had pulsed so exuberantly 
 through Figaro and Giovanni. . . The tremen- 
 dous words of the Dies Ira were visible and 
 almost audible in the vocal score, and the 
 melancholy of Mozart's countenance was 
 enhanced by his belief that he was in the act of 
 composing his own dirge. For he had headed 
 it "Requiem di me, W. A. Mozart :" and he was 
 inspired by a settled conviction, intuition, 
 call it what you will, that he would die at the 
 conclusion of this task.
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 All its circumstances were ominous and 
 mysteriously foreboding. The composer had 
 been working, two or three months before, upon 
 his magnificent opera Die Zauberflote (The Magic 
 Flute), when a lean tall stranger, clad in ghostly 
 grey, suddenly appeared before him, and handed 
 Mozart an anonymous letter, with a query as 
 to how soon he could complete a Requiem for 
 voices and orchestra, and for how much? 
 Mozart replied by naming a period of about 
 five months, and a sum of about 100 : immense 
 wealth to him. The stranger returned sub- 
 sequently with half this money, and promised 
 the rest upon delivery of the MS. ; but all 
 information as to his name or sender was 
 scrupulously concealed. [He was, as a matter 
 of fact, the steward of a certain Count Walsegg, 
 who desired to purchase a Mozartian score and 
 produce it as his own composition.] From that 
 day forth, Mozart was a doomed man : his 
 natural light-hearted, mischievous vivacity, akin 
 to the spontaneous mirth of a child, began to 
 ebb and wane. An unaccountable gloom per- 
 vaded all his thoughts, and his debilitated 
 constitution was laid open to the subtle on- 
 slaught of the most malignant bacilli.
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 However, to-day he was temporarily more 
 like himself : and as he sat down to his badly- 
 made coffee and hot roll, his kindly little face 
 was all a-sparkle with smiles towards his wife 
 and babes. 
 
 Constanze Mozart was not the ideal wife 
 for a man of his temperament, good-hearted 
 and affectionate though she might be. She had 
 no talents, no education, her nature was 
 essentially commonplace, and her capabilities 
 beneath those of the average German haus-frau. 
 She occupied, indeed, the not very elevated 
 position of a makeshift ; for Mozart had loved, 
 had never ceased to love her brilliant and 
 beautiful sister Aloysia : and when fate and 
 poverty denied him that charming creature, he 
 selected, like many other men, another mem- 
 ber of the same family, of vastly inferior calibre. 
 Mozart, however, made the best of his stupid, 
 good-natured Constanze. "Is not the pleasure 
 of a fleeting, fickle passion," he wrote, "as far 
 removed from the bliss which a reasonable love 
 procures, as Earth is from Heaven ?" He 
 encouraged her to cultivate her second-rate 
 abilities of singing and playing, and took
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 pleasure in pointing out to his relatives that she 
 made all her own dresses and bonnets ; that, 
 "though always very poorly clad, she was 
 irreproachably clean. . . She even does her 
 own hair every day !" 
 
 Perhaps, indeed, a more highly-strung and 
 emotional woman might have been less fitted 
 to companion so erratic a genius ; for Mozart 
 was at the mercy of every flatterer and im- 
 postor, no less than he was the dupe of his own 
 generous instincts. Carelessly lavish by nature, 
 he had made many a desperate attempt towards 
 economy and methodical expenditure attempts 
 invariably frustrated by some calamity, such as 
 one of Constanze's frequent illnesses, or the 
 collapse of some hoped-for financial assistance, 
 or the ill success of a composition. 
 
 Mozart was a very human little man : 
 nothing "upon stilts" or "high-falutin' " about 
 him. A few moments' natural homely inter- 
 course over the coffee-cups and he was the old 
 Mozart once more, quick, restless, gay, the 
 marvel, who "whilst busy with the most serious 
 things of his art, could jest and make merry in
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 the pleasantest and most careless manner." He 
 danced to and fro about the room to amuse the 
 children, now imitating some peasant folk- 
 dance, all heel and toe, now the courtly 
 measured movements of some minuet or 
 gavotte. For he was a born dancer, an en- 
 thusiast in the "poetry of motion," and often 
 declared that his true taste and vocation lay in 
 that art rather than in music. You can feel 
 this tendency in all his dance-form compositions: 
 the rhythmic sway, and inherent gestures of 
 dancing leaves, of nodding flowers, are there : 
 the exquisite poise and symmetry of a supple 
 and flexible nature. The Minuet with its Trio 
 was still an accepted desideratum of symphonic 
 form : and to what delightful use he put it ! It 
 was characteristic of him that his most lovely 
 Minuets were composed under the storm and 
 stress of troubles mental and financial. They 
 have the "first fine careless rapture" of the 
 early world. Whilst outwardly, it would seem, 
 he envisaged splendid lord and lady treading 
 stately steps together, "with woven paces and 
 with waving arms," inwardly he "sang of the 
 daedal stars, sang of the dancing earth", like 
 Pan in Shelley's poem, and felt, like a new
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 Orpheus or Amphion, the whole world dancing 
 to his magic flute. And so, in the great G 
 major and G minor symphonies, he had, as 
 Wagner says, "breathed into his instruments 
 the passionate fervour of the human voice, to 
 which his genius with all-pervading love inclined 
 him, ... as if in restless anxiety to impart to 
 the melody, by way of compensation for its 
 exposition by instruments only, the depth of 
 feeling of the human voice. Thus he raised 
 the capacity of instrumental music for soul 
 expression, to a height which enabled it to 
 express the whole depth of the infinite yearning 
 of the heart " 
 
 Presently a young lady of noble family 
 arrived for her daily two-hours' lesson. She 
 had been receiving this for months, but had 
 never paid a kreutzer : a state of affairs still 
 not unknown to the music-master of aristocratic 
 families. Mozart, though painstaking and 
 conscientious, was hardly a successful teacher. 
 He had neither the methodical system nor the 
 obsequious toadyism which the manners of that 
 day demanded. He had but little respect for 
 rank or wealth, and refused most pertinaciously
 
 MOZART AND THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER. 
 
 A lean tall stranger . . . suddenly appeared before 
 him, . . . with a query as to how soon he could 
 complete a Requiem for voices and orchestra.
 

 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 to play before audiences who were possessed of 
 more titles than taste. This, in itself, had gone 
 far to injure his prospects : any reader of 
 Consuelo may easily gather how dependent 
 upon patronage was the unlucky musician in 
 eighteenth-century Vienna. "Our wealth," 
 Mozart had avowed, "dies with us, for it is in 
 our brains, and no one can take it from us, 
 unless he cut off our head. And then," he 
 added, with his customary insouciance, "we 
 should not require anything any more ! " 
 Nevertheless, to pupils who exhibited any 
 trace of talent, earnestness, and a genuine 
 desire to get on, he unfolded the best that was 
 in him. He considered the chief points of a 
 pianist to be "a quiet, steady hand, the power 
 of singing the melody, clearness and neatness 
 in the ornamental passages, and a command 
 of technique which should be equal to all 
 purposes. " 
 
 His high-born pupil, however, was 
 apt to rebel against what she considered his 
 faddiness and fastidiousness. And, on being 
 gently set right for the fiftieth time, "Ach ! 
 lieber Herr Mozart ! " she exclaimed, " why
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 not show me yourself how this piece should be 
 performed ? Example will be better than 
 precept. " The great virtuoso changed places 
 with her at the clavier. Merely to see his slim, 
 shapely little hands gliding over the keyboard, 
 was a pleasure to the eye : but the exquisitely 
 sympathetic playing which, as Haydn had said, 
 "went straight to the heart, " was wasted on 
 the frivolous young Fraulein. She was wholly 
 taken up with regarding him in astonishment 
 and curiosity. He had become a different and 
 an ennobled person. His simple, insignificant 
 little face was transformed and illumined, "as 
 impossible to describe, " so one of his friends 
 had said, "as it would be to paint sunbeams" : 
 his weak and restless eyes were calm and steady : 
 every movement of every muscle responded to, 
 and indicated, the thoughts which his music 
 expressed. He was lost to all external things. 
 .... Suddenly he pulled himself up with a 
 jerk, as though he had come down suddenly 
 with a bump to earth. 
 
 "You understand? " he said to the young 
 patricienne. "You perceive that thus it should 
 be played?" "I perceive," said she with a
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 shrug and pout, "that it is thus you are able to 
 play it." The master sighed, and the irradiating 
 light died away out of his features. "Alas!" 
 he murmured to himself, "I am not fortunate 
 in my attempts to give lessons. " Indeed, the 
 man who had stamped so violently at a recent 
 orchestral rehearsal, that his steel shoe-buckle 
 flew in two, was by no means suited to the 
 patient methods of pianoforte instruction. . . . 
 " The time is not quite up, " he presently 
 continued, "but I will postpone the rest of your 
 lesson. For I have a work in hand which lies 
 very near my heart, and until that is finished 
 I can think of nothing else. " So the young 
 lady returned home, and grumbled volubly at 
 the gross inattention of Kapellmeister Mozart, 
 to the indignation of her noble parents : and 
 the noble parents decided that henceforth she 
 should receive tuition from one of the open 
 rivals and bitter enemies of Kapellmeister 
 Mozart, men who held the ear of the 
 Emperor, and whose compositions were loud 
 in the land : Salieri, to wit, and Kotzebuch, 
 Kraubich, and Strack, "with whom, dear 
 child," she was assured, "you will be enabled 
 to do proper justice to your talents. Herr
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 Mozart is a very much over-rated man. We 
 have heard that all his pupils are gradually 
 falling off." 
 
 The over-rated man, meanwhile, had re- 
 sumed work on his Requiem, upon which he 
 was lavishing the whole wealth of his resources, 
 when a fresh interruption occurred, in the 
 shape of Schickaneder, his impresario. Schicka- 
 neder was one upon whom, at birth, had been 
 bestowed the celebrated three wishes of the 
 mother for her son, "deTaudace, de Taudace, et 
 toujours de I'audace. " Uneducated and illi- 
 terate, recklessly spendthrift and dissolute, his 
 native audacity brought him through every 
 dilemma. He had recently produced Mozart's 
 opera Die Zauberflote at the Imperial Theatre, 
 with such success that from a very doubtful 
 " first night " it matured into tremendous 
 popularity. 
 
 He had now looked in to give a few encour- 
 aging details to the composer, regarding the 
 triumphal progress of Die Zauberflote ; for 
 Mozart had not conducted his work since the 
 first two nights. This opera is not so familiar
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 to the average music-lover as are Figaro and 
 Don Giovanni : its libretto is tedious, involved, 
 and fantastic, and its music less adapted to 
 "tickle the ear of the groundlings." Never- 
 theless, with this Mozart "unlocked for his 
 countrymen the sacred treasure of national 
 art, " and it made an impression upon the 
 Viennese public such as no opera had ever pro- 
 duced before. In its varied and complicated 
 score were to be found specimens of nearly 
 every extant musical form, from the lied to 
 the chorale and fugue. The whole musical 
 conception was pure German, unindebted to 
 French or Italian tradition for an iota of its 
 effect : and, intellectually speaking as regards 
 the music, it was on a totally different plane 
 from either the light-hearted unmoral intriguery 
 of Figaro, or the brilliant comedy of Don 
 Giovanni, that "expression of a universal genius 
 which could reproduce in music every emotion 
 of the human heart, great and small, with 
 equal truth to nature. " Die Zauberflote, in the 
 mind of its composer, was a work of the loftiest 
 and most mystical symbolism : and produces by 
 its perfection "an effect on the musical mind, 
 which," (to quote Otto Jahn), " is quite irre-
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 sistible, animating it to more active endeavour, 
 and lifting it to an atmosphere of purest 
 serenity. " 
 
 Unfeigned and childlike pleasure suffused 
 the face of Mozart, as he listened to the cheery 
 boasting of Schickaneder. " It would seem," 
 thought he, "that the perfect mastery over my 
 art which I feel myself to have attained, has 
 culminated in a triumph such as is rarely per- 
 mitted to mortals. At last, then, success and 
 fame, and the comfort of my dear ones are 
 within reasonable distance. I have not toiled 
 in vain ! " As Schickaneder poured forth his 
 tale of increasing receipts, of redoubling 
 applause, of praises showered upon the 
 name of Mozart, the volatile musician was 
 carried away by his delight. He embraced 
 Schickaneder : he kissed Constanze : he held 
 aloft his youngest child in his arms, and waltzed 
 round the room with it, singing the bird- 
 catcher's song from Die Zauberflote; in short, he 
 gave way to the wildest extravagances of his 
 over-brimming vivacity. But a more serious 
 mood succeeded. " The words of my father," 
 said he, "are finding their fulfilment. For he
 
 MINUET AND TRIO IN E FLAT. 
 
 Whilst outwardly ... he envisaged splendid lord 
 and lady treading stately steps together, "with woven 
 paces and with waving arms", inwardly he " sang of 
 the daedal stars, sang of the dancing earth".
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 told me in the days of my early manhood, ' It 
 lies now in your own power alone to raise 
 yourself to as high a position as a musician has 
 ever attained : you owe all to the extraordinary 
 talent bestowed upon you by the all-gracious 
 God, and it depends upon your own sense and 
 behaviour whether you become an ordinary 
 musician, forgotten by the world, or a cele- 
 brated Kapellmeister whose name shall be 
 handed down to posterity in books whether 
 you herd all together in a room full of squalling 
 brats on a heap of straw, or spend a Christian 
 life, full of honour, pleasure and profit, and die 
 respected by all the world, leaving your family 
 well-provided for/" 
 
 Schickaneder, who did not consider the 
 Mozart household to be very much more than 
 **a room full of squalling brats," shrugged his 
 shoulders and replied, " Ja wohl ! the world is 
 at your feet, dear Mozart ; put aside the 
 gloomy offsprings of ill-health," and he waved 
 his hand towards the Requiem score, "for the 
 public will shortly clamour for another opera : 
 and you shall surpass all that you have hitherto 
 achieved ! " With these words he bade fare-
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 well, declining the hospitable invitation of 
 Constanze : and he ran into Stadler on the 
 stairs. 
 
 Stadler was not a man to wait until he was 
 invited. He was a clarinettist by profession, 
 and a hanger-on by occupation. Many a time 
 had he traded on the weak good-nature of 
 Mozart : many a ducat, ill to be spared, and 
 many a dinner, hard to be shared, had he 
 wheedled out of the too-pliant composer. 
 Gonstanze shuddered in her heart when she 
 heard his plausible voice at the door : but 
 Mozart, exhilarated by the good tidings of 
 Schickaneder, drew the visitor in with both 
 hands, and gave him an effusive welcome. 
 They sat down to the scanty mid-day meal. 
 Mozart, whose touch was so delicate upon the 
 pianoforte, so exquisite upon the billiard-cue, 
 found his hands of little practical use in the 
 most ordinary matters : it was with clumsy 
 difficulty that he handled his knife and fork. 
 He was, moreover, talking so excitedly all the 
 while, full of high spirits and drollery, that he 
 paid but little attention to the deficiencies of 
 his dinner in both quality and quantity. Con-
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 stanze, snatching a hasty mouthful occasionally, 
 was busied with the two little children : so 
 Stadler made the best use of his host's unobser- 
 vant attitude, and proved himself an excellent 
 trencherman. 
 
 " Wolfgangerl, " said Gonstanze, " thou 
 hast hardly touched one morsel. Thou wilt 
 assuredly fall ill : and then what will become 
 of all thy fine expectations ? " 
 
 " I ill ! " exclaimed her husband, forgetful 
 of the rows of empty medicine-bottles upon 
 the chimneypiece for he had been dosing 
 himself heavily of late, "what have I to do 
 with illness ? I have works to do, great works 
 I must surpass myself ! " 
 
 " Twill go vastly hard with thee, Wolfgang, 
 to do that," observed Stadler, "for in what 
 branch of the tone-art shalt thou find new 
 worlds to conquer? In symphony, in opera, 
 in mass, in chamber-music and pianoforte 
 music, in lieder and in concertos, art thou not 
 master above all ? And a virtuoso, moreover, 
 on violin, viola, organ, clavier where will the 
 list end ? Is it not enough for any ordinary 
 man to have written Don Giovanni only ? "
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 This gross and liberal flattery (though indeed 
 it was no more than the truth) fairly intoxicated 
 the mind of Mozart : for he, who in his child- 
 hood had been wont to weep, out of excessive 
 modesty, when people praised him, was now 
 responsive to the least word of encomium. 
 "Beyond a mortal man impassioned far," he 
 sprang up, and seizing the hand of Stadler, 
 "Yes, yes!" he cried, pointing upwards, "the 
 temple of Fame holds wide its doors for me : 
 and thou shalt accompany me, my best of 
 friends ! " And, seating himself at the piano- 
 forte, he burst into the lovely phrases of La ci 
 darem, while Gonstanze, to humour his mood, 
 sang the part of Zerlina, in a small pretty voice. 
 She was only too pleased to see him less 
 melancholy and hypochondriacal. 
 
 Don Hand lock'd in hand, we'll wander, 
 Giovanni There shalt thou hear my vow, 
 Gome with me, darling, yonder, 
 Whisper and answer now ! 
 Zerlina I dare, and yet I dare not, 
 
 A tremor chills my breast, 
 Would that my doubtings were not ! 
 Thy love would make me blest.
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 Don G. Come then, my love, my treasure! 
 Zerlina Dearly I purchase pleasure ! 
 Don G. I'll change thy whole existence ! 
 Zerlina Vain, vain, is my resistance ! 
 Both Gome, come, beloved, O come ! 
 
 All pains and fears take flight 
 In love's immortal light ! 
 
 Among all the love-duets that were ever 
 written, La ci darem la mono remains unique 
 in its stream of pure and thrilling melody : for 
 "melody," as Mozart once remarked, "is the 
 very essence of music." Every word finds its 
 exact expression, every verbal phrase is trans- 
 muted into a correlative phrase of sound : the 
 tender, insinuating grace of the cavalier, the 
 shy hesitation of the yielding peasant maiden, 
 and the brilliant animated allegro which unites 
 them both in an abandon of delight. 
 
 The stentorian "Bravo! Brava !" of Stadler 
 recalled Mozart to ordinary terrestrial life : the 
 garden of Don Giovanni, with its lights and 
 flowers, faded before his eyes into the exceed- 
 ingly plebeian appurtenances of his dingy home. 
 And at this moment he recalled that he had
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 an important engagement to fulfil, at the house 
 of his friendly patron Prince Karl Lichnowsky. 
 With a few words of explanation he left the 
 room, and, fastidious to the verge of foppery, 
 proceeded to clothe and decorate himself so 
 far as his limited wardrobe would allow. The 
 taste and fashion of those times permitted of 
 much more exuberance in the way of texture, 
 colour, embroidery and ornaipent in men's 
 attire, than is now possible, and Mozart 
 re-emerged from his apartment like a butterfly 
 from a chrysalis. Stadler, overwhelming him 
 with compliments, seized the opportunity to 
 borrow a ducat : and escorted him to the very 
 door of Prince Lichnowsky 's mansion, bedaubing 
 him with adulation. 
 
 Here was a very different scene from the 
 narrow precincts of Mozart's own dwelling. 
 Although he was, as has been said, no respecter 
 of persons, and by no means one to fawn upon 
 the great, he found in aristocratic Viennese 
 society something akin to his best ideals : he 
 found amusement, inspiration, invigoration, 
 true affection and real sympathy. He was not 
 a persona grata at Court : his opponents were
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 malicious and powerful : but in a few noble 
 houses, such as this, he was welcomed and 
 appreciated, and became the very life and soul 
 of the company. Whether playing pianoforte 
 solos for their delectation, or taking part with 
 his host in some piece of chamber music, or 
 joining on equal terms in the general conversa- 
 tion, he was full of elan and spontaneous fun, 
 pouring out the absurdest doggerel rhymes or 
 the drollest of sayings : he was buoyant and 
 open-hearted as a child, "impossible to identify 
 with Mozart the great artist," with Mozart 
 the virtuoso and amazing genius. Among his 
 auditors were Countess Thun, "the charm- 
 ingest, sweetest lady, "as he described her, "that 
 I have ever seen in my life," Prince Kaunik, 
 and a score of other notabilities, who vied with 
 each other in homage to the dapper little man 
 in his well-worn suit. Other musicians were 
 also present, young composers, singers and 
 performers, anxiously endeavouring to gain a 
 hearing and secure a footing in a society where 
 success, like kissing, goes by favour. To these 
 younger members of his profession, Mozart 
 was always eager to extend a helping hand. 
 He was full of generous impulses towards them,
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 abundant in recognition of their talents and 
 congratulations on their skill : for his child-like 
 nature was absolutely devoid of jealousy or 
 envy. He loved to applaud the rising genius 
 of those who might become his own rivals, no 
 less than to dwell with enthusiasm upon the 
 merits of bygone masters. "Bach is the father 
 of us all," he averred, "we are his children : 
 those of us who can do anything worth having, 
 
 have only learned it from him And 
 
 Handel, he can strike like a thunderbolt, he 
 knows how to make great effects better than 
 any of us when he chooses." Dearest of all to 
 him, perhaps, was "Papa" Haydn, who had 
 parted from him the previous year, bound for 
 that rich and kindly England after which 
 Mozart hankered all in vain. "Papa," Mozart 
 had told him affectionately, "you are not fitted 
 for the great world ; and you speak too few 
 languages." "But my language," said the old 
 Maestro, "is understood all over the world," 
 and they embraced with tears and forebodings. 
 
 As Mozart sparkled and scintillated, for 
 a couple of brief hours playing his little part 
 in a world to which he could never hope to
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 belong, it was possible to understand the extra- 
 ordinary verve and humour which characterized 
 his operatic music. The serious, the half- 
 serious and the frankly-comic are so inter- 
 blended in his work, that it reads like a veritable 
 excerpt from human life : for no human life is 
 wholly barren of laughter and laughter-pro- 
 voking episodes. In the Nozze di Figaro, for 
 example, "truth of characterization creates a 
 kind of halo round all the situations, equivocal 
 as they are. The whole is transformed by the 
 delicate and noble spirit which asserts itself 
 throughout." The story, with its complicated 
 and superficial intrigues, is but a trivial and 
 unworthy thing ; yet every moment of its 
 development is rendered with such magnificent 
 skill and truth in the music, as to raise it to a 
 higher plane, on which we "feel the throbbing 
 of our own life-blood, recognise the language 
 of our own hearts, and are captivated by the 
 irresistible charm of unfading beauty." For 
 Gherubino, the saucy masquerading page, 
 released by Susanna from the cupboard where, 
 in the course of a whole tissue of deceits, he 
 has been concealed, we have little interest or 
 regard : but for Gherubino, the youth on the
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 edge of manhood, endeavouring to express the 
 indefinable unrest of his boyish passion for an 
 unattainable adored one, we thrill with the 
 acutest sympathy, we vibrate in consonance 
 with the poignant simplicity and celestial 
 orchestration of "Voi che sapete". Were ever 
 phrases of nascent emotion so lucidly, so touch- 
 ingly conveyed as on those flowing waves of 
 sound? the voice executing the "clear, lovely 
 melody," while the strings, pizzicato to imitate 
 the guitar, carry on the delicious accompani- 
 ment, whose "delicate outline is shaded and 
 animated in a wonderful degree by the wind 
 instruments .... the whole being of an 
 entrancing beauty." 
 
 Ye, who are wise ones 
 
 In love's dear lore, 
 Ladies, now give me 
 
 Aid, I implore ! 
 
 Some of your wisdom 
 
 To me impart, 
 Say, is it love that 
 
 Preys on my heart ? 
 
 Nameless emotion, 
 
 Tender desire,
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 Thrill me with pleasure, 
 Fill me with fire ! 
 
 Now, as in winter, 
 Icy I freeze, 
 
 Now, summer fervours 
 My spirit seize I 
 
 Still I am questing 
 
 Strange joys afar : 
 Their names I know not, 
 
 Nor what they are. 
 I sigh and murmur 
 
 Against my will, 
 I pulse and tremble, 
 
 I throb and thrill, 
 From day and darkness 
 
 My peace is fled, 
 Yet 'mid my sorrows 
 
 Joy lifts its head, 
 
 Say, O ye wise ones 
 In love's dear lore, 
 
 Is Love the sickness 
 I now deplore ?
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 As evening approached, Mozart reluctantly 
 tore himself away from the congenial society 
 of his friends and patrons. The transitory 
 ebullition of gaiety which had exhilarated him, 
 died down : a reaction of malaise and despon- 
 dency set in. 
 
 "Can you order in some wood, Wolfgang?" 
 said Gonstanze as he entered their meagrely- 
 furnished room, "and will you pay for it, or 
 give me the money to pay when it comes ? " 
 
 "I have no money," he replied uneasily, 
 feeling in his various pockets. In truth, his 
 last ducat had gone to Stadler. 
 
 "If only you could write something that 
 would sell immediately!" sighed Gonstanze, 
 "Schickaneder may talk of the immense success 
 of Die Zauberflote, but he does not bring you a 
 pfennig of the proceeds. You should be more 
 business-like with him, Wolfgang." 
 
 " Dear heaven ! has not a man without a 
 kreutzer of income enough to do and to think 
 of in a place like this ? " groaned the master, 
 turning his eyes around the depressing and ill- 
 conditioned room. "I tell you, Stanzerl, I 
 shall receive another fifty ducats when this
 
 CHERUBINO RELEASED BY SUSANNA. 
 
 The saucy masquerading page, released from the 
 cupboard where, in the course of a whole tissue of 
 deceits, he has been concealed. 
 
 (Nozze di Figaro).
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 Requiem score is finished. Or, rather, you will , 
 for I shall not be alive to enjoy it : I feel that 
 in the very roots of my heart, in the marrow 
 of my bones." 
 
 "Oh, that Requiem, it is killing you ! I 
 shall make the doctor forbid it you. Ah, dear 
 husband, do not speak so ! " and the foolish but 
 devoted woman clasped him in her arms. 
 
 "Nevertheless, 'tis so, my Stanzerl; I feel 
 as though the marble-cold feet of Death, like 
 the Statue's feet in Don Giovanni, were already 
 entering towards me who burn with an 
 unaccountable fever, " and, withdrawing him- 
 self from her arms, he sat down at the clavier, 
 and began to sing the awful sentences of the 
 Commandante, those "soul-harrowing sounds" 
 which embody "the inflexible decree of an 
 eternal law," and the heavy tread of the Stone 
 Figure as it seizes the profligate's hand. 
 
 The Thou bads't me to thy supper, 
 Commandante I would return the courtesy: 
 Gome answer me, come answer 
 
 me, wilt thou too 
 Banquet with me now ? 
 
 Repent thee I
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 Don Giovanni No ! 
 
 Commandante Yes ! 
 
 Don G. No ! 
 
 Commandante Ah ! now thy time is past ! 
 
 A chill descended upon the heart of Con- 
 stanze, and a cold shiver ran down the spine 
 of Mozart himself, as they realised the scene 
 so familiar to both. The children, disturbed 
 by the sonorous chords, awoke and began to 
 cry : the canary started its shrillest song. 
 " Ah, get thee gone, Wolferl ! " exclaimed Gon- 
 stanze, her anxiety, as is so often the case, 
 finding vent in petulant words, "get thee gone 
 and order in the wood, else we shall all freeze 
 into stone statues ourselves ! " 
 
 The master-musician went out into the 
 streets and round to the yard of the Silver 
 Serpent, that little beer-house where they sold 
 fuel. "You look very ill, Herr Mozart," said 
 Joseph Deiner, the porter to whom he gave his 
 instructions about it. 
 
 "Ill, yes, I am ill, undoubtedly," and he 
 passed his hand across his brow, " I feel as
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 though I had been poisoned. . . Poisoned . . . 
 I have enemies, you know, good Joseph." 
 
 "A trifling indisposition, I trust, sir," said 
 the porter, looking sympathetically at the pale 
 troubled face. " Will you pay now, or on 
 delivery ? There is a little matter of six ducats 
 already owing " 
 
 "Then let this be added to the account," 
 said Mozart, "I have a large sum due to me, 
 good Joseph, as soon as my work in hand is 
 accomplished. Let my creditors rest easy : they 
 shall shortly all be paid in full." He walked 
 away with a would-be jaunty air, and, en route, 
 encountered one of his brother Freemasons. 
 
 "You are not forgetting the Cantata you 
 promised for our Masonic Festival ? " enquired 
 his friend. 
 
 "It will be ready the day after to-morrow," 
 replied Mozart, who had not touched a line 
 of it. 
 
 "You will conduct, of course?" observed 
 the other.
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 "Of course, of course ! I shall be delighted 
 to conduct." 
 
 "The libretto is attractive and suggestive 
 to you ? " 
 
 "The libretto is Schickaneder's." 
 
 "Humph !" said the Freemason, who did 
 not think much of Schickaneder. 
 
 "And the subject is the Praise of Friendship 
 that, at least, should inspire my highest 
 efforts," said Mozart with a faint smile. 
 
 "My dear fellow," responded the other, 
 "if you cannot rise to such a subject, who can ? 
 For fraternal affection, for sociability, for 
 charity in a good cause, for desire to make 
 your noble talents of use to your brethren, I do 
 not know your equal, little Mozart, great 
 Mozart ! Ade, and all good luck to you ! " 
 They parted with a warm salute. 
 
 " The doctor has been here," said Con- 
 stanze, as her husband came in, "he was sorry 
 to have missed you, but I told him very care- 
 fully how ill you looked, and all your symptoms.
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 He left more physic for you, and he implores 
 you not to work at night." 
 
 "Oh, does he so?" remarked Mozart in 
 absent-minded tones. "Well, now, Stanzerl, I 
 am going to write my Praise of Friendship : and 
 you can tell me stories whilst I work." He sat 
 down at his writing-table, hunted up Schicka- 
 neder's MS. from under a pile of papers, and 
 began to meditate, pen in hand ; remote, for the 
 time being, in a world where he walked alone. 
 
 Gonstanze, amiable and obliging, fetched 
 her needlework, and plunged into a fairy-tale : 
 her soft inexpressive voice went rippling gently 
 on, like that of some unintelligent Teutonic 
 Scheherazade, through half-a-dozen marchen. 
 Now and then Mozart burst out laughing at 
 some quaint turn or fantastic event of the story: 
 sometimes he seemed utterly absorbed in the 
 mere movement of his flying pen as it covered 
 the paper. Gradually Gonstanze spoke in still 
 more drowsy accents : by eleven o'clock her 
 *air head had fallen on her breast, she was all 
 but asleep. Mozart rose, and with kind 
 solicitude assisted her to their sleeping-room.
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 "Slumber well, my dear," said he, "do not 
 trouble about me, I shall retire shortly." 
 
 But one o'clock, and two o'clock, and three 
 o'clock came, and found him still, consumed 
 with feverish energy, improvising at the piano, 
 very softly lest he should awaken his family. 
 He had dropped the Masonic Cantata, and was 
 back at work on the Requiem : it obsessed him, 
 body and soul. Laborare est orare : and he put 
 the whole force of his tender, emotional, 
 devotional nature into the marvellous tone- 
 poem which he was constructing. The awful 
 glory of the Judge enthroned, "Rex tremendae 
 majestatis", had given place to the marvellous 
 supplication of the Recordare quartet. "Never 
 in any art, be it what it may, has the comforting 
 feeling of pious trust in the mercy of God, 
 arising from the consciousness of human weak- 
 ness, been more truly and beautifully expressed 
 than here". As the dark November night 
 attained its lowest ebb, that mystical period 
 when all human powers and faculties are at 
 their weakest, Mozart arose, or rather stag- 
 gered up, and, hardly knowing how he undressed, 
 lay down by the dreaming Constanze and the
 
 A DAY WITH MOZART. 
 
 two children in their wooden cradles. Impov- 
 erished, outspent, death-doomed as he already 
 was, celestial consolations yet were his : and 
 over his brain, too exhausted to formulate a 
 prayer, the heavenly beseeching of the Recordare 
 wandered to and fro : 
 
 *Recordare t Jesu pie, 
 Quod sum causa tuae via ; 
 Ne me perdat, ille die. 
 
 Quaerens me, sedisti lassus ; 
 Redemisti, Crucem passus ; 
 Tantus labor non sit cassus. 
 
 *Think, good Jesus, 'twas to save me 
 Thou wast found in human fashion : 
 Cast me not from Thy dear Presence- 
 
 Seeking me, Thou satest weary ; 
 On the Cross for me dids't perish ; 
 Let not all that toil be wasted !
 
 THE HIDALGO. 
 
 My days I spend in courting, 
 With songs and hearts a-sporting, 
 Or weaporied for a fight ! 
 
 (Der Hidalgo).
 

 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 is an April morning in 1844, 
 in the town of Leipzig, calm, 
 cool, and fraught with exquisite 
 promise of a prolific spring, 
 when the Herr Professor 
 Doctor Robert Schumann, 
 rising before six o'clock as is his wont, very 
 quietly and noiselessly in his soft felt 
 slippers, dresses and goes downstairs. For 
 he does not wish to disturb or incommode 
 his sleeping wife, whose dark eyes are still 
 closed, or to awaken any of his three little 
 children. 
 
 The tall, dignified, well-built man, with his 
 pleasant, kindly expression, and his air of 
 mingled intellect and reverie, bears his whole 
 character written large upon him, his trans- 
 parent honesty, unflagging industry, and 
 generous, enthusiastic altruism. No touch of 
 self-seeking about him, no hint of ostentation
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 or conceit : he is still that same reticent and 
 silent person, of whom it was said some 
 years ago by his friends, 
 
 " Herr Schumann is a right good man, 
 He smokes tobacco as no one can : 
 A man of thirty, I suppose, 
 And short his hair, and short his nose." 
 
 That, indeed, is the sum total of his outward 
 appearance : as for the inward man, it is 
 not to be known save through his writings. 
 Literature and music are the only means of 
 expression, of communication with others, 
 which are possessed by this modest, pensive, 
 reserved maestro, upon whom the sounding 
 titles of Doctor and Professor sit so strangely. 
 
 In the unparalleled fervour and romance 
 of his compositions, in the passionate heart- 
 opening of his letters, in the sane, wholesome, 
 racy colloquialism of his critiques, the real 
 Robert Schumann is unfolded. Otherwise he 
 might remain a perennial enigma to his nearest 
 and dearest : for even in his own family circle, 
 tenderly and dearly as he adores his wife and
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 children, his lips remain sealed of all that they 
 might say : and the fixed, unvarying quietude 
 of his face but rarely reveals the least sugges- 
 tion of his deeper feelings. 
 
 Yet, at the present time, were you to 
 search the world around, you should hardly 
 find a happier man than this, in his own serene 
 and thoughtful way. For, in his own words, 
 ** I have an incomparable wife. There is no 
 happiness equal to that. If you could only 
 take a peep at us in our snug little artist 
 home!" Clara Wieck, whom he has known 
 from her childhood, whom he struggled, and 
 agonised, and fought for against fate, for five 
 long years of frustration and disappointment, 
 is not only his beloved wife and the mother of 
 his little ones, she is his fellow-worker and 
 co-artist, and literal helpmate in every depart- 
 ment of life. She has "filled his life with 
 sunshine of love," and, "as a woman," he 
 declares, ' ' she is a gift from heaven .... 
 Think of perfection, and I will agree to it ! " 
 But, beyond that, she has poured her beautiful 
 soul into every hungry cranny of his artistic 
 sense. "For Clara's untiring zeal and energy
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 in her art, she really deserves love and en- 
 couragement I will say no more 
 
 of my happiness in possessing a girl with whom 
 I have grown to be one through art, intellectual 
 affinities, the regular intercourse of years, 
 and the deepest and holiest affection. My 
 whole life is one joyous activity." 
 
 The annals of art, indeed, hold no more 
 lovely record of a union between natural 
 affinities. That of Robert and Elizabeth 
 Barret Browning perhaps approximates most 
 closely to that of Robert and Clara Schumann. 
 But whereas in the former case both husband 
 and wife were alike engaged upon the same 
 branch of literature, poetry, and a certain 
 sense of sadness was apt to embitter the success 
 of the wife, because of the unpopularity (in 
 those days) of the husband, Schumann is 
 solely and pre-eminently a composer, and Clara 
 solely and absorbingly a pianist. No shadow 
 of artistic rivalry can fall upon their delight, 
 nor darken their pleasure in each other's 
 achievements. Schumann's most impassioned 
 and characteristic productions have been defi- 
 nitely inspired by Clara, ever since the days
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 when, as a child of nine, she listened to his 
 fantastic fairy-tales, and her exquisite playing 
 thrilled him with a desire to think in music. 
 And Clara, who has never made a mere show 
 of her marvellous executive skill, but has 
 " consecrated it to the service of true art 
 alone," is never happier than when interpret- 
 ing her husband's works. 
 
 It is, in short, necessary to deal with 
 Schumann as a whole, as a man who has 
 fulfilled the triple destiny for which Nature 
 intended him, as individual, husband, and 
 father, before one can even approximately 
 understand this silent, studious dreamer, whose 
 one ideal of happiness is to sit at home and 
 compose. 
 
 Schumann considers this early morning 
 hour the most precious of his day, from a 
 working standpoint. He seats himself at his 
 desk, and places his two treasures where they 
 shall catch his eye conspicuously ; for he 
 regards them more or less as charms and 
 talismans to bring out the best that is in him. 
 They are, a steel pen which he found lying on
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 Beethoven's grave at Vienna, and the MS. 
 score of Schubert's G-major Symphony, which 
 he obtained by a lucky chance. He regards 
 these with a mixture of sentiment and humor- 
 ous toleration of his own mysticism : but he 
 cherishes them none the less, and often casts a 
 reassuring glance in their direction, as he 
 covers sheet after sheet of paper with his 
 shockingly illegible handwriting. " Poets and 
 pianists," says he with resignation, "almost 
 always write with a dog's paw. The printers 
 will make it out somehow." He is engaged 
 upon his work in connection with the Neue 
 Zeitschrift fur Musik (New Musical Times), 
 which he originally founded, and of which he 
 has been some nine years Editor. During all 
 these years he has contributed to its pages those 
 admirable reviews and appreciations which are 
 so utterly unlike anything heretofore attempted 
 in the realm of musical criticism. " There is 
 no quality to be desired in a musical critic that 
 Schumann does not possess : " and in addition 
 to technical equipments of every kind, keen 
 insight and an almost prophetic quality in his 
 predictions, he has the priceless gift too often 
 denied to the critic, that of superabundant
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 sympathy. His hands are ever thrown out to 
 welcome the young and timid genius, even as 
 they are clenched, so to speak, with threatening 
 fists towards Philistinism, charlatanism and 
 mediocrity. He loves to praise rather than to 
 blame, and to detect the germs of coming great- 
 ness in some obscure, unsuspected artist. He 
 takes into his regard the personal equation 
 wherever possible, and does not separate the 
 musician from the man : for, he says, " the 
 man and the musician in myself have always 
 struggled to manifest themselves simultaneously. 
 ... I speak with a certain diffidence of works, 
 of the precursors of which I know nothing. 
 I like to know something of the composer's 
 school, his youthful aspirations, his exemplars 
 and even of the actions and circumstances of 
 his life, and what he has done hitherto." 
 
 As his pen travels rapidly over the pages, 
 the reason of his cramped and crabbed hand- 
 writing is only too evident. Schumann's right 
 hand is crippled. In an evil hour of his youth, 
 while yet he was consumed with the ambition 
 of a would-be virtuoso, he experimented, with 
 artificial restrictions, upon one of his right-hand
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 fingers, intending thus to strengthen the rest by 
 assiduous practice .... with the result that 
 he lamed his hand for ever. This disastrous 
 attempt deprived the world of a good pianist, 
 but conferred upon it a great composer : for it 
 is possible that the executive would have 
 superseded the creative ability within him. 
 Nevertheless, he confesses that, " My lame 
 
 hand makes me wretched sometimes it 
 
 would mean so much if I were able to play. 
 What a relief to give utterance to all the music 
 surging within me ! As it is, I can barely play 
 at all, but stumble along with my fingers all 
 mixed up together in a terrible way. It causes 
 me great distress." 
 
 Thus, you perceive, he is considerably 
 debarred from expressing himself in sounds, no 
 less than in words : he must perforce retire 
 more and more within himself. The ease with 
 which he writes is balanced by the difficulty 
 with which he speaks : and bitterly he has 
 complained, " People are often at a loss to 
 understand me, and no wonder ! I meet 
 affectionate advances with icy reserve, and 
 often wound and repel those who wish to help
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 me. ... It is not that I fail to appreciate the 
 very smallest attention, or to distinguish every 
 subtle change in expression and attitude : it is 
 a fatal something in my words and manner 
 which belies me." 
 
 He is, indeed, only paralleled by the Lotus 
 Flower of his own delicious song, shrinking 
 from the daylight of publicity, and softly 
 unfolding to the gentle rays of love. 
 
 The Lotus flower is pining 
 
 Under the sun's red light : 
 Slowly her head inclining, 
 
 She dreams and waits for the night. 
 
 The moon, who is her lover, 
 
 Awakes her with his rays, 
 And bids her softly uncover 
 
 Her veiled and gentle gaze. 
 
 Now glowing, gleaming, throbbing, 
 She looks all mutely above, 
 
 She is trembling, and sighing, and sobbing, 
 For love and the pangs of love. 
 
 (Heine.)
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 And here she enters the room, this woman 
 who is literally his alter ego, and the small 
 prattle of children is audible in the awakening 
 house. Madame Schumann is, in her husband's 
 words, a "pale, not pretty, but attractive" 
 young woman of twenty-six, " with black eyes 
 that speak volumes," slender, vivacious, 
 affectionate : the exact complement of Robert 
 in all respects. It is easy to perceive in them, 
 at the first glance, "two noble souls distinguished 
 by fastidious purity of character two buoyant 
 minds concentrated to the service of the same 
 art." The heavily - thoughtful face of the 
 composer lights up with sudden sunshine. 
 
 " Gome and sit beside me, my dear, sweet 
 girl ! " says he. " Hold your head a little to the 
 right, in the charming way you have, and let 
 me talk to you a little. Upon my word, 
 Clarchen, you look younger than ever this 
 morning. You cannot be the mother of three. 
 You cannot be the celebrated pianist. You 
 are just the queer, quaint little girl you were 
 ten years ago, with strong views of your own, 
 beautiful eyes, and a weakness for cherries ! " 
 This is a very long speech for Schumann, and 
 his wife looks at him with a shade of anxiety
 
 THE LOTUS-FLOWER. 
 
 The Lotus flower is pining 
 
 Under the sun's red light : 
 Slowly her head inclining, 
 
 She dreams and waits for the night. 
 (Die Lotos-Blume).
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 such anxiety as she is never wholly free from. 
 For the words which she wrote in her diary 
 on her wedding day were more prophetic than 
 even she may yet recognise : " My responsi- 
 bilities are heavy very heavy ; give me 
 strength to fulfil them as a good wife should. 
 God has always been and will continue to be 
 my helper. I have always had perfect trust 
 in Him, which I will ever preserve." She, and 
 she alone, is aware of all those mysterious 
 clouds of melancholia, those strange sounds of 
 inexplicable music, which brood at times above 
 her darling husband friend, comrade and lover 
 in one. She, and she only, can banish, as 
 David did from Saul, the terrible phases of 
 irrational depression, and exorcise the evil 
 power which is always lurking ambushed in 
 Schumann's outwardly happy life. 
 
 "See," says he, with modest pride, "what 
 a vast amount of work I have completed this 
 morning ! " 
 
 " You are a most diligent creature, 
 Robert ! " she tells him, " and yet I cannot but 
 wish sometimes, that this literary work were 
 off your mind that you had more time to 
 devote towards composing, which is your true
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 mttier. I want all the world to understand 
 how great a master you are I am jealous of 
 every minute spent upon the Neue Zeitschrift ! " 
 
 " Don't be too ambitious for me, Glarchen : 
 I desire no better place than a seat at the piano 
 with you close by." 
 
 " That does not satisfy me," says the 
 impetuous little lady, " I want you to be recog- 
 nised and applauded by all men. When I am 
 rendering your divine compositions, I feel as 
 though all the while I were declaring : * Just 
 hear this ! Just listen to that ! This is by 
 Robert Schumann, the greatest genius in 
 Germany : it is an honour to me to be 
 allowed to perform such works.'" 
 
 " My dear, those compositions are my poor, 
 weak way of expressing my thoughts about you ! 
 The battles which you have cost me, the joy 
 you have given me, are all reflected by my 
 music. You are almost the sole inspiration of 
 my best the Concerto, the Sonata, the Davids- 
 bundler dances, the Kreisleriana, the Novelletten. 
 Why, dearest, in the Novelletten are my 
 thoughts of you in every possible position and 
 circumstance and all your irresistibleness ! . . . 
 No one could have written the Novelletten,
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 unless he had gazed into such eyes and touched 
 such lips as yours. In short, another may do 
 better work, but nothing just like these." 
 
 "That, indeed, I feel," replies Clara with 
 a little sigh, " and the very significance of their 
 meaning, I believe, forbids my doing full justice 
 to their amazing difficulties. You need a pianist 
 like Liszt, my Robert, to interpret you to the 
 best advantage." 
 
 '* I have every admiration for Liszt's 
 wonderful playing, with its diapason of all the 
 moods between the extremes of fiery frenzy, 
 and utmost delicacy. But his world is not mine 
 not ours, Clarchen. Art, as we know it 
 you when you play, I when I compose has an 
 intimate charm that is worth far more to us 
 than all Liszt's splendour and tinsel." 
 
 They embrace with the warmth and sweet- 
 ness of perfect mutual comprehension : and she 
 prevails upon him to descend from cloudy 
 Olympian editorial heights, so far as to refresh 
 himself with a modest fruhstiick or breakfast, 
 and a brief gambol with the little ones for he 
 has that devotion to tiny children characteristic 
 of all great men. Never, perhaps, has any
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 composer so thoroughly entered into childish 
 griefs and fears and pleasures the April 
 shower and shine of babyhood than Schumann 
 in his Kinderscenen. The consummate musician 
 who has surmounted every difficulty, acquainted 
 himself with every method of his art the man 
 who has mastered the forms of symphony, 
 chamber-music, pianoforte and vocal music to 
 their farthest present limits here stands forth 
 as the exponent of little innocent every-day 
 emotions. By the Fireside, Bogeys, A Child's 
 Petition, From Foreign Lands, Blindman's Buff, 
 and so on, the simple titles run. " They are 
 descriptive enough, you see, and as easy as 
 winking ! " he has told his wife. And they are 
 the very breath of childhood, they "dally 
 with the innocence of love, like the old age." 
 Nobody could have imagined them but a man 
 who had eternal youth in his heart. " The 
 dissonances are as softly blended as if a child 
 had actually poured forth its pure soul." 
 
 It may readily be imagined with what looks 
 askance the composer of the Kinderscenen is 
 favoured by his academic and hide-bound 
 contemporaries. " Romanticism run mad "
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 " modernism gone crazy ; " " discordant 
 innovations ; " " new-fangled nonsense " 
 there are few terms too harsh for Herr 
 Schumann ; and sometimes he is contemptuously 
 ignored as beyond all possibility of classification. 
 Already sufficiently outrt, in the opinion of all 
 conventional musicians, by his adoption of the 
 cyclical form, rather than the orthodox classical, 
 for his abstract pianoforte music " the whole 
 becoming organic by means of the intimate 
 connection between the various parts ; " 
 already sufficiently outlandish, in the estimation 
 of the average conservative critic, by what is 
 condemned as his grotesquerie and bizarrerie of 
 treatment : Schumann is not careful to answer 
 his opponents, or to defend himself from any 
 charges of lese-majeste against the imperial art 
 which he serves. That wide and genial 
 tolerance which he extends towards all new 
 composers, he does not demand or even expect 
 for himself. Nevertheless, as he allows, " I 
 used to be quite indifferent to the amount of 
 notice I received, but a wife and children put 
 a different complexion upon everything. It 
 becomes imperative to think of the future." 
 And he is aware that his own personal idiosyn-
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 crasies are the strongest obstacle in his way ; 
 for he is unable to push or praise himself in the 
 least, and the lordly egotism by dint of which 
 other composers win, or command, a hearing, 
 has been entirely omitted from the making of 
 this dumb genius. He knows no professional 
 jealousy, he never speaks ill of a soul ; but 
 then, one might say that he hardly ever spoke 
 at all. He is almost unknown in society, 
 partly because he really has no interest what- 
 ever apart from music, partly owing to his silent 
 manner and retiring disposition. It is on record 
 that one day after Madame Schumann had been 
 playing with tremendous success at one of the 
 smaller German courts, the Serene Highness 
 who was ruler there enquired of her with great 
 affability, " whether her husband were also 
 musical ? " And with his fellow-musicians he 
 is so invincibly taciturn that conversation is 
 almost a farce. Even Wagner, whose powers 
 of loquacity are almost illimitable, resents being 
 reduced to the utterance of an absolute mono- 
 logue. " When I came to see Schumann," he 
 grumbles, " I related to him my Parisian 
 experiences, spoke of the state of music in 
 France, then of that in Germany, spoke of
 
 THE KNIGHT AND THE LORELEI. 
 
 The hour is late, the night is cold, 
 Who through the forest rides so bold ? 
 The wood is wide, thou art alone, 
 O lovely maid, be thou my own ! 
 
 ( Waldesgesprach}.
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 literature and politics, but he remained as good 
 as dumb for nearly an hour. Now, one cannot 
 go on talking quite alone. An impossible man ! " 
 
 The fact is, that the " impossible man" 
 dwells apart in a world of his own, a world 
 peopled by the best folk he has ever encountered 
 either in the flesh or the spirit, and a world 
 where the austerest canons and noblest aspira- 
 tions of his great art are upheld on a very 
 different plane from that of Leipzig. He has the 
 highest possible view of his vocation and what 
 it should entail. " To send light into the depths 
 of the human heart, that is the artistic calling," 
 he has declared ....*' The artist is to choose 
 for his companions those who can do something 
 beyond playing passably on one or two instru- 
 ments those who are whole men and can 
 understand Shakespeare and Jean Paul .... 
 People say, ' It pleased,' or *It did not please,' 
 as if there were nothing higher than pleasing 
 the public !".... A man with such notions 
 a* these, in the first half of the nineteenth 
 century, must of necessity live and move to a 
 great extent in an ideal atmosphere of his own : 
 and Schumann, to do so the more literally, has
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 created his own company in that * ' spiritual and 
 romantic league," the Davidsbund, which exists 
 only in his imagination, but exercises consider- 
 able vigour none the less. 
 
 The Davidsbund is a mystical community of 
 kindred souls, each enlisted, with or without his 
 knowledge, under the banner of " a resolve to 
 do battle in the cause of musical progress, 
 against Philistinism in every form." One can 
 only vaguely compare it to the Pre-Raphaelite 
 Brotherhood in England. " Mozart was as 
 much a member of it as Berlioz now is," so 
 declares its founder. Chopin, Julius Knorr, 
 Schuncke, Carl Banck and others, without any 
 form of enrolment, are members of the Davidite 
 fraternity. New names and old are added 
 from time to time, in the friendly columns of 
 the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, which is the 
 organ of the league : and especially Schumann 
 himself appears under a number of noms de 
 guerre, representing the manifold facets of his 
 identity. As Florestan, he speaks for " the 
 turbulent and impulsive side of his nature, full 
 of imaginative activity ; " as Eusebius, he 
 expresses those gentle, thoughtful, sensitive
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 qualities which sit so lovably upon him. As 
 Meister Raro, calmly logical, he stands between 
 both the above, and, " acting as arbitrator, 
 sums up their opposing criticisms," much as his 
 father-in-law Friedrich Wieck the great pro- 
 fessor might do. To light-hearted, humorous, 
 almost frivolous critiques he signs himself 
 Jeanquirit: and last, not least of the "Davidites," 
 he introduces Mendelssohn as Meritis, and 
 embodies varying traits of his beloved Clara 
 as Zilia, Chiarina, and Cecilia. . . . Call it 
 feather-brained, fantastic, ridiculous, if you will, 
 the Davidsbund has a very definite meaning, and 
 fulfils a very noble purpose. For, to use its 
 inventor's own phrase, " In every age there is 
 a secret band of kindred spirits. Ye who are 
 of this fellowship, see that ye weld the circle 
 firmly, that so the truth of Art may shine ever 
 more and more clearly, shedding joy and 
 blessing far and near." 
 
 That remarkable power of expressing the 
 personalities of his friends in music, which has 
 been Schumann's from youth, stands him in 
 good stead for the depicting of various " David- 
 ites": he could show the peculiar characteristics
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 of any one of them in a few moments, on the 
 pianoforte, whereas years would not suffice him 
 to give a verbal explanation. This power of 
 portrayal is noticeable in the very construction 
 of his songs, such as, for instance, The Two 
 Grenadiers, or Freedom, or The Hidalgo, with its 
 essentially Spanish arrogance. 
 
 My days I spend in courting, 
 With songs and hearts a-sporting. 
 
 Or weaponed for a fight ! 
 The fragrant darkness daring, 
 I gaily forth am faring, 
 
 To roam the streets by night, 
 For love or war preparing, 
 
 With bearing proud and light. . . . 
 The moon her light is flinging, 
 The powers of Love are springing, 
 
 And sombre passions burn . . . 
 Or wounds or blossoms bringing, 
 
 To-morrow I'll return ! 
 While o'er the horizon darkling, 
 The first faint star is sparkling, 
 
 All prudence cold I spurn, 
 Or wounds or blossoms bringing, 
 
 To-morrow I'll return !
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 In the course of the morning Schumann, 
 reluctantly leaving a mass of unfinished MSS. 
 upon his desk and pianoforte, betakes himself 
 to his duties at the Gonservatorium, where he 
 has been professor for about a year. Conscien- 
 tious and painstaking in tuition as in all else, he 
 is not naturally a good teacher. He seems to 
 be devoid of the priceless power of imparting 
 verbal instruction, or of imparting the secret of 
 the system whereby a desired effect shall be 
 attained. His habitual and increasing melan- 
 choly reserve rises up like a barrier between 
 himself and his pupils: his reticence chills and 
 bewilders them. His own musical education 
 has been an entirely personal matter, and not 
 wrought out upon the accepted scholastic lines. 
 Moreover, intercourse with musical people has 
 always "appealed to Schumann far more, and 
 with greater success, than dry lessons in 
 thorough bass and counterpoint." Hence, 
 whilst he appears almost unable to assist the 
 novice in the beginning, or tadpole stage, he is 
 able to afford invaluable help and stimulating 
 criticism to those young artists with whom he 
 may come in contact, and who adore him for 
 his sympathetic kindness. The violinist Joachim
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 never forgot how, as a boy of thirteen, he 
 played the Kreutzer sonata with his host at the 
 house of Mendelssohn. Lonely and silent all 
 the while, Schumann remained in a corner of the 
 room ; but subsequently, while Joachim was 
 sitting near him, he leaned forward and pointed 
 to the stars, shining down into the room through 
 the open window. He patted the lad's knee 
 with gentle, friendly encouragement. " Do 
 you think they know up there " he queried, 
 " that a little boy has been playing down here 
 with Mendelssohn ? " This question was the 
 very essence of Schumann, romantic, mystical, 
 full of tender dreams. 
 
 His composition-lessons over, he conducts 
 a part-singing class. Orchestral conducting is 
 abhorrent to him ; it is " too defiant and con- 
 spicuous a task." He cannot make his meaning 
 clear by word of mouth : and in gesture he is 
 singularly deficient. But in part-singing he is 
 an excellent instructor, because he is seated at 
 the piano and can indicate there the suggestion 
 which he fails to convey viva-voce. Even now, 
 in the wreck of his abilities as a pianist, it is 
 possible to imagine what he might have been :
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 he can produce an extraordinary depth and 
 richness of tone, seeming to obtain some of his 
 effects by unusual and almost illegitimate means. 
 His accentuation is very slight, and he uses both 
 pedals too frequently and too freely. Notwith- 
 standing these peculiarities, however, the same 
 indefinable magic pervades his piano-playing as 
 his compositions. 
 
 Nervous, excitable, uneasy, the master 
 draws a breath of relief when the class is dis- 
 missed. The pleasant Hebraic face of Mendel- 
 ssohn nods in at his door in passing. The two 
 musicians are so busily engaged, that often they 
 hardly exchange a word for weeks together. 
 Mendelssohn, the recipient of many a generous 
 and whole-hearted encomium from his devotee 
 Schumann, does not return this fraternal 
 enthusiasm. To his well-balanced mind, the 
 silent moody man and his productions are too 
 wild, too eccentric, too uncanny. He regards 
 them, at times, with a species of grudging 
 admiration : at others, he sides in heart, if not 
 in speech, with the current opinion of the town. 
 ' Opposition to all artistic progress has always 
 been a distinctive characteristic of Leipzig
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 musical society," and therefore horror-stricken 
 hands are uplifted at the editor of the Neue 
 Zeitschrift fiir Musik, his heretical doctrines, and 
 still more heretical deeds. The good people ot 
 the Thomas-School Choral Society, the audience 
 at the Gewandhaus concerts, the subscribers to 
 opposition musical papers, regard Herr 
 Schumann very much as the knight regarded 
 the lady at the close of his own magnificent 
 Waldesgesprach. 
 
 " The hour is late, the night is cold, 
 Who through the forest rides so bold ? 
 The wood is wide, thou art alone, 
 O lovely maid, be thou my own ! " 
 
 " Great is the craft and guile of men, 
 With grief my heart is rent in twain ; 
 Far sounds the bugle to and fro, 
 Away ! my name thou dost not know ! " 
 
 " Thy steed and thou so bright array'd, 
 So wondrous fair, thou lovely maid, 
 I know thee now ! God ! let me fly ! 
 Thou art the fairy Lorelei ! "
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 "Thou know'st me now my towers do shine 
 Deep mirror'd in the dark blue Rhine, 
 The wind blows cold, the day is o'er, 
 Thou shalt escape me never more ! " 
 
 In the afternoon, Schumann, back at home, 
 is occupied with creative work. This, perhaps, 
 is the most congenial part of his day : for, as it 
 has been said of him, he sees life musically, and 
 whatever happens to impress him takes the 
 form of music. Steadily, deliberately, of set 
 purpose, and yet with the authentic fire of 
 divine inspiration infusing his smallest effort, he 
 has conquered, one by one, in every field of 
 creative art. His finest pianoforte works were 
 composed during the wretched years of strain 
 and stress whilst he was waiting to marry Clara, 
 held apart from her by her jealous and inexo- 
 rable father, until (again like the Brownings) the 
 lovers took matters into their own hands and 
 were married in sudden and in secret. Three 
 of his four great symphonies saw the light in 
 one year, 1841, an achievement truly colossal. 
 Last year, 1843, he was studying and perfecting 
 himself in chamber music. His life, outwardly 
 so uneventful, has been abnormally prolific in
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 brain-work : and that of no fatal fluency or 
 shallow meretriciousness, but conceived upon 
 the highest possible plane. " The more clearly 
 we examine Schumann's ideas," says Liszt, 
 "the more power and life do we discover in 
 them : and the more we study them, the more 
 are we amazed at the wealth and fertility which 
 had before escaped us." And his own theories 
 of art are bound to evolve themselves thus : 
 for " Only think," he has written, " what 
 circumstances must be combined to produce 
 the beautiful in all its dignity and splendour. 
 We need, 1st, lofty deep purposes and ideality 
 in a composition ; 2nd, enthusiasm in descrip- 
 tion ; 3rd, masterly execution and harmony of 
 action, closely combined ; 4th, innate desire for 
 giving and receiving, a momentarily favourable 
 mood (on both sides, that of listener and per- 
 former) ; 5th, the most fortunate conjunction 
 of the relatives of time, as well as of the more 
 especial question of place and other accessories ; 
 6th, sympathy of impression, feelings and ideas 
 a reflection of artistic pleasure in the eyes of 
 others." 
 
 And these definitions apply in all their 
 detail to the outcome of Schumann's happiest
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 year of all, the year after his union with Clara, 
 the time when like a bird he burst into infinite 
 ecstasy of melody, and eclipsed himself with the 
 number, variety and bewildering beauty of his 
 vocal compositions. That perfect balance 
 between words and music, that power of 
 identifying himself with the poet whose words 
 he " sets," which pre-eminently differentiates 
 Schumann from all other musicians, was born 
 of "hopes fulfilled and mutual love." There 
 are no songs which can compare with his, in 
 passionate intensity and depth of emotion. It 
 may be that only the skilled and sympathetic 
 musician can interpret them with full effect : 
 but the least expert auditor can be poignantly 
 affected by them. Especially is this the 
 case with his treatments of Heine, the one 
 poet par excellence in whom he discovers all he 
 can desire of power, of pathos and of passion. 
 " The lyrics Die Lotos-blume (The Lotus-flower) 
 and Du bist wie eine blume (Thou art like unto a 
 flower) are among the most perfect things found 
 in the realms of song, in their enchanting truth 
 and delicacy of sentiment "; and " not one of all 
 those subtle touches . . which make Heine's 
 poetry what it is, has been lost upon
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 Schumann." Ich grolle nicht (I will not chide) 
 is unapproachable in its white-heat of uttermost 
 despair. 
 
 I will not chide, although my heart should 
 
 break, 
 Though all my hopes have died, lost Love, 
 
 for thy dear sake 
 I will not chide. 
 
 Though thou be bright bedeck'd with 
 
 diamond-shine, 
 
 No ray of joy illumines that heart of thine, 
 I know full well ! 
 
 I will not chide, although my heart should 
 
 break, 
 
 I saw it all in dreaming, 
 I saw the night that thro' thy soul is 
 
 streaming, 
 
 I saw the snake that on thy heart doth feed, 
 I saw, my love, how sad thou art indeed, 
 I will not chide ! 
 
 Die Beiden Grenadieren (The Two Grena- 
 diers), with Schumann's favourite Marseillaise
 
 THE TWO GRENADIERS. 
 
 To France were returning two Grenadiers, 
 In Russia they long did languish, 
 
 And as they came to the German frontier, 
 
 They hung down their heads with anguish. 
 (Die Beiden Grenadieren)
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 introduced in such masterly fashion at the end, 
 remains an unrivalled utterance of manly and 
 patriotic grief. 
 
 To France were returning two Grenadiers, 
 
 In Russia they long did languish, 
 And as they came to the German frontier, 
 They hung down their heads with 
 
 anguish. 
 
 'Twas then that they heard the story of woe, 
 That France was forlorn and forsaken, 
 Besieged and defeated, and crushed by 
 
 the foe, 
 
 And the Emp'ror, their Emp'ror was 
 taken ! 
 
 " My cross of honour and crimson band 
 
 Lay on my heart right surely ; 
 My musket place within my hand, 
 
 And gird my sword securely : 
 So will I lie there and barken, dumb, 
 
 Like sentry when hosts are camping, 
 Till I hear the roar of the cannon come, 
 
 And the chargers above are tramping !
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 "Above me shall ride then my Emp'ror 
 
 so brave, 
 
 While swords are flashing and clashing, 
 
 While sabres are fiercely contending, 
 
 In that hour of his need I will rise from the 
 
 grave, 
 The cause of my Emp'ror defending ! " 
 
 And in his song-cycle Frauen-lieben und 
 Leben (Woman's Life and Love) he has evinced 
 " extraordinary depths of penetration into a 
 side of human character which men are gener- 
 ally supposed incapable of understanding the 
 intensity and endurance of a pure woman's 
 love." .... Yet who should know it if he 
 does not ? . . . . 
 
 Towards evening, various folk drop in by 
 ones and twos, musical acquaintances, it need 
 hardly be said, for there is no other topic than 
 that of their art which they can discuss with 
 Robert Schumann. The discussion may possibly 
 be on their part only, with a man like this, of 
 whom it is told that one day he went into a 
 friend's house, whistling softly sotto voce, and, 
 with nothing but a cheery nod, walked to the
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 piano and opened it, played a few chords, 
 made a modulation, and returned to the original 
 key, shut the piano, gave another courteous 
 nod, and exit, in utter silence ! He is, indeed, 
 capable of sitting for hours in the midst of a 
 merry chattering company, completely lost in 
 thought, employed upon the evolution of some 
 musical thought. But when he does speak, his 
 words are all altruistically ardent, full of eager 
 praise and joyful appreciation for the great 
 names of music, whose excellencies he loves to 
 point out. ' ' The great masters, it is to them 
 I go," he avows with the humility of a child, 
 **to Gluck the simple, to Handel the complicated, 
 and to Bach the most complicated of all," His 
 admiration of "John Sebastian" is boundless. 
 " I always flee to Bach, and he gives me fresh 
 
 strength and desire for life and work 
 
 The profound combinations, the poetry and 
 humour of the new school of music principally 
 emanate from Bach." 
 
 Mozart is to him, as to all great artists, a 
 veritable divinity. " Do not put Beethoven," 
 says he, " too soon into the hands of the young : 
 steep and strengthen them in the fresh animation
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 of Mozart The music of the first act of 
 
 Figaro I consider the most heavenly that Mozart 
 ever wrote." And with his customary absolute 
 freedom from professional envy, he terms 
 Mendelssohn " the Mozart of the nineteenth 
 century," and will not even sit in the same room 
 with anyone who disparages him. He has upheld 
 with noble enthusiasm the merits of such rising 
 stars as Chopin, Heller, Gade, Sterndale-Bennett, 
 Berlioz, Franz, and Brahms. He has, it may be 
 said, only one bete noir, the blatant and flam- 
 boyant Meyerbeer. Regarding Wagner, his 
 opinion is in abeyance. " Wagner is a man of 
 
 education and spirit certainly a clever 
 
 fellow, full of crazy ideas, and audacious to a 
 
 degree Yet he cannot write or think of 
 
 four consecutive lines of beautiful, hardly of 
 good, music." So Schumann has delivered 
 himself at one time ; but he is ready to revoke 
 this judgment, and to declare, " I must take 
 back one or two things I said after reading the 
 score of Tannhauser; it makes quite a different 
 effect on the stage. Much of it impressed me 
 deeply." 
 
 When his guests depart, Schumann accom- 
 panies them a little way, that he may, according
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 to his invariable custom, spend an hour or so of 
 the evening at Popper's Restaurant. There, 
 should his friend Verhulst be present, he enjoys 
 what is for him a free and animated conversation 
 otherwise, among the chink of glasses and 
 clank of plates, he remains aloof and meditative. 
 
 Evening darkens slowly into the calm 
 spring night, that Fruhlingsnacht which he has 
 set forth in such exquisite music as he regains 
 his home and rejoins his wife. She is practising 
 softly lest the children awaken, but rises with a 
 smile of joy, and receives her husband as though 
 he had been a year away. Side by side, holding 
 each others' hands, they sit by the window and 
 inhale the sweet April air. A sense of beatitude 
 encompasses them. 
 
 "Hast thou done well to-day, Robert?" 
 she enquires. 
 
 "Well? Yes very well: better than I 
 hoped or expected. A soft voice seemed to 
 whisper to me whilst I worked, * It is not in vain 
 that thou art writing.' .... But in such an 
 hour as this, my Clara, I long more deeply to 
 give expression to my holiest thoughts. To 
 apply his powers to sacred music must always
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 be the loftiest aim of an artist. In youth we 
 are all too firmly rooted to earth with its joys 
 and sorrows : but with advancing age, our 
 branches extend higher. And so I hope the 
 time for my efforts in this direction is not far 
 distant." 
 
 " It is, then, at present, eluding you the 
 study of sacred music ? " 
 
 " It demands a power of treating the chorus 
 a knowledge of superb ensemble and massive 
 effects to which I have not yet attained." And 
 he heaves a sigh as of one faced with mighty 
 problems. For to this man, " from whom the 
 knowledge of no emotion in the individual heart 
 is withheld, it is a matter of extreme difficulty 
 to give expression to .... those feelings 
 which affect the whole of mankind in common." 
 
 " For you, who can realize human love so 
 devoutly, there should be no eventual hindrance 
 to the expression of love towards God," says 
 the little dark-eyed woman, pressing his hand 
 with warm devotion. 
 
 " You yourself are the concrete expression 
 of love towards God," the composer murmurs, 
 gazing down at her in the twilight "you and 
 your music together. If I once said I loved you
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 because of your goodness, it is only half true. 
 Everything is so harmoniously combined in 
 your nature, that I cannot think of you apart 
 from your music and so I love you one with 
 the other." A sudden spasm contracts his face 
 as he speaks he turns his head wildly to and 
 fro. 
 
 " Robert ! " she exclaims, " what is the 
 matter ? You shuddered your hand has gone 
 cold and clammy. What ails you ? " 
 
 " What are those distant wind-instruments?" 
 he asks in awestruck tones. "What are they 
 playing? Don't you hear? Such harmonies 
 are too beautiful for earth. ..." 
 
 Clara strains her ears into the stillness. 
 ** There is nothing nothing audible whatever," 
 she asseverates. "Robert, you are ill you 
 have overworked your head " 
 
 * ' I have heard them before . . . beautiful, 
 beautiful ! Ah ! now they are silent ! " and he 
 passes his hand over his brow with a bewildered 
 air. 
 
 "Come, dearest, you are overwearied 
 come and sleep sweetly." Schumann permits 
 himself to be led away from the window by his
 
 A DAY WITH SCHUMANN. 
 
 anxious wife : slowly he regains his composure. 
 
 " My little treasure ! " he whispers, clasping 
 her tenderly, * ' what should I be without your 
 loving care of me ? Glarchen . . . Schumann. 
 ... I wonder whether an angel imagined the 
 names together ? " 
 
 " May that angel guard thee, Robert," says 
 she, " and all that is thine and mine, for ever." 
 
 The open piano glistens whitely in the 
 darkness : she closes it as they leave the room.
 
 RUSSIAN PEASANT DANCE. 
 
 Across the innocent country mirth of the Finale 
 one hears the laughter of man and maid, the tap of 
 heel and toe, the voices ... of the moujiks.
 
 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 |IME : 7 a.m. on a day of July, 
 1886. Scene: the village of 
 Maidanovo, near Klin, in Central 
 Russia. Dramatis Persona: Peter 
 Ilyich Tschaikovsky, a man of 
 forty-six, but looking ten years 
 older ; of ample build, grizzled 
 hair, and beard beginning to go grey. To 
 him, in bed, enter his servant, Alexis Sofronoff, 
 with a tea tray, and followed by his favourite 
 dog. 
 
 " The morning is very beautiful, Peter 
 Ilyich," observes Alexis, drawing the curtains 
 apart. 
 
 Tschaikovsky, rousing himself with diffi- 
 culty from the heavy, almost lethargic sleep of 
 exhaustion into which he nightly falls, gathers 
 his wits together and restores his scattered 
 consciousness by means of tea. Alexis, not in 
 the least expecting any word from his master, 
 prepares his toilet in general and leaves the room.
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 The great composer pulls himself together 
 to face another day. The celestial sunshine, 
 streaming in upon his somewhat heterogeneous 
 furniture, and the recollection of how many 
 flowers, wild and garden, are opening for his 
 delight in these warm rays, serve to infuse 
 a vague vitality of pleasure into this confirmed 
 and incurable pessimist. Lastly, that deep if 
 incoherent religious feeling which he experiences 
 with increasing frequency, enters within the 
 range of his perceptions, and stimulates him to 
 an outburst of almost childlike gratitude to God 
 the Giver. "What moments life holds!" he 
 murmurs, "Thanks to these intervals, it is 
 possible to forget everything. ... I am 
 learning to love God as formerly I did not 
 know how to do. . . Every day, every hour 
 I thank God for having given me this faith 
 in Him." 
 
 As he dresses himself he casts his eyes with 
 childlike pride upon the various simple articles 
 in the room. They are not due to any taste or 
 selection of his own : for the faithful Alexis has 
 attended to the furniture of the house as to 
 everything else besides. Whatever Tschaikovsky
 
 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 has himself purchased, has been either useless or 
 inherently faulty, such as the old English clock 
 which will not " go," the two horses which he 
 does not care to ride, and the numerous volumes 
 of music which he is unlikely ever to open. 
 But for the first time in his life, everything is 
 really his own ; and he loves to talk, with the 
 naivest airs of proprietorship, about " my cook, 
 my washerwoman, my silver, my table- 
 cloths," and so forth. For this new sense of 
 ownership is quite a recent development: a year 
 ago, the musician was inhabiting a large old 
 manorhouse in the same village, whose lofty 
 rooms, wide park, statues, arbours, orangery 
 and rosery, were discrepant alike with his means 
 and his modest needs. In this smaller and 
 homelier house, his present abode, Tschaikovsky 
 feels himself more settled than ever heretofore 
 in his restless unsatisfied life. He is not exigent 
 about the accessories of existence, furniture, 
 upholstery, and the like : if they serve their 
 own honest purpose, and do not actually break 
 down in the process, he is quite content. He 
 himself makes his own happiness or unhappi- 
 ness to so abnormally large an extent, that 
 outward things contribute but little to either.
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 Tschaikovsky is not that unkempt and 
 shaggy genius which many folks might imagine 
 a Russian maestro should be. He presents a 
 fairly well-groomed aspect. His hair and beard 
 are neat, his dress simple, but not careless: in 
 short, his whole appearance is indicative of that 
 peculiarly orderly mental habit, by which his 
 days are carried out on a system of inflexible 
 routine. His " looks do not pity him," as the 
 saying is, and you could not guess that the man 
 is a constant sufferer from a miserably delicate 
 constitution, involving him in almost chronic 
 catarrh of the stomach, with its concomitants of 
 dyspepsia, depression and debility. And now, 
 having completed his toilet, he puts spectacles 
 on his weak-sighted eyes, and sits down to read 
 the Bible as is his invariable custom for some 
 twenty minutes or so. After this, he pauses a 
 moment to select his morning's "heavy" reading. 
 Some book of philosophy, Schopenhauer or 
 Spinoza, some instructive or biographical 
 book, or one in which he can continue his 
 assiduous study of English, are his favourites 
 for this time of the morning. He is extraordin- 
 arily anxious to acquire English sufficiently to 
 be able to read it with ease. "That is my sole
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 aim," he avows, "I know that at my age it is 
 impossible to speak it well. But to read Shake- 
 speare, Dickens and Thackeray in the original 
 would be the consolation of my old age." For 
 this melancholy and introspective man has been 
 known, not only to cry over Bleak House, 
 " because I pity Lady Dedlock and find it hard 
 to tear myself away from all those characters 
 with whom I have been living for two months," 
 but to shed tears "from gratitude that so 
 great a writer as Dickens ever lived." To 
 what extent he appreciates Dickens' humour, 
 it would be very hard to say: laughter is 
 not frequent upon the lips of Peter Ilyich 
 Tschaikovsky. 
 
 To-day, however, he waives the weighty 
 deliberations of philosophy, he postpones the 
 difficulties of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, in favour 
 of something peculiarly congenial to his tastes, 
 and akin (as he feels) to the sweetness and 
 limpidity of the morning. He immerses himself 
 in a book of which he never wearies, Otto 
 Jahn's Life of Mozart. All great musical com- 
 posers have been worshippers at the shrine of 
 Mozart : but none more enthusiastically so than
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 this one. He loves to hear the very name of 
 his adored one. " I idolise Mozart ! " he 
 declares. " It is thanks to Mozart that I have 
 devoted my life to music. . . To me the 
 most beautiful opera ever written is Don 
 Giovanni. . . To my mind, Mozart is the 
 culminating point of all beauty in the sphere of 
 music. He alone can make me tremble with 
 delight at the consciousness of the approach of 
 that which we will term the ideal. . . I am 
 often surprised that a broken man, sound 
 neither in mind nor in spirit, should still be able 
 to enjoy Mozart. . . When I play him, I 
 feel brighter and younger, almost a youth 
 again. . . He captivates, delights and 
 comforts me." 
 
 It is, therefore, with a sense of rehabilita- 
 tion and refreshment that Tschaikovsky even- 
 tually lays down his cherished volume, and, 
 inhaling deep breaths of the flower-scented air, 
 betakes himself for a walk of about three 
 quarters of an hour. 
 
 Now, his whole conduct of the forthcoming 
 day is known, by those who are accustomed to
 
 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 him, to depend upon the details of this early morn- 
 ing walk. If he should speak but little, and go 
 out alone, it betokens a day's serious work in 
 prospect. If, on the other hand, he should 
 awaken loquacious and socially inclined, so that 
 he talks during his breakfast and takes a friend 
 to stroll with him, it means that he will not 
 compass much completed work. To-day, as it 
 happens, his mind is overbrimming with creative 
 energy: and as all his work is inspired and 
 initiated by the lovely surroundings of nature, 
 he seeks the open air in solitude, to evolve and 
 to gather new impressions. For you must 
 understand that this man lives solely for his 
 work : which, indeed, to a musician is far more 
 absorbing, and needs far longer self-concentra- 
 tion, than that of a painter or a writer. The 
 painter has his model, his studies, his open-air 
 scenery, he cannot go beyond that which is. 
 The author has words and phrases ready to 
 hand ; they are the common property of his 
 native speech, and his skill can only be evinced 
 by his management and usage of them. But 
 the musician has to create, so to speak, out of 
 nothing. The mysterious and elusive method 
 of clair-audience, by which a great composer
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 becomes the percipient and recipient of beauti- 
 ful combinations or progressions of sound, 
 transcends all other human experience: it has 
 never been adequately fathomed, analysed or 
 explained. But one thing is certain, that among 
 the exquisite silences and sweetnesses of out- 
 door Nature, her vastitudes of hill and privacies 
 of woodland, lie the best and worthiest possibili- 
 ties for the musician towards the fulfilment of 
 his dreams. 
 
 And this has always been the ideal existence 
 for Tschaikovsky, with his morbid and abnormal 
 temperament. Long since he declared, " I love 
 solitude and silence, I dream of a calm, heavenly, 
 serene existence. . . I long intensely for a 
 quiet peaceful life, such as one lives in the 
 country:" and now, as the "hermit of Klin," 
 this life is his. "To feel myself free and 
 alone," he says to himself as he paces on, "to 
 be able to visit the forests every day and 
 wander among the flowers, I cannot find such 
 joys elsewhere." He gazes around him with 
 enraptured eyes: and the " homely unassuming 
 landscape of Central Russia," "the common 
 sun, the air, the skies to him are opening
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 Paradise." He needs no gorgeous scenery 
 of East or West, no tropical luxuriance or 
 Southern glow, to content him : for he has, as he 
 confesses, "never come across any one so much 
 in love with Mother Russia" as himself; and 
 he finds perennial fascination in "that indefinable 
 charm which lies in our modest, plain, poor, 
 but wide and open landscape." Never, indeed, 
 has there been a more essentially patriotic man 
 than this, "passionately devoted," in his own 
 words, * ' to the Russian people, to the Russian 
 language, to the Russian spirit, to the Russian 
 type of countenance and to Russian customs." 
 He might be described as the spirit of local colour 
 incarnate: and probably he has never enjoyed 
 himself more thoroughly than when developing 
 some characteristically national folk-song into 
 a glorious work of art, such as the Finale of 
 his Fourth Symphony, founded upon a peas- 
 ant dance-tune. "There is not a single bar in 
 the Fourth Symphony," he declares, "which I 
 have not truly felt, and which is not an echo of 
 my most intimate spiritual life. . . I love 
 this child of my fancy very dearly: it is one of 
 the things which will never disappoint me." 
 And across the innocent country mirth of the
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 Finale one hears the laughter of man and maid, 
 the tap of heel and toe, the voices shrill or deep 
 of the moujiks in their holiday garb. That 
 "fiery exaltation on a basis of languid melan- 
 choly" which is the very essential of the 
 Slavonic temperament, pulsates in unwonted 
 gaiety throughout this delightful epic of 
 dancing. 
 
 Tschaikovsky enters the forest, and the 
 delicious emanations of summer foliage salute 
 him on every side. His face is filled with a 
 visible joy as he recognises, by sight or by 
 aroma, his innumerable friends among the 
 flowers and trees. He is glad that no one is 
 near to witness his ecstatic enjoyment: for it is 
 immediately frustrated by the presence of any 
 second person. He is passionately fond of 
 flowers, especially wild ones. "To my mind," 
 says he, "the lily of the valley is the queen of 
 flowers : I love it to distraction. . . When I 
 am old and past composing, I shall devote 
 myself to growing flowers." And from their 
 subtle, intoxicating perfumes, a strange result 
 accrues to him. Not a languid enervation, a 
 desire to lounge among these visions of loveli-
 
 THE SULTANA AND HER CANARY. 
 
 The Sultana questioned her canary, 
 
 "Lov'st thou not this palace where I've placed 
 
 thee? 
 
 Here thou warblest for Zuleika's pleasure, 
 Wherefore dost thou long afar to haste thee ? " 
 
 (The Canary Bird).

 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 ness, but a definite and insistent impulse 
 towards creative work. 
 
 Tschaikovsky is no dilettante in his methods: 
 he has very distinct ideas upon the necessity of 
 industrious labour. In the first place, he is 
 "convinced that if a musician desires to attain 
 the greatest heights to which his inspiration will 
 carry him, he must develop himself as a crafts- 
 man." But, that accomplished, one must never 
 look back from the plough. . . "We must 
 always work. And a self-respecting artist must 
 not fold his hands upon the pretext that he is 
 not in the mood." He perceives that the 
 greatest achievements in music have been the 
 outcome of commissioned work, not, so to speak, 
 of free-will inspiration: that they have been 
 carried out with the steadiness, the deliberate dili- 
 gence, with which a shoemaker makes shoes: 
 that "if we wait for the mood, without endea- 
 vouring to meet it half-way, we become indolent 
 and apathetic." 
 
 And therefore, having practised what he 
 preaches, the master surrenders himself more 
 joyfully to the streams of inspiration now
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 welling up both within and without him: for 
 who shall say whether music is of mental, of 
 extraneous, or of " subliminal" origin? And 
 "it would be vain to try to put into words," so, 
 he himself has confessed, "that immeasurable 
 sense of bliss which comes over me, directly a 
 new idea wakens and begins to take a definite 
 form." Definite form, with him, includes the 
 instrumentalization : for the musical thought 
 never appears to him without being clad "in a 
 suitable external form : " so that the idea and 
 
 its presentment are born simultaneously 
 
 Tschaikovsky rummages his pockets for an 
 exercise-book or note-book, such as he generally 
 utilises for the jotting down of these ideas : but 
 he searches in vain ; and, with an impatient 
 grunt, he drags out all the scraps of paper he 
 can find upon him, letter, envelope or bill, 
 and presses them into service. For his memory 
 is untrustworthy, and his imaginings too 
 precious to be entrusted to it. He will subse- 
 quently work out all these notes and sketches 
 at the pianoforte, and transcribe them in their 
 final and authentic form. 
 
 " But if that condition of mind and soul 
 which we call inspiration, lasted long without
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 intermission, no artist could survive it." So 
 Tschaikovsky has written : and thus, although 
 it causes a momentary jar to his nerves in 
 their state of tension, and a transient sense of 
 irritation flits across his highly strung mind, 
 dragged down from radiant altitudes, it is 
 perhaps just as well for him that he is suddenly 
 confronted by a little peasant girl some six 
 years old, who, with a charming blend of 
 shyness and audacity, holds out her hand and 
 begs him for a coin. The lonely man loves 
 children : and he is, indeed, in a fair way to 
 spoil the little villagers, for ever since his 
 arrival at Maidanovo he has been unable to 
 refrain from "tipping " every child he meets. 
 They have readily fallen in with this benevolent 
 habit, and are now apt to waylay his wandering 
 steps at unexpected corners : but at present he 
 is not au fait with their strategies. The advent 
 of a little rogue like this only intensifies that 
 sense of wildness, spaciousness and freedom, 
 which is so dear to the man long cooped up in 
 cities. " I appear in my works," says he, " just 
 as God made me, such as I have become 
 through the action of time, nationality and 
 education I always choose subjects in
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 which I have to deal with real men and women 
 who share the same emotions as myself." And 
 hence he has expressed, with infinite pathos, 
 much of his sufferings infra muros, in that 
 plaintive arabesque of secret meanings, The 
 Canary Bird. 
 
 The Sultana questioned her canary, 
 "Lov'st thou not this palace where I've 
 
 placed thee? 
 
 Here thou warblest for Zuleika's pleasure, 
 Wherefore dost thou long afar to haste thee? 
 
 " Sing me, birdie, sing of realms beyond the 
 
 sunset, 
 Sing me stories of the West where thou 
 
 would'st wander ! 
 Have they skies like ours, so blue and 
 
 sunny, 
 Have they harems, have they cages yonder? 
 
 " In the West do roses grow as richly ? 
 What great king what lady's love possesses? 
 Is such beauty in such splendour 
 
 cldd there?" 
 But the bird with mournful song confesses:
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 " Ask me now no more of distant regions, 
 Wherefore wilt thou take my heart 
 
 and rend it ? 
 
 What I sing within the stifling harem, 
 No Sultana e'er may comprehend it ! " 
 
 .... The baby peasant has broken the 
 spell of his art : and the master retraces his 
 steps. Arrived at home, with his usual punctu- 
 ality and punctiliousness he addresses himself to 
 the day's routine. From 9.30 a.m. to 1 p.m. he 
 is indefatigably busy. Completing his roughed- 
 out compositions, correcting his proofs, reading 
 and answering letters, swallow up the time 
 with incredible rapidity. Tschaikovsky always 
 prefers to polish off a distasteful task before 
 undertaking a congenial one : and, perhaps, 
 proof-correcting is to him, even more than to 
 most people, tedious and annoying. So he dis- 
 poses of that first : and then he attacks his cor- 
 respondence. This is a weightier matter to him 
 than to the composers of the early nineteenth 
 century : increasing postal facilities bring their 
 additional burden to any man who has acquired 
 fame. And Tschaikovsky's mail-bag is a full 
 one, whether incoming or outgoing : because,
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 not only does he receive an extraordinary 
 number of letters from unknown admirers, 
 musicians professional and amateur, officers, 
 priests, girls and enthusiastic students, all 
 seeking that advice and assistance which they 
 are quite certain to receive from this most 
 conscientious and sympathetic of men, but his 
 personal entourage of acquaintance is large, and 
 he is himself addicted to very lengthy epistles. 
 Sometimes he writes thirty of these a day, to 
 the exclusion of all other work, and does not 
 get finished before night. "I am continually 
 exchanging letters," he grumbles, "with four 
 brothers, several cousins, and many friends, 
 besides a quantity of casual correspondence. . . 
 The necessity of sacrificing so much of my time 
 to letter-writing is such a burden to me, that 
 from the bottom of my heart I curse all .the 
 postal arrangements in the world." Yet there 
 is one person with whom he has maintained for 
 years an intimacy so close, and a friendship so 
 confidential, as to be probably unique in the 
 annals of letter- writing. " One person," he has 
 confessed, " plays the chief part in the story 
 of my life for the last ten years : she is my good 
 genius : to her I owe all my prosperity and the
 
 THE SUGAR-PLUM FAIRY. 
 
 The Sugar-Plum Fairy of the "Casse Noisette" 
 Suite, all charm, abandon, and vivacity, whom he 
 has " felt the absolute impossibility of depicting 
 in music".
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 power to devote myself to my beloved work." 
 And he has never set eyes upon her, never 
 heard her voice nor held her hand : his whole 
 intercourse with this amie inconnue has been 
 conducted through the post. 
 
 Nadeshda Filarevna von Meek is a wealthy 
 widow, who, being an enthusiastic admirer of 
 Tschaikovsky's music, presents him with a fixed 
 yearly income of 6,000 roubles, so that he may 
 devote himself entirely to composition, being 
 relieved of the irksomeness of teaching and the 
 worry of insufficient means. And she bestows 
 this generosity upon one condition namely, 
 that he and she shall never meet, because 
 their ideals of each other might be tarnished by 
 personal acquaintance. The history of art 
 holds no more disinterested a kindness than 
 that of Madame von Meek : and Tschaikovsky 
 repays it, as she would wish, by pouring out his 
 soul to her on paper and by dedicating to her 
 his best and noblest creations : in particular 
 that Fourth Symphony to which he always 
 alludes as "your Symphony" in his letters to 
 her. And in this veiled benefactress he finds 
 all that sympathy and affection which has been
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 denied him in the ordinary relationships of life. 
 A man especially in need of a woman's help and 
 comfort, he has never been able to experience it. 
 
 Various poignant and vehement love affairs 
 have been his in youth, he has "felt the 
 whole power and inexpressible stress of love," 
 and has endeavoured to " render in music all 
 the anguish and the bliss of it." But these 
 volcanic eruptions had long subsided, when, 
 some ten years ago, he received a proposal 
 from a woman who represented her life to be 
 unlivable without him. After vainly attempting 
 to elude a prospect which held out no enchant- 
 ment for him, the master succumbed to a spasm 
 of sentiment, as so many other men have done. 
 Although, as he confessed, "to live thirty-seven 
 years with an innate antipathy for marriage, 
 and then suddenly by force of circumstances, 
 to find oneself engaged to a woman with whom 
 one is not in the least in love, is very painful ! " 
 he married her, to leave her very shortly, 
 but not before he was involved in a frightful 
 nervous breakdown, and on the sheer edge of 
 insanity. They have never met again, and 
 never will meet. He is incapable even of
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 working while she is present ; but he does not 
 blame either her or himself : alone he attributes 
 their calamity to "the perversity of Fate, 
 which had thrown together two utterly incom- 
 patible natures." Ever since then, " to regret 
 the past, to hope in the future, and never to 
 be satisfied with the present" is the occupation 
 of his lonely heart, and he avows that his 
 " nerves get out of gear for no particular reason 
 a wearing maddening depression which never 
 leaves me." Generous, amiable, gentle and 
 long-suffering as Tschaikovsky is by nature, it 
 is reasonable to conclude that his ci-devant wife 
 must have been the very acme and apotheosis 
 of incompatibility, to arouse such feelings of 
 shuddering aversion in one so kindly of dis- 
 position. Be that as it may, he still preserves 
 and cherishes a lofty feminine ideal. From the 
 self-sacrificing heroines of his operas, singularly 
 noble and beautiful creations, down to the 
 Sugar-Plum Fairy of the " Casse Noisette" 
 Suite, all charm, abandon and vivacity, whom 
 he has " felt the absolute impossibility of 
 depicting in music " his conceptions are on the 
 highest and worthiest plane. And this man, 
 who has " never been quite so bored as with
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 Tristan und Isolde" with whom, in person, the 
 rosy radiant Love of mortal dreams has had no 
 dealings, can depict in tone-colours of the 
 most triumphant joy, the most poignant pathos, 
 or the most exquisite yearning, all the varied 
 phases in which Love can possibly be revealed. 
 Particularly is this the case in his songs, those 
 little masterpieces of finished emotional expres- 
 sion, such as Why?j with its continuous crescendo 
 of impassioned unrest, O mightest thou but once 
 forget, suffused with the sweetest sadness of 
 remembrance, 'Twos when the Spring as yet was 
 young, through which every warm and lovely 
 odour of Maytime breathes perceptibly, and 
 The Songs that I loved as a child, with its dimly- 
 suggested rocking of a cradle, and its celestial 
 hint of tender motherhood. Such another 
 extraordinarily subtle insight into human 
 passion is The Red Beads 
 
 When I rode to join the Cossacks, 
 
 Anna whispered lightly, 
 " God forbid that I with tears 
 
 Should daily mourn and nightly ! 
 When a victor thou return'st, 
 
 Remember what I said, 
 Bring me but a little necklace, 
 
 Beads of rosy red ! "
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 Gallant leader led us onward : 
 
 Ha ! behind him sweeping, 
 Soon we slew their lord in battle, 
 
 Fill'd their land with weeping, 
 Blazing roof and burning rafter, 
 
 Light the Cossack's tread ! 
 But I never have forgotten 
 
 Beads of rosy red. 
 
 O, thou dear and dark-eyed maiden, 
 
 Here's a necklace for thee ! 
 Gome and fetch thy rosy beads, 
 
 For they of thee are worthy ! 
 Ne'er, I swear, I'll leap from horse, 
 
 Till homewards I have sped, 
 Till around thy neck I fasten 
 
 Beads of rosy red ! 
 
 To thine arms across the desert. 
 
 Fiercely I am racing : 
 See, the village people slowly 
 
 From the church are pacing : 
 And they cry in solemn voices, 
 
 Thrilling me with dread, 
 " Now no more thine Anna needeth 
 
 Beads of rosy red ! " 
 
 Ah ! what fears and deathly terrors 
 Are my heart affrighting ! 
 
 There before the Holy Image 
 From my horse alighting ;
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 'Twas for her alone, none other, 
 
 That my blood I shed, 
 Here I fling you, here I leave you, 
 
 Beads of rosy red ! 
 
 And such is that typically gallant, reckless 
 and magnificent production, Don Juan's Serenade, 
 redolent of moonlit Seville and all its splendid 
 sinners : 
 
 Peace upon the world is falling, 
 
 And the light of day doth fade ; 
 To my song so softly calling, 
 
 Show thyself, thou lovely maid ! 
 Who shall e'er be named beside thee, 
 
 Half so fair of form and face ? 
 Death himself, who hath espied thee, 
 
 Draws from out his dwelling-place. 
 The moonbeams are streaming 
 
 Adown from the height, 
 O come now, Niseta, 
 
 I wait thee to-night ! 
 
 Hearken, all the wide world over 
 
 Many a dreamy serenade 
 Is to-night by many a lover 
 
 Brought to many a lovely maid. 
 For the fairest, for the dearest, 
 
 Oft the shining swords will start : 
 Song and clash of steel thou hearest, 
 
 Thou, the lady of my heart !
 
 THE RED BEADS. 
 
 'Twas for her alone, none other, 
 
 That my blood I shed, 
 Here I fling you, here I leave you, 
 
 Beads of rosy red ! 
 
 (The Red Beads).
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 The splendour is streaming 
 
 Adown from the height ; 
 O come now, Niseta, 
 
 I wait thee to-night ! 
 
 The genius of Tschaikovsky, it has been 
 said, belongs to the borderland between the 
 Teutonic and the Slavonic : but if is the latter 
 element, with its fatalism, its ineradicable 
 pessimism, its underlying latency of savage 
 primitive emotion, which mainly tinges his 
 greatest music. And to the Slavonic, also, may 
 be attributed a certain inherent dislike of 
 form. " I have suffered all my life," complains 
 the composer, " from my inability to grasp 
 form in general. I shall go to my grave without 
 having produced anything perfect in form." 
 For this very reason, doubtless, with unflagging 
 industry he pursues the quest of his Fata 
 Morgana, and contrives very often to achieve 
 an assured and consummate mastery over form 
 such as has been denied to men of equal ability. 
 For no pains are too tedious, too severe, 
 which Tschaikovsky may take in the service of 
 his beloved art. Music is all in all to him : " it 
 is indeed," in his own words, "the most beautiful 
 of Heaven's gifts to humanity wandering in the
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 darkness. Alone, it calms, enlightens and 
 stills our souls. It is not the straw to which the 
 dying man clings, but a true friend, refuge and 
 comforter, for whose sake life is worth living." 
 
 Having completed his letter-writing for 
 the day, and despatched a long, loquacious epistle 
 to Madame von Meek, the musician is buried in 
 manuscripts. He is transcribing, with a mixture 
 of pleasure and impatience, the ideas which he 
 has conceived the previous day: and, as is so often 
 the case, they do not now bear so attractive and 
 striking an aspect as on their original appear- 
 ance. **This old man is breaking up," murmurs 
 Tschaikovsky, " I am very dissatisfied with 
 myself because of the commonplaceness of 
 everything that occurs to me ... I must be 
 getting old ... I am losing bit by bit the 
 capacity to do anything at all ... If I can no 
 longer furnish my musical table with anything 
 but warmed-up fare, I shall give up composing 
 altogether." And he groans in the abysses of 
 a profound dissatisfaction. The door opens, 
 and he starts irritably. Perfect solitude is an 
 essential to him while working. . . Oh, it is 
 only Alexis. Alexis always pretends not to
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 hear or see his master : so he usually counts as 
 nobody. On this occasion, however, he walks 
 straight up to him, and remarks respectfully, 
 but with resolution, " Peter Ilyich, it is the 
 middle of the month. It is about time to send 
 something off to Petersburg." This is a piece 
 of simple routine which Alexis carries out with 
 the punctual precision of machinery. One 
 pianoforte piece per month is due to a certain 
 musical journal : but unless Alexis reminds his 
 master, it is certain to be overlooked. Peter 
 Ilyich obediently betakes himself to the piano 
 with a sheet of music-paper, and completes the 
 thing right off: another of those simple but 
 charmingly picturesque pieces among which are 
 numbered familiar favourites like Barcarolle, 
 Chanson Triste and Chant sans Paroles. To the 
 average public, perhaps, Tschaikovsky's name 
 is better known by these modest little buds of 
 genius, than by the "strangely-marked rhythms," 
 the "huge and fantastic outlines," of his more 
 important works. But, indeed, he does not 
 greatly concern himself about public estimate 
 or appreciation. " Fame ! what contradictory 
 sentiments," he declares, " the word awakes in 
 me ! On the one hand I desire and strive for
 
 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 it : on the other hand I detest it. . . I have the 
 reputation of being modest. But I will confess 
 that my modesty is nothing less than a secret 
 but immense amour-propre. ... I have long 
 since resigned myself to the belief that 1 shall 
 not live to see the general recognition of my 
 talents. But I have a foretaste during my life- 
 time of the fame which will be meted out to me 
 when the history of Russian music comes to be 
 
 At one o'clock sharp the composer sits 
 down to his dinner : it is a plain and simple 
 meal, to suit his homely tastes, but he has an 
 excellent appetite, is pleased with all that may 
 be set before him, and invariably sends a 
 message of thanks to the cook by way of Alexis. 
 After dinner, be it wet or fine, he starts off on 
 another walk. He has read that if a man would 
 keep in health, he must walk not less than two 
 hours a day. As before, he goes entirely alone: 
 even a dog would be an intrusion upon his 
 solitude. He goes round the garden and 
 inspects with supreme delight the progress of 
 his many plants. " What a pleasure it is ! " he 
 murmurs to himself, " to watch them growing,
 
 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 and to see daily, even hourly, new blossoms 
 coming out ! . . . The garden is a mass of 
 flowers ; I simply swim in an ocean of delightful 
 impressions." Their luxuriant bloom and glow 
 of colour is ineffably refreshing to his soul : he 
 bathes and basks, as it were, in their opulent 
 beauty. He tries to make up for the little 
 knowledge or experience he has of horticulture, 
 by the sedulous zeal with which he potters 
 about after his flowers in all weathers, always 
 over-anxious about them, whether on hot days 
 or cold nights. Now he passes on towards the 
 forest, through the millet-field which lies beyond 
 the garden. And as the warmth of the summer 
 afternoon, steeped in golden languor, and the 
 full-tide loveliness of the world at large, 
 permeate his quick susceptible senses, Tschai- 
 kovsky suddenly falls upon his knees in an 
 impulse of overwhelming joy and gratitude, and 
 gives God audible thanks for such great and 
 overwhelming happiness. Arrived within the 
 forest, he continues his delight by devoting 
 himself to the one out-door pursuit which he 
 adores above all others. Mushrooming contains, 
 for him, the germs of all excitement ! " The 
 manner in which one first catches sight of a
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 plump white mushroom is simply fascinating ! " 
 so he has confided to his friends : " Passionate 
 card-lovers may experience the same feeling 
 when they see the ace of trumps in their hands ! 
 All day long, if I could, I would wander in the 
 forest and bring home quantities of mushrooms ! 
 All night long I dream of large, pink, fat mush- 
 rooms ! These mushroomy dreams, I allow, 
 are very childish : but in truth one would 
 become wholly a child again if one lived long 
 enough with Nature." As he goes, with a 
 sharp eye ransacking every possible locale for 
 his prey, he stops occasionally to make observa- 
 tions of ants or other busy insects : and he 
 recites aloud, for his own entertainment, as a 
 rule in French, or improvises some dramatic 
 scene, or thinks out operatic schemes. Under 
 normal circumstances, he declares, there is no 
 hour of the day at which he cannot compose ; 
 but the preliminary accessories of composition, 
 so to speak, the plann ing-out of some im- 
 portant work, necessarily occupy a certain 
 amount of time. Often he roams the forest or 
 the garden for hours, distrait and discontented, 
 because he cannot grasp the evasive thought 
 which is for ever just out of reach before him.
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 Tschaikovsky has not found what he desired 
 either of popular or artistic success in operatic 
 composition. The " little more, and how much 
 it is," has for him been transformed into the 
 " little less, and what worlds away ! " Neither 
 Eugene Oniegin, described as being "like a 
 woman with many faults of heart and character, 
 but whom we love for her beauty in spite of 
 them all," nor Joan of Arc, nor Pique~Dame 
 (Queen of Spades) have turned out as they 
 should have done : nor has the reason why been 
 always easy to find. 
 
 The composer himself is beginning to think 
 that opera is not his true metier or medium of 
 music. "The older I grow," he ruefully 
 reflects, " the more convinced I am that 
 symphony and opera are in every respect at 
 the opposite poles of music. . . I think, if God 
 grants me a long life, that I shall never again 
 compose an opera. . . It is perhaps the richest 
 of musical forms : I think, however, that per- 
 sonally I am more inclined to symphonic music." 
 Yet, meditating the subject as he walks, he is 
 unconsciously formulating the material for The 
 Sorceress, which he has long ruminated : and
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 presently he concludes that "Of course I am 
 no judge of my own works, but I can truthfully 
 say that with very few exceptions they have all 
 been felt and lived by me, and have come straight 
 from my heart. .... This fact should un- 
 doubtedly improve my chances of creating a 
 really human, living work, not a mere replica 
 of worn-out patterns. . . But if one may no 
 longer write opera on the old lines, are we 
 obliged to write as Wagner does? I reply, 
 Certainly not! I cannot bear the Wagnerian 
 subjects, in which there is so little human 
 interest." For it is a curious paradox, that 
 Tschaikovsky, who " feels at his best when 
 alone, when trees, flowers and books take the 
 place of human society," is pre-eminently 
 human in his views of life for others. "Yes," 
 says he, becoming more and more emphatically 
 convinced of his own desires, "and then we 
 
 shall see what we shall see ! But, O 
 
 God, how short life is ! How much I have yet 
 to accomplish before it is time to leave off! 
 How many projects to fulfil ! When I am quite 
 well, as I am at present, I am seized with a 
 feverish thirst for work but the thought of the 
 shortness of human life paralyses all my energy.
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 I hate the flat-nosed horror, death, who puts an 
 end to all one's glorious visions, I would gladly 
 drive away those disquieting thoughts when 
 they thrust themselves upon me. Yet I seem 
 to come upon them at every corner. A sense 
 of the triviality of existence is always present 
 with me, it is perceptible in every Finale I 
 have ever written. If I cannot disregard these 
 gloomy spectres, I had at least better conceal 
 them from others, under mere * sound and 
 fury signifying nothing,' like that of the '1812* 
 Overture, or boisterous fantastic gaiety, like 
 that of the pizzicato Scherzo of my Fourth 
 Symphony. For if I endeavour to portray life 
 as I really see it, I shall people it with capricious 
 goblins." 
 
 Wrapped in these melancholy musings, he 
 has reached the limit of his stroll : and retraces 
 his steps, consoling himself en route with golden 
 discoveries of mushrooms. As the clock strikes 
 four, he is re-entering the house, and greeted 
 by the grateful scent of tea. He reads the daily 
 papers whilst at tea ; and at five o'clock, with 
 his customary systematic sedulity, sits down for 
 a good two hours' work. Whilst he is engaged
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 upon this, visitors arrive : but the faithful 
 Alexis does not permit his master to be 
 disturbed until the latter emerges at eight for 
 a final " constitutional," when he gives a hearty 
 welcome to the friends who are awaiting his 
 leisure. Whether they be expected or un- 
 expected, he is always a model of hospitality 
 and kindliness. They go out happily together 
 into the open fields to watch the splendours of 
 the sunset. Jurgenson, the great music-pub- 
 lisher, is one of them, Laroche and Kashkin 
 are familiar faces there : the presence of 
 Modeste, Tschaikovsky's best-beloved brother, 
 compensates for the absence of such dear 
 companions as Taneiev, Hubert and Albrecht. 
 They discourse and discuss with the composer 
 the subjects nearest to his heart, that is to say, 
 those which deal with music in all its branches. 
 Since he relinquished his professorship at the 
 Petersburg Conservatoire, Tschaikovsky has 
 been able to devote much more time to the 
 study of other composers : and he holds strong 
 opinions upon the relative merits of master 
 tone-poets. By the music of Brahms he is left 
 absolutely cold, untouched at any point. " It is 
 all very serious," says he, "very distinguished,
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 apparently even original, but in spite of all 
 this, the chief thing is lacking beauty." 
 Beethoven, again, appals rather than charms 
 him: "Beethoven makes me tremble, from a 
 sense of fear and yearning and anguish." To 
 the "glow and passion of Schumann" he alludes 
 with admiration, and to the "deep humanity" 
 of Grieg, in whose music " there prevails that 
 fascinating melancholy which serves to reflect 
 in itself all the beauty of Norwegian scenery." 
 But above and beyond all, ancient and modern, 
 he reveres his unrivalled Mozart. . . "You 
 would not believe," he tells his companions, 
 "what wonderful feelings come over me when 
 I give myself up to his music ! " 
 
 As the calming influences of the fragrant 
 evening air are shed around him, the reticent 
 and solitary man becomes more communicative, 
 more talkative ; he confides to those around 
 him his most secret joys and sorrows : he 
 permits himself to disclose that rankling trouble 
 which he can never quite ignore, the coldness 
 of his erstwhile idolized teacher and chief friend 
 Anton Rubinstein the one man who never 
 visits, never congratulates him, never condoles
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 with him, but passes him over in perpetual 
 silence. ' * The most probable explanation of this 
 mortifying silence," Tschaikovsky bitterly 
 admits, " is that Rubinstein does not care for my 
 music. There is indeed no other solution of his 
 behaviour." 
 
 The rest of the evening is spent in pleasant 
 social intercourse. After supper, the composer 
 sits chatting with his guests. In former years 
 he used to enjoy a card-game now and then, or 
 the performance of four-handed duets with 
 Laroche or Kashkin. But now, as he reluctantly 
 allows, "my age, though not very advanced, 
 begins to tell : I get very tired now, and can no 
 longer play or read at night as I used to do." 
 From work at night, even when alone, he has 
 long abstained : it would result in terrible 
 hallucinations, accompanied by a hammering 
 sensation in the head. So he listens tranquilly 
 to Laroche's reading aloud of some favourite 
 book, Flaubert being specially enjoyed by 
 him. 
 
 At eleven precisely the household retires 
 for the night. The guests are shown by Alexis
 
 A DAY WITH TSGHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 to their apartments, and the master, in his own 
 room, writes up his diary, and reads for a little 
 while. He is, as he himself has put it, * ' left 
 alone to read, dream, or recall the past : to 
 think of those near and dear to me : to open 
 the window and gaze out on the stars : to listen 
 to the sounds of night, and finally to go to bed." 
 But all this may occupy a long while, even 
 hours. He fills his heart with tender musings 
 upon the truths of that Christianity which is at 
 last endearing itself to his naturally religious 
 mind : he prays, with the simplicity of a child, 
 in the self-same words that he has used, through 
 all his doubts, since childhood. "What touch- 
 ing love and compassion for mankind," sighs the 
 prematurely old and weary man, " lie in these 
 words, Come unto Me all ye that labour and are 
 heavy-laden ! " Gradually he succumbs to that 
 strange and inexplicable exhaustion which is 
 beyond fatigue, which overtakes him every 
 night : and, planting himself at the window, he 
 expends his last remaining energy in assimilating 
 the glory of the night. "The stillness, the 
 perfume of the flowers, and those wondrous and 
 indefinable sounds that belong to the night," he 
 whispers, "Ah, God, how beautiful it all is!"
 
 A DAY WITH TSCHAIKOVSKY. 
 
 Not until the chill of the " small hours" 
 begins to invade the warm and languorous 
 garden air, will Peter Ilyich Tschaikovsky 
 reluctantly tear himself away from the spell of 
 the midsummer night, and fall into dreams 
 of mushrooms. 
 
 NOTE. The author desires to acknowledge indebted- 
 ness, for many authentic sayings of Tschaikovsky, 
 to the admirable books of Mrs. Rosa Newmarch.