$1 f 
 
 
Clie nous of 
 
Clje iLotieg of 
 
 (Sxm Composers 
 
 Cl)oma0 p. Ctotocll & Co. 
 Jl3ett potfe 
 
KU 
 
 Copyright, 1904 and 1905 
 
 By The Butterick Publishing Co. (Limited) 
 
 Copyright, 1905, by Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 
 
 Published September, 1905 
 
 (^\^ ^ hx ^-^ W«Y>' 
 
 u &.4J^ 
 
 Composition and electrotype plates by 
 D. B. Updike, The Merrymount Press, Boston 
 
Co Cftatles ©topet 
 
Cable of 
 
 Contents 
 
 Page 
 
 Mozart and his Constance 3 
 
 Beethoven and his "Immortal Beloved" 25 
 
 Mendelssohn and his C^cile 47 
 Chopin and the Countess Delphine Potocka 71 
 
 The Schumanns: Robert and Clara 93 
 
 Franz Liszt and his Carolyne 115 
 
 Wagner and Cosima 139 
 
%ist of 
 
 illustrations 
 
 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 (photogravure) 
 
 
 Page 
 
 Mozart at the Age of Eleven 
 
 
 6 
 
 Constance, Wife of Mozart 
 
 
 «^ -2-^ 
 
 Ludwig van Beethoven 
 
 
 22 
 
 Countess Therese von Brunswick 
 
 28 
 
 "Beethoven at Heiligenstadt" 
 
 
 40 
 
 Fdix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy 
 
 
 48 
 
 Fanny Hensel, Sister of Mendelssohn 
 
 54 
 
 C^cile, Wife of Mendelssohn 
 
 • 
 
 58 
 
 The Mendelssohn Monument in 
 
 Leipsic 
 
 64 
 
 Fr^ddric Chopin 
 
 
 72--^ 
 
 Countess Potocka 
 
 
 80 
 
 The Death of Chopin 
 
 
 86 
 
 Robert Schumann 
 
 
 94 
 
 Robert and Clara Schumann, in 
 
 1847 
 
 98 
 
 Clara Schumann at the Piano 
 
 
 106 
 
 IX 
 
5tt0t of 3Jllu0ttattons 
 
 The Schumann Monument in the Bonn > 
 
 Cemetery no 
 
 Franz Liszt ii6 
 
 Liszt at the Piano 120 
 
 The Princess Carolyne, in her Latter 
 
 Years at Rome 124 
 
 The Altenburg, Weimar, where Liszt 
 
 and Carolyne lived 130 
 
 Richard Wagner 140 
 
 Cosima, Wife of Wagner 146 
 
 Richard and Cosima Wagner 152 
 
 Richard and Cosima Wagner entertain- 
 ing in their Home Wahnfried, Liszt 
 and Hans von Wolzogen 156 
 
anD ^19 Constance 
 
anti i^t0 Constance 
 
 EARLY eight years after 
 Mozart's death his widow, 
 in response to a request 
 from a famous publishing 
 house for relics of the composer, sent, 
 among other Mozartiana, a packet of 
 letters written to her by her husband. 
 In transmitting these she wrote: 
 " Especially characteristic is his great 
 love for me, which breathes through 
 all the letters. Is it not true — those 
 from the last year of his life are just 
 as tender as those written during the 
 first year of our marriage?" She added 
 that she would like to have this fact 
 especially mentioned "to his honor" 
 in any biography in which the data she 
 sent were to be used. This request 
 was not prompted by vanity, but by a 
 just pride in the love her husband had 
 borne her and which she still cher- 
 
 3 
 
CJrHotjes of 
 
 ished. The love of his Constance was 
 the solace of Mozart's life. 
 
 The wonder-child, born in Salzburg 
 in 1756, and taken by his father from 
 court to court, where he and his sister 
 played to admiring audiences, did not, 
 like so many wonder-children, fade 
 from public view, but with manhood 
 fulfilled the promise of his early years 
 and became one of the world's great 
 masters of music. But his genius was 
 not appreciated until too late. The 
 world of to-day sees in Mozart the 
 type of the brilliant, careless Bohe- 
 mian, whom it loves to associate with 
 art, and long since has taken him to 
 its heart. But the world of his own day,' 
 when he asked for bread, offered him 
 a stone. 
 
 Mozart died young; he was only 
 thirty-five. His sufferings were crowd- 
 ed into a few years, but throughout 
 these years there stood by his side 
 one whose love soothed his trials and 
 brightened his life, — the Constance 
 4 
 
<5xtat Compo0er0 
 
 whom he adored. What she wrote to 
 the publishers was strictly true. His 
 last letters to her breathed a love as 
 fervent as the first. 
 
 Some six months before he died, she 
 was obliged to go to Baden for her 
 health. "You hardly will believe," he 
 writes to her, "how heavily time hangs 
 on my hands without you. I cannot ex- 
 actly explain my feelings. There is a 
 void that pains me ; a certain longing 
 that cannot be satisfied, hence never 
 ceases, continues ever, aye, grows from 
 day to day. When I think how happy 
 and childlike we would be together in 
 Baden and what sad, tedious hours 
 I pass here ! I take no pleasure in my 
 work, because I cannot breakit off now 
 and then for a few words with you, as 
 I am accustomed to. When I go to the 
 piano and sing something from the 
 opera ["The Magic Flute"], I have to 
 stop right away, it affects me so. Basta ! 
 — if this very hour I could see my way 
 clear to you, the next hour wouldn't 
 
 5 
 
Cl)e 5Lot)e0 of 
 
 find me here." In another letter written 
 at this time he kisses her "in thought 
 two thousand times." 
 
 When Mozart first met Constance, 
 she was too young to attract his no- 
 tice. He had stopped at Mannheim on 
 his way to Paris, whither he was going 
 with his mother on a concert tour. Re- 
 quiring the services of a music copyist, 
 he was recommended to Fridolin We- 
 ber, who eked out a Hvelihood by copy- 
 ing music and by acting as prompter 
 at the theatre. His brother was the fa- 
 ther of Weber, the famous composer, 
 and his own family, which consisted of 
 four daughters, was musical. Mozart*s 
 visit to Mannheim occurred in 1777, 
 when Constance Weber was only four- 
 teen. 
 
 Of her two older sisters the second, 
 Aloysia, had a beautiful voice and na 
 mean looks, and the young genius was 
 greatly taken with her from the first. 
 He induced his mother to linger in 
 Mannheim much longer than was ne- 
 6 
 
MOZART AT THE AGE OF ELEVEN 
 From a painting by Van der Smissen in the Mozarteum, Salzburg 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 cessary. Aloysia became his pupil ; and 
 under his tuition her voice improved 
 wonderfully. She achieved brilliant 
 success in public, and her father, de- 
 lighted, watched with pleasure the sen- 
 timental attachment that was spring- 
 ing up between her and Mozart. Mean- 
 while Leopold Mozart was in Salzburg 
 wondering why his wife and son were 
 so long delaying their further journey 
 to Paris. 
 
 When he received from Wolfgang let- 
 ters full of enthusiasm over his pupil, 
 coupled with a proposal that instead 
 of going to Paris, he and his mother 
 should change their destination to 
 Italy and take the Weber family along, 
 in order that Aloysia might further de- 
 velop her talents there, he got an ink- 
 ling of the true state of affairs and was 
 furious. He had large plans for his son, 
 knew Weber to be shiftless and the 
 family poor, and concluded that, for 
 their own advantage, they were en- 
 deavoring to trap Wolfgang into a 
 
 7 
 
Cl)e JLobes of 
 
 matrimonial alliance. Peremptory let- 
 ters sent wife and son on their way 
 to Paris, and the elder Mozart was 
 greatly relieved when he knew them 
 safely beyond the confines of Mann- 
 heim. 
 
 Mozart's stay in Paris was tragically 
 brought to an end by his mother's 
 death. He set out for his return to Salz- 
 burg, intending, however, to stop at 
 Mannheim, for he still remembered 
 Aloysia affectionately. Finding that 
 the Weber family had moved to Mu- 
 nich, he went there. But as soon as he 
 came into the presence of the beautiful 
 young singer her manner showed that 
 her feelings toward him had cooled. 
 Thereupon, his ardor was likewise 
 chilled, and he continued on his way 
 to Salzburg, where he arrived, much to 
 his father's relief, still "unattached." 
 
 When Mozart departed from Mu- 
 nich, he probably thought that he was 
 leaving behind him forever, not only 
 the fickle Aloysia, but the rest of the 
 8 
 
d^reat Compo0tr0 
 
 Weber family as well. How slight our 
 premonition of fate ! For, if ever the in- 
 scrutable ways of Providence brought 
 two people together, those two were 
 Mozart and Constance Weber. Nor 
 was Aloysia without further influence 
 on his career. She married an actor 
 named Lange, with whom she went to 
 Vienna, where she became a singer at 
 the opera. There Mozart composed for 
 her the role of Constance in his opera, 
 "The Elopement from the Seraglio." 
 For the eldest Weber girl, Josepha, 
 who had a high, flexible soprano, he 
 wrote one of his most brilliant roles, 
 that of the Queen of the Night in "The 
 Magic Flute." I am anticipating some- 
 what in the order of events that I may 
 correct an erroneous impression re- 
 garding Mozart's marriage, which I 
 find frequently obtains. He composed 
 the role of Constance for Aloysia shorts 
 ly before he married the real Con- 
 stance ; and this has led many people 
 to believe that he took the younger sis- 
 
 9 
 
Clje 3lot)e0 of 
 
 ter out of pique, because he had been 
 rejected by Aloysia. Whoever believes 
 this has a very superficial acquain- 
 tance with Mozart's biography. Five 
 years had passed since he had parted 
 from Aloysia at Munich. The youthful 
 affair had blown over; and when they 
 met again in Vienna she was Frau 
 Lange. Mozart's marriage with Con- 
 stance was a genuine love-match. It 
 was bitterly opposed by his father, 
 who never became wholly reconciled 
 to the woman of his son's choice, and 
 met with no favor from her mother. 
 Fridolin Weber had died. Altogether 
 the omens were unfavorable, and there 
 were obstacles enough to have dis- 
 couraged any but the most ardent cou- 
 ple. So much for the pique story. 
 
 Mozart went to Vienna in 1781 with 
 the Archbishop of Salzburg, by whom, 
 however, he was treated with such in- 
 dignity that he left his service. Whom 
 should he find in Vienna but his old 
 friends the Webers ! Frau Weber was 
 10 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 glad enough of the opportunity to let 
 lodgings to Mozart, for, as in Mann- 
 heim and Munich, the Ifamily was in 
 straitened circumstances. As soon as 
 the composer's father heard of this ar- 
 rangement, he began to expostulate. 
 Finally Mozart changed his lodgings; 
 but this step had the very opposite 
 effect hoped for by Leopold Mozart, 
 for separation only increased the love 
 that had sprung up between the young 
 people since they had met again in 
 Vienna, and Mozart had found the lit- 
 tle fourteen-year-old girl of his Mann- 
 heim visit grown to young woman- 
 hood. 
 
 There seems little doubt that the 
 Webers, with the exception of Con- 
 stance, were a shiftless lot They had 
 drifted from place to place and had 
 finally come to Vienna, because Aloy- 
 sia had moved therewith her husband. 
 When Mozart finally decided to marry 
 Constance, come what might, he wrote 
 his father a letter which shows that his 
 
 II 
 
Cl)e Jlot)e0 of 
 
 eyes were wide open to the faults of the 
 family, and by the calm, almost judi- 
 cial, manner in which he refers to the 
 virtues of his future wife, that his was 
 no hastily formed attachment, based 
 merely on superficial attractions. 
 
 He does not spare the family in his 
 analysis of their traits. If he seems 
 ungallant in his references to his fu- 
 ture Queen of the Night and to the 
 prima donna of his "Elopement from 
 the Seraglio," to say nothing of his for- 
 mer attachment for her, one must re- 
 member that this is a letter from a son 
 to a father, in which frankness is per- 
 missible. He admits the intemperance 
 and shrewishness of the mother; char- 
 acterizes Josepha as lazy and vulgar; 
 calls Aloysia a malicious person and 
 a coquette; dismisses the youngest, 
 Sophie, as too young to be anything 
 but simply a good though thoughtless 
 creature. Surely not an attractive pic- 
 ture and not a family one would enter 
 lightly. 
 
 12 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 What drew him to Constance? Let 
 him answer that question himself. 
 "But the middle one, my good, dear 
 Constance," he writes to his father, 
 " is a martyr among them, and for that 
 reason, perhaps, the best hearted, cle- 
 verest, and, in a word, the best among 
 them. . . . She is neither homely nor 
 beautiful. Her whole beauty lies in two 
 small, dark eyes and in a fine figure. 
 She is not brilliant, but has common 
 sense enough to perform her duties as 
 wife and mother. She is not extrav- 
 agant; on the contrary, she is accus- 
 tomed to go poorly dressed, because 
 what little her mother can do for her 
 children she does for the others, but 
 never for her. It is true that she would 
 like to be tastefully and becomingly 
 dressed, but never expensively; and 
 most of the things a woman needs she 
 can make for herself. She does her own 
 coiffure every day [head-dress must 
 have been something appalling in 
 those days]; understands housekeep- 
 
 13 
 
C|)e Hoties of 
 
 ing; has the best disposition in the 
 world. We love each other with all our 
 hearts. Tell me if I could ask a better 
 wife for myself?" 
 
 The letter is so touchingly frank and 
 simple that whoever reads it must feel 
 that the portrait Mozart draws of his 
 Constance is absolutely true to life. He 
 makes no attempt to paint her as a 
 paragon of beauty and intellect. It is 
 a picture of the neglected member of 
 a household — neglected because of 
 her homely virtues, the one fair flower 
 blooming in the dark crevice of this 
 shiftless manage. And at the end of the 
 letter is the one cry which, since the 
 world was young, has defied and 
 brought to naught the doubting coun- 
 sels of wiser heads: "We love each 
 other with all our hearts." 
 
 The elder Mozart, fearful for his son's 
 future, had kept himself informed of 
 what was going on in Vienna. He knew 
 that when his son's attentions to Con- 
 stance became marked, her guardian 
 14 
 
(threat Compo0er0 
 
 had compelled him to sign a promise of 
 marriage. In this the father again saw 
 a trap laid for his son, who in worldly 
 matters was as unversed as a child. But 
 Leopold Mozart did not know how the 
 episode ended, and little suspected that 
 future generations would see in it one 
 of the most charming incidents in the 
 love affairs of great men. For, when her 
 guardian had left the house, Constance 
 asked her mother for the paper, and as 
 soon as she had it in her hands, tore it 
 up, exclaiming: "Dear Mozart, I do 
 not need a written promise from you. 
 I trust your words." 
 FrauWeber sawin Mozart, the suitor, 
 a possible contributor to the house- 
 hold expenses, and as soon as she 
 learned that he and Constance in- 
 tended to set up for themselves, she be- 
 came bitterly opposed to the match. 
 Finally a titled lady. Baroness von 
 Waldstadter, took the young people 
 under her protection, and Constance 
 went to live with her to escape her 
 
 15 
 
Clje Hotjes? of 
 
 mother's nagging. Frau Weber then 
 planned to force her daughterto return 
 to her by legal process. Immediate mar- 
 riage was the only method of escape 
 from the scandal this would entail ; and 
 so, August 4, 1782, Mozart and his Con- 
 stance were married in the Church of 
 St. Stephen, Vienna. When at last they 
 had all obstacles behind them and 
 stood at the altar as one, they were so 
 overcome by their feelings that they 
 began to cry; and the few bystanders, 
 including the priest, were so deeply af- 
 fected by their happiness that they too 
 were moved to tears. 
 Although poor, Mozart, through his 
 music, had become acquainted with 
 titled personages and was known at 
 court. He and Constance, shortly after 
 their wedding, were walking in the 
 Prater with their pet dog. To make the 
 dog bark, Mozart playfully pretended 
 to strike Constance with his cane. At 
 that moment the Emperor, chancing 
 to come out of a summer house and 
 16 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 seeing Mozart's action, which he mis- 
 interpreted, began chiding him for 
 abusing his wife so shortly after they 
 had been married. When his mistake 
 was explained to him, he was highly 
 amused. Later he could not fail to hear 
 of the couple's devotion. "Vienna was 
 witness to these relations," wrote a 
 contemporary of Mozart's and Con- 
 stance's love for each other ; and when 
 Aloysia and her husband quarrelled 
 and separated, the Emperor, meeting 
 Constance and referring to her sister's 
 troubles, said, "What a difference it 
 makes to have a good husband." 
 
 In spite of poverty and its attendant 
 struggles, Mozart's marriage was a 
 happy one, because it was a marriage 
 of love. Like every child of genius, he 
 had his moods, but Constance adapted 
 herself to them and thereby won his 
 confidence and gained an influence 
 over him which, however, she brought 
 into play only when the occasion de- 
 manded. When he was thinking out a 
 
 17 
 
Clje JLo\its of 
 
 worky he was absent-minded, and at 
 such times she always was ready to 
 humor him, and even cut his meat for 
 him at table, as he was apt during such 
 periods of abstraction to injure him- 
 self. But when he had a composition 
 well in mind, to put it on paper seemed 
 little more to him than copying; and 
 then he loved to have her sit by him 
 and tell him stories— yes, regular fairy 
 tales and children's stories, as if he 
 himself still were a child. He would 
 write and listen, drop his pen and 
 laugh, and then go on with work again. 
 The day before the first performance 
 of "Don Giovanni," when the final re- 
 hearsal already had been held, the 
 overture still remained unwritten. It 
 had to be written overnight, and it was 
 she who sat by him and relieved the 
 rush and strain of work with her cheer- 
 ful prattle. It is said that, among other 
 things, she read to him the story of 
 "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp." 
 Be that as it may;— she rubbed the 
 
 i8 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 lamp, and the overture to "Don Gio- 
 vanni" appeared. 
 
 Would that their life could be por- 
 trayed in a series of such charming 
 pictures! but grinding poverty was 
 there also, and the bitterness of dis- 
 appointed hopes. His sensitive nature 
 could not withstand the repeated ma- 
 terial shocks to which it was subjected. 
 And the pity is, that it gave way just 
 when there seemed a prospect of a 
 change. "The Magic Flute" had been 
 produced with great success, and that 
 in the face of relentless opposition from 
 envious rivals; and orders from new 
 sources and on better terms were com- 
 ing to him. But the turn of the tide 
 was too late. When he received an or- 
 der for a Requiem from a person who 
 wished his identity to remain unknown 
 — he was subsequently discovered to 
 be a nobleman, who wanted to produce 
 the work as his own — Mozart already 
 felt the hand of death upon him and de- 
 clared that he was composing the Re- 
 
 19 
 
Clje 3lot)e« of 
 
 quiem for his own obsequies. Even af- 
 ter he was obliged to take to his bed, 
 he worked at it, saying it was to be his 
 Requiem and must be ready in time. 
 The afternoon before he died, he went 
 over the completed portions with three 
 friends, and at the Lachrymosa burst 
 into tears. In the evening he lost con- 
 sciousness, and early the following 
 morning, December 5, 1791, he passed 
 away. The immediate cause of death 
 was rheumatic fever with typhoid com- 
 plications, and his distracted widow, 
 hoping to catch the same disease and 
 be carried away by it, threw herself 
 upon his bed. She was too prostrated to 
 attend his funeral, which, be it said to 
 the shame of his friends, was a shabby 
 affair. The day was stormy, and after 
 the service indoors they left before 
 the actual burial, which was in one of 
 the "common graves," holding ten 
 or twelve bodies and intended to be 
 worked over every few years for new 
 interments. When, as soon as Con- 
 20 
 
CONSTANCE, WIFE OF MOZART 
 From an engraving by Nissen 
 
<5xtat Composerff 
 
 stance was strong enough, she visited 
 the cemetery there was a new grave- 
 digger, who upon being questioned 
 could not locate her husband's grave, 
 and to this day Mozart's last resting- 
 place is unknown. 
 
 It must not be reckoned against Con- 
 stance that, eighteen years after Mo- 
 zart's death, she married again. For 
 she did not forget the man on whom 
 her heart first was set. Her second hus- 
 band, Nissen, formerly Danish charg6 
 d'affaires in Vienna, is best known by 
 the biography of Mozart which he 
 wrote under her guidance. They re- 
 moved to Mozart's birthplace, Salz- 
 burg, where Nissen died in 1826. Con- 
 stance's death was strangely associ- 
 ated with Mozart's memory. It was as 
 if in her last moments she must go 
 back to him who was her first love. For 
 she died in Salzburg, on March 6, 1842, 
 a few hours after the model for the Mo- 
 zart monument, which adorns one of 
 the spacious squares of the city where 
 
 21 • 
 
(Bxtat Composers 
 
 the composer was born, was received 
 there. She had been the life-love of a 
 child of genius and, without being sin- 
 gularly gifted herself, had understood 
 how to humor his whims and adapt 
 herself to his moods in which sunshine 
 often was succeeded by shadow. It was 
 singularly appropriate that, surviving 
 him many years, she yet died under cir- 
 cumstances which formed a new link 
 between her and his memory. 
 
 22 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN. 
 
 After the painting by Stieler. The original in the possession of the Countess 
 
 Rosalie von Sauerma, nee Spohr, Berlin 
 
(( 
 
 31mmottaI iBelottcD*' 
 
m% 
 
 iSeetfjoben 
 
 'immortal mtmth'' 
 
 |NE day when Baron Spaun, 
 an old Viennese character 
 and a friend of Beethoven's, 
 entered the composer's lodgT 
 ings, he found the man, every line of 
 whose face denoted, above all else, 
 strength of character, bending over a 
 portrait of a woman and weeping, as he 
 muttered, *< You were too good, too an- 
 gelic!" A moment later, he had thrust 
 the portrait into an old chest and, with 
 atoss of his well-set head, was his usual 
 self again. 
 
 As Spaun was leaving, he said to the 
 
 composer, "There is nothing evil in 
 
 your face to-day, old fellow." 
 
 "My good angel appeared to me this 
 
 morning," was Beethoven's reply. 
 
 After the composer's death, in 1827, 
 
 25 
 
C|)e 3lot)e0 of 
 
 the portrait was found in the old chest, 
 and also aletter, in his handwriting and 
 evidently written to a woman, whose 
 name, however, was not given, but who 
 was addressed by Beethoven as his 
 *^ Immortal Beloved." The letter was 
 regarded as a great find, and biogra- 
 pher after biographer has stated that 
 it must have been written to the Coun- 
 tess Giulietta Guicciardi, to whom he 
 dedicated the famous "Moonhght So- 
 nata." There was, however, one wo- 
 man, who survived Beethoven more 
 than thirty years, and who, during that 
 weary stretch of time, knew whose was 
 the portrait that had been found in the 
 old chest and the identity of the wo- 
 man who had returned to him the let- 
 ter addressed to his "Immortal Be- 
 loved," after the strange severance of 
 relations which both had continued to 
 hold sacred. But she suffered in silence, 
 and nevereven knew what had become 
 of the picture. 
 
 This precious picture, which Beet- 
 26 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 hoven had held in his hands and wetted 
 with his tears, passed, with his death, 
 into the possession of his brother Carl's 
 widow. Nooneknew whoit was, ortook 
 any interest in it. In 1863 a Viennese 
 musician, Joseph Hellmesberger, suc- 
 ceeded in having Beethoven's remains 
 transferred to a metallic casket, and 
 the Beethoven family, in recognition 
 of his efforts, made him a present of the 
 portrait. Later it was acquired by the 
 Beethoven Museum, in Bonn, where 
 the master was born in 1772. There it 
 hangs beside his own portrait, and on 
 the back still can be read the inscrip- 
 tion, in a feminine hand: 
 *^To the rare genius, the great artist, 
 and the good man, from T. B." 
 Who was "T. B."? If some one who 
 had recently seen the Bonn portrait 
 should chance to visit the National 
 Museum in Budapest, he would come 
 upon the bust of a woman whose fea- 
 tures seemed familiar to him. They 
 would grow upon him as those of the 
 
 27 
 
Cl)e JLoljeg of 
 
 woman with the yellow shawl over her 
 light-brown hair, a drapery of red on 
 her shoulders and fastened at her 
 throat, who had looked out at him from 
 the Bonn portrait. The bust, made at a 
 more advanced age, he would find had 
 been placed in the museum in honor of 
 the woman who founded the first home 
 for friendless children in the Austrian 
 Empire ; and her name? Countess The- 
 rese Brunswick. She was Beethoven's 
 "Immortal Beloved." "T. B."— The- 
 rese Brunswick. She was the woman 
 who knew that the portrait found in the 
 old chest was hers ; and that the letter 
 had been received by her shortly after 
 her secret betrothal to Beethoven, and 
 returned by her to him when he broke 
 the engagement because he loved her 
 too deeply to link her life to his. 
 The tragedy of their romance lay in its 
 non-fulfilment. Beethoven was a man 
 of noble nature, yet what had he to of- 
 fer her in return for her love? His own 
 love, it is true. But he was uncouth, 
 28 
 

 
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 ^^^H 
 
 
 
 JH 
 
 
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 ^^^^^^^H 
 
 
 ll^vm 
 
 s^^^^^H 
 
 
 Vk^ 
 
 -%' ^^v^pj^^^^^B^KM^^I 
 
 
 V^. 
 
 /'*!.^^HH^^^^H^^^^^I 
 
 i^^^ 
 
 •^ 'v.Ti-*'^ 
 
 !^. --^-'^hHHHHIHII 
 
 COUNTESS THERESE VON BRUNSWICK 
 
 From the portrait by Ritter von Lampir in the Beelhoven-Haus at Bonn 
 Redrawn by Reich 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 stricken with deafness, and had many 
 of the "bad moments" of genius. He 
 foresaw unhappiness for both, and, to 
 spare her, took upon himself the great 
 act of renunciation. We need only re- 
 call him weeping over the pictureof his 
 Therese. And Therese? To her dying 
 day she treasured his memory. Very 
 few shared her secret. Her brother 
 Franz, Beethoven's intimate friend, 
 knew it. Baron Spaun also divined the 
 cause of his melancholy. Some years 
 after the composer's death. Countess 
 Therese Brunswick conceived a great 
 liking for a young girl, Miriam Tenger, 
 whom she had taken under her care for 
 a short period, until a suitable school 
 was selected for her in Vienna. When 
 the time for parting came, Miriam 
 burst into tears and clung to the Coun- 
 tess's hand. 
 
 "Child! Child!" exclaimed the lady, 
 "do you really love me so deeply?" 
 
 "I love you, I love you so," sobbed the 
 child, "that I could die for you." 
 
 29 
 
C|)e Holies of 
 
 The Countess placed her hand on the 
 girl's head. " My child," she said, "when 
 you have grown older and wiser, you 
 will understand what I mean when I 
 say that to live for those we love shows 
 a far greater love, because it requires 
 so much more courage. But while you 
 are in Vienna, there is one favor you 
 can do me, which my heart will consider 
 a great one. On the twenty-seventh of 
 every March go to the Wahringer Ce- 
 metery and layawreath of immortelles 
 on Beethoven's grave." 
 
 When, true to her promise, the girl 
 went with her school principal to the 
 cemetery, they found a man bending 
 over the grave and placing flowers up- 
 on it. He looked up as they approached. 
 
 "The child comes at the request of 
 the Countess Therese Brunswick," ex- 
 plained the principal. 
 
 "The Countess Therese Brunswick ! 
 Immortelles upon this grave are fit 
 from her alone. "The speaker was Beet- 
 hoven's faithful friend, Baron Spaun. 
 30 
 
(Bxtat Compo0erfif 
 
 In i860, when theleavesof thirty-three 
 autumns had fallen upon the compo- 
 ser's grave and the Countess had gone 
 to her last resting-place, a voice, like 
 an echo from a dead past, linked the 
 names of Beethoven and the woman 
 he had loved. There was at that time 
 in Germany a virtuosa, Frau Heben- 
 streit, who when a young girl had been 
 a pupil of Beethoven's friend, the vio- 
 linist Schuppanzigh. At a musical, in 
 the year mentioned, she had just ta- 
 ken part in a performance of the third 
 "Leonore" overture, when, as if moved 
 to speak by the beauty of the music, 
 she suddenly said: "Only think of it! 
 Just as a person sits to a painter for a 
 portrait. Countess Therese Brunswick 
 was the model for Beethoven's Leo- 
 nore. What a debt the world owes her 
 for it!" After a pause she went on: 
 "Beethoven never would have dared 
 marry without money, and a countess, 
 too— and so refined, and delicate 
 enough to blow away. And he — an an- 
 
 31 
 
C|)e Ilot)e0 of 
 
 gel and a demon in one ! What would 
 have become of them both, and of his 
 genius with him ? '' So far as I have been 
 able to discover, this was the first even 
 semi-public linking of the two names. 
 
 Yet all these years there was one per- 
 son who knew the secret — the woman 
 who as a school-girl had placed the 
 wreath of immortelles on Beethoven's 
 grave for her much-loved Countess 
 Therese Brunswick. Through this act 
 of devotion Miriam Tenger seemed to 
 become to the Countess a tie that 
 stretched back to her past, and though 
 they saw each other only at long in- 
 tervals, Miriam's presence awakened 
 anew the old memories in the Coun- 
 tess's heart, and from her she heard 
 piecemeal, and with pauses of years 
 between, the story of hers and Beet- 
 hoven's romance. 
 
 Therese was the daughter of a noble 
 house. Beethoven was welcome both 
 as teacher and guest in the most aris- 
 tocratic circles of Vienna. The noble 
 32 
 
(threat Compoeerff 
 
 men and women who figure in the dedi- 
 cations of his works were friends, not 
 merely patrons. Despite his uncouth 
 manners and appearance, his genius, 
 up to the point at least when it took 
 its highest flights in the "Ninth Sym- 
 phony" and the last quartets, was ap- 
 preciated ; and he was a figure in Vien- 
 nese society. The Brunswick house 
 was one of many that were open to 
 him. The Brunswicks were art lovers. 
 Franz, the son of the house, was the 
 composer's intimate friend. The mo- 
 ther had all possible graciousness and 
 charm, but with it also a passionate 
 pride in her family and her rank, a hau- 
 teur that would have caused her to re- 
 gard an alliance between Therese and 
 Beethoven as monstrous. Therese was 
 an exceptional woman. She had an 
 oval, classic face, a lovely disposition, 
 a pure heart and a finely cultivated 
 mind. The German painter, Peter Cor- 
 nelius, said of her that any one who 
 spoke with her felt elevated and en- 
 
 33 
 
Cl)e lLo\its of 
 
 nobled. The family was of the right 
 mettle. The Countess Blanka Teleki, 
 who was condemned to death for 
 complicity in the Hungarian uprising 
 of 1848, but whose sentence was com- 
 muted to life imprisonment, — she fi- 
 nally was released in 1858, — wasThe- 
 rese's niece, and is said to have borne 
 a striking likeness to her. It may be 
 mentioned that Giulietta Guicciardi, 
 of the "Moonlight Sonata," was The- 
 rese's cousin. There seems no doubt 
 that the composer was attracted to 
 Giulietta before he fell in love with his 
 " Immortal Beloved." That is why his 
 biographers were so ready to believe 
 that the letter was addressed to the 
 lady with the romantic name and iden- 
 tified with one of his most romantic 
 works. 
 
 Therese herself told Miriam that one 
 day Giulietta, who had become the af- 
 fianced of Count Gallenberg, rushed in- 
 to her room, threw herself at her feet 
 like a "stage princess," and cried out: 
 34 
 
(threat Compo0er0 
 
 "Counsel me, cold, wise one ! I long to 
 give Gallenberg his congd and marry 
 the wonderfully ugly, beautiful Beet- 
 hoven, if — if only it did not involve low- 
 ering myself socially." Therese, who 
 worshipped the composer's genius and 
 already loved him secretly, turned the 
 subject off, fearful lest she should say, 
 in her indignation at theyoung woman 
 who thought she would be lowering 
 herself by marrying Beethoven, some- 
 thing that might lead to an irrepara- 
 ble breach. "Moonlight Sonata," or no 
 "Moonlight Sonata," there are two 
 greaterworks by the same genius that 
 bear the Brunswick name, — the "Ap- 
 passionata," dedicated to Count Franz 
 Brunswick, and the sonata in F-sharp 
 major. Opus 78, dedicated to Therese, 
 ( and far worthier of her chaste beauty 
 and intellect than the "Moonlight." 
 
 It will be noticed that Giulietta called 
 Therese the "cold, wise one." Her pu- 
 rity led her own mother to speak of her 
 as an "anchoress." Yet it was she who 
 
 35 
 
Cl)e 5lot)e0 of 
 
 from the time she was fifteen years old 
 to the day of her death cherished the 
 great composer in her heart; and of her 
 love for him were the mementos that he 
 sacredly guarded. When Therese was 
 fifteen years old she became Beetho- 
 ven's pupil. The lessons were severe. 
 Yet beneath the rough exterior she re- 
 cognized the heart of a nobleman. The 
 "cold, wise one," the "anchoress," fell 
 in love with him soon after the lessons 
 began, but carefully hid her feelings 
 from every one. There is a charming 
 anecdote of the early acquaintance of 
 the composer and Therese. 
 The children of the house of Bruns- 
 wick were carefully brought up. Dur- 
 ing the music lessons the mother was 
 accustomed to sit in an adjoining room 
 with the door between open. One bit- 
 terly cold winter day Beethoven ar- 
 rived at the appointed hour. Therese 
 had practised diligently, but the work 
 was difficult and, in addition, she was 
 nervous. As a result she began too fast, 
 36 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 became disconcerted when Beethoven 
 gruffly called out "Tempoj" and made 
 mistake after mistake, until the mas- 
 ter, irritated beyond endurance, rushed 
 from the room and the house in such 
 a hurry that he forgot his overcoat 
 and muffler. In amomentTherese had 
 picked up these, reached the door and 
 was out in the street with them, when 
 the butler overtook her, relieved her of 
 them and hurried after the composer's 
 retreating figure. 
 
 When the girl entered the doorway 
 again, she came face to face with her 
 mother, who, fortunately, had not seen 
 her in the street, but who was scanda- 
 lized that a daughter of the house of 
 Brunswick should so far have forgot- 
 ten herself and her dignity as to have 
 run after a man even if only to the 
 front door, and with his overcoat and 
 muffler. "He might have caught cold 
 and died," gasped Therese, in answer 
 to her mother's remonstrance. What 
 would the mother have said had she 
 
 37 
 
Cl)e Jlotje0 of 
 
 known that her daughter actually had 
 run out into the street, and had been 
 prevented from following Beethoven 
 until she overtook him only by the but- 
 ler's timely action ! 
 
 Therese's brother Franz was devoted 
 to her. As a boy he had taken his other 
 sister (afterward Blanka Teleki's mo- 
 ther) out in a boat on the "Mediterra- 
 nean," one of the ponds at Montonva- 
 sar, the Brunswick country estate. The 
 boat upset. Therese, who was watch- 
 ing them from the bank, rushed in and 
 hauled them out. Franz was asked if 
 he had been frightened. "No," he an- 
 swered, "I saw my good angel com- 
 ing." 
 
 When he became intimate with Beet- 
 hoven, he told the composer about 
 this incident, and also how, after that 
 stormy music lesson, Therese had 
 started to overtake him with his coat 
 and muffler. Knowing what a lonely, 
 unhappy existence the composer led, 
 he could not help adding that life would 
 38 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 be very different if he had a good angel 
 to watch over him, such as he had in 
 his sister. 
 
 Franz Uttle knew that his words fell 
 upon Beethoven like seed on eager soil. 
 From that time on he looked at The- 
 rese with different eyes. His own love 
 soon taught him to know that he was 
 loved in return. No pledge had yet 
 passed between them when, in May, 
 1806, he went to Montonvasar on a 
 visit ; but one evening there, whenThe- 
 rese was standing at the piano listen- 
 ing to him play, he softly intoned 
 Baches— 
 
 "Would you your true heart show me, 
 
 Begin it secretly, 
 For all the love you trow me. 
 
 Let none the wiser be. 
 Our love, great beyond measure, 
 
 To none must we impart; 
 So, lock our rarest treasure 
 
 Securely in your heart." 
 
 Next morning they met in the park. 
 He told her that at last he had disco- 
 
 39 
 
%\^t JLotjes of 
 
 vered in her the model for his Leo- 
 nore, the heroine of his opera "Fidelio." 
 "And so we found each other" — these 
 were the simple words with which, 
 many years later, Therese concluded 
 the narrative of her betrothal with 
 Beethoven to Miriam Tenger. 
 
 The engagement had to be kept a se- 
 cret. Had it become known, it would 
 have ended in his immediate dismissal 
 by the Countess* mother. In only one 
 person was confidence reposed, Franz, 
 the devoted brother and treasured 
 friend. Therese's income was small, 
 and Franz, knowing the opposition 
 with which the proposed match would 
 meet, pointed out to Beethoven that it 
 would be necessary for him to secure 
 a settled position and income before 
 the engagement could be published 
 and the marriage take place. The com- 
 poser himself saw the justice of this, 
 and assented. 
 
 Early in July Beethoven left Monton- 
 vasar for Furen, a health resort on the 
 40 
 
(Bxtat Composers 
 
 Plattensee, which he reached after a 
 hard trip. Fatigued, grieving over the 
 first parting from Therese, and down- 
 cast over his uncertain future, he there 
 wrote the letter to his "Immortal Be- 
 loved," which is now one of the trea- 
 sures of the Berlin Library. It is a long 
 letter, much too long to be given here 
 in full, written for the most part in ejac- 
 ulatory phrases, and curiously alter- 
 nating between love, despair, courage 
 and hopefulness and commonplace, 
 everyday affairs. Nor will space permit 
 me to tell how Alexander W. Thayer, 
 an American, who spent a great part 
 of his life and means in gathering de- 
 tailed and authentic data for a Beetho- 
 ven biography, — which, however, he 
 did not live to finish, — worked out the 
 year in which this letter was written 
 (Beethoven gave only the day of the 
 month); showed that it must be 1806; 
 proved further that it could not have 
 been intended for Giulietta Guicciardi, 
 yet did not venture to state that Count- 
 
 41 
 
ess Therese Brunswick was the un- 
 doubted recipient. Afterward, I believe, 
 he heard of Miriam Tenger, entered 
 into correspondence with her, and the 
 letters doubtless will be found among 
 his papers ; but he did not live to make 
 use of the information. 
 
 One of the reasons why the identity 
 of the recipient of Beethoven's letter 
 remained so long unknown was that 
 he did not address her by name. The 
 letter begins: "My angel, my all, my- 
 self!" In order to secure a fixed posi- 
 tion, Beethoven had decided to try 
 Prussia and even England, and this in- 
 tention he refers to when, after apo- 
 strophizing Therese as his "immor- 
 tal beloved," he writes these burning 
 words: 
 
 "Yes, I have decided to toss abroad so 
 long, until I can fly to your arms and call 
 myself at home with you, and let my 
 soul, enveloped in your love, wander 
 through the kingdom of spirits." The 
 letter has this exclamatory postscript: 
 42 
 
€xmt Composers 
 
 "Eternally yours! 
 Eternally mine! 
 Eternally one another*s!" 
 
 The engagement lasted until 1810, four 
 years, when the letters, which through 
 Franz's aid had passed between Beet- 
 hoven and Therese, were returned. 
 Therese, however, always treasured 
 as one of her "j ewels " a sprig of immor- 
 telle fastened with a ribbon to a bit 
 of paper, the ribbon fading with pass- 
 ing years, the paper growing yellow, 
 but still showing the words: ^^ Ulm - 
 mortelle k son Immortelle — Luigi ." 
 
 It had been Beethoven's custom to 
 enclose a sprig of immortelle in nearly 
 every letter he sent her, and all these 
 sprigs she kept in her desk many, many 
 years. She made a white silken pillow 
 of the flowers; and, when death came 
 at last, she was laid at rest, her head 
 cushioned on the mementos of the man 
 she had loved. 
 
 43 
 
anD ^is Cecile 
 
anti ^is Cettle 
 
 ENDELSSOHN was a pop- 
 ular idol. On his death the 
 mournful news was plac- 
 arded all over Leipsic, where 
 he had made his home, and there was 
 an immense funeral procession. When 
 the church service was over, a woman 
 in deep mourning was led to the bier, 
 and sinking down beside it, remained 
 long in prayer. It was Cecile taking her 
 last farewell of Felix. 
 
 Mendelssohn was born under a lucky 
 star. The pathways of most musical 
 geniuses are covered with thorns ; his 
 was strewn with roses. The Mendels- 
 sohn family, originally Jewish, was 
 well-to-do and highly refined, and Fe- 
 lix's grandfather was a philosophical 
 writer of some note. This inspired the 
 oft-quoted mot of the musician's fa- 
 ther: "Once I was known as the son 
 
 47 
 
Cl)e 
 
 Hobes; of 
 
 of the famous Mendelssohn; now I am 
 known as the father of the famous 
 Mendelssohn." 
 
 Felix was an amazingly clever, fasci- 
 nating boy. Coincident with his musi- 
 cal gifts he had a talent for art. Goethe 
 was captivated by him, and the many 
 distinguished friends of the Mendels- 
 sohn house in Berlin adored him. This 
 house was a gathering place of artists, 
 musicians, literary men and scientists ; 
 his genius had the stimulus found in 
 the "atmosphere "of such ahousehold. 
 There was one member of that house- 
 hold between whom and himself the 
 most tender relations existed, — his 
 sister Fanny, who became the wife of 
 Hensel, the artist. The musical tastes 
 of Felix and Fanny were alike: she was 
 the confidante of his ambitions, and 
 thus was created between them an 
 artistic sympathy, which from child- 
 hood greatly strengthened the family 
 bond. Growing up amid love and de- 
 votion, to say nothing of the admira- 
 48 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY 
 
<^reat Composers 
 
 tion accorded his genius in the home 
 circle, with tastes, naturally refined, 
 cultivated to the utmost both by edu- 
 cation and absorption, he was apt to 
 be most fastidious in the choice of 
 a wife. Fastidiousness in everything 
 was, in fact, one of his traits. One has 
 but to recall how, one after another, he 
 rejected the subjects thatwere offered 
 him for operatic composition. '^I am 
 afraid," said his father, who was quite 
 anxious to see his famous son properly 
 settled in life, "that Felix's censorious- 
 ness will prevent his getting a wife as 
 well as a libretto." 
 
 It may have been a regretful feeling 
 that he had disappointed his father by 
 not marrying which led him, after the 
 latter's sudden death in November, 
 1835, to consider the matter more se- 
 riously. He hastened to Berlin to his 
 mother, and then returned to Leipsic, 
 where he had charge of the famous Ge- 
 wandhaus concerts. He settled down 
 to work again, and especially to finish 
 
 49 
 
Clje Joints of 
 
 his oratorio of "St. Paul." In March, 
 1836, the University of Leipsic made 
 him a Ph.D. 
 In May or June of this year a friend 
 and colleague named Schelble, who 
 conducted the Csecilia Singing Society 
 at Frankfort-on-the-Main, was taken 
 ill, and, desiring to rest and recuper- 
 ate, asked Mendelssohn to officiate in 
 his place. The request came at an in- 
 convenient time, for he had planned to 
 take some recreation himself, and had 
 mapped out a tour to Switzerland and 
 Genoa. But Felix was an obliging fel- 
 low, and promptly responded with an 
 affirmative when his colleague called 
 upon him for aid. The unselfish relin- 
 quishment of his intended tour was to 
 meet with a further reward than that 
 which comes from the satisfaction of a 
 good deed done at some self-sacrifice, 
 and this reward was the more grateful 
 because unexpected by his friends, his 
 family, or even himself. Yet it was de- 
 stined to delight them all. 
 50 
 
(threat Compo0er0 
 
 Felix was in Frankfort six weeks. So 
 short a period rarely leads to a decisive 
 event in a man's life, but did so in Men- 
 delssohn's case. He occupied lodgings 
 in a house on the Schone Aussicht 
 (Beautiful View), with an outlook upon 
 the river. But there was another beau- 
 tiful view in Frankfort which occupied 
 his attention far more, for among those 
 he met during his sojourn in the city 
 on the Main was C6cile, — C6cile Char- 
 lotte Sophie Jeanrenaud. Her father, 
 long dead, had been the pastor of the 
 French Walloon Reformed Church in 
 Frankfort, where his widow and chil- 
 dren moved in the best social circles 
 of the city. C6cile, then seventeen (ten 
 years younger than Felix), was a 
 "beauty" of amostdelicate type. Mme. 
 Jeanrenaud still was a fine-looking 
 woman, and possibly because of this 
 fact, coupled with Felix's shy manner 
 in the presence of Cecile, now that 
 for the first time his heart was deeply 
 touched, it was at first supposed that 
 
 51 
 
C|)e lLo\its of 
 
 he was courting the mother; and her 
 children, C6cile included, twitted her 
 on it. 
 Now Felix acted in a manner char- 
 acteristic of his bringing up and of the 
 bent of his genius. Mozart, Beethoven, 
 Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Wagner — 
 not one of these hesitated a moment 
 where his heart was concerned. If any- 
 thing, they were too impetuous. They 
 are the masters of the passionate ex- 
 pression in music; Mendelssohn's mu- 
 sic is of the refined, delicate type — like 
 his own bringing up. The perfectly 
 polished "Songs without Words," the 
 smoothlyflowingsymphonies,thelyric 
 violin concerto — these are most typi- 
 cal of his genius. Only here and there 
 in his works are there fitful flashes of 
 deeper significance, as in certain dra- 
 matic passages of the "Elijah" orato- 
 rio. And so, when Felix found himself 
 possessed of a passion for Cecile Jean- 
 renaud, the beautiful, he did not throw 
 himself at her feet and pour out a con- 
 52 
 
(threat Compofiftr0 
 
 fession of love to her. Far from it. With 
 a calmness that would make one feel 
 like pinching him, were it not that af- 
 ter all the story has a "happy ending," 
 he left Frankfort at the end of six 
 weeks, when his feelings were at their 
 height, and in order to submit the 
 state of his affections to a cool and un- 
 prejudiced scrutiny, he went to Sche- 
 veningen, Holland, where he spent a 
 month. Anything more characteristi- 
 cally Mendelssohnian can scarcely be 
 imagined than this leisurely passing 
 of judgment on his own heart. 
 JustwhatC6cilethoughtofhissudden 
 departure we do not know. No doubt by 
 that time she had ceased twitting her 
 mother on Felixes supposed intentions 
 to make Frau Mendelssohn of Mme. 
 Jeanrenaud, for it must have become 
 apparent that the attentions of the fa- 
 mous composer were not directed to- 
 ward the beautiful mother, but toward 
 the more beautiful daughter. If, how- 
 ever, she felt at all uneasy at his go- 
 
 53 
 
Cl)e HoMtsi of 
 
 ing away at the time when he should 
 have been preparing to declare himself, 
 her doubts would have been dispelled 
 could she have read some of the letters 
 which he dispatched from Scheven- 
 ingen.That she herself was captivated 
 by him there seems no doubt. It was 
 an amusing change from her precon- 
 ceived notion of him. She had ima- 
 gined him a stiff, disagreeable, jeal- 
 ous old man, who wore a green velvet 
 skull-cap and played tedious fugues. 
 This prejudice, needless to say, was 
 dispelled at their first meeting, when 
 she found the crabbed creation of her 
 fancy a man of the world, with gra- 
 cious, winning manners, and a brilliant 
 conversationalist not only on music, 
 but also on other topics. 
 It is a curious coincidence that when 
 Felix left Frankfort for Scheveningen, 
 with the image of this fair being in his 
 heart, the Caecilia Society should have 
 presented him with a handsome dress- 
 ing-case marked "F. M.-B. and Cae- 
 54 
 

 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^B 
 
 ^^^^^1^^^^ 
 
 ^^^B 
 
 I^^^^^^^^^^^^B^' ''^V^ ' M 
 
 ^^^^K^'^H 
 
 ^^^^ 
 
 ^l^i*^ 
 
 
 ''«r .^m ~^^^^H 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 /^■H^H 
 
 
 rM^m^^M 
 
 g_^ 
 
 
 FANNY HENSEL, SISTER OF MENDELSSOHN 
 
d^reat Compo0er0 
 
 cilia-"' He had come to Frankfort to 
 conduct the Cascilia ; he had met Cseci- 
 lia; and now he was at the last mo- 
 ment reminded that he was leaving 
 Caecilia behind; yet he was carrying 
 Caecilia with him. If there is anything 
 prophetic in coincidences, everything 
 pointed to the fact that Caecilia was to 
 play a more prominent part in his life 
 than that of a mere name. 
 
 Even before Felix left Frankfort there 
 were some who were in his secret. Evi- 
 dently the Mendelssohn family had re- 
 ceived reports of his attentions to the 
 fair C6cile Jeanrenaud and were all 
 a-flutter with happy anticipation. For 
 there is a letter from Felix to his sister 
 Rebecca which must have been writ- 
 ten in answer to one from her contain- 
 ing something in the nature of an in- 
 quiry regarding the state of his feel- 
 ings. "The present period in my life," 
 
 « The "-B" on the dressing-case stands for "-Bartholdy." 
 When the Mendelssohn family changed from Judaism to 
 Protestantism, it added the mother's family name. 
 
 55 
 
Clje 5Lot)e0 of 
 
 he writes to her, "is avery strange one, 
 for I am more desperately in love than 
 I ever was before, and I do not know 
 what to do. I leave Frankfort the day 
 after to-morrow, but I feel as if it would 
 cost me my life. At all events I intend 
 to return here and see this charming 
 girl once more before I go back to Leip- 
 sic. But I have not an idea whether she 
 likes me or not, and I do not know what 
 to do to make her like me, as I already 
 have said. But one thing is certain— 
 that to her I owe the first real happi- 
 ness 1 have had this year, and now I 
 feel fresh and hopeful again for the first 
 time. When away from her, though, I 
 always am sad — now, you see, I have 
 let you into a secret which nobody else 
 knows anything about; but in order 
 that you may set the whole world an 
 example in discretion, I will tell you 
 nothing more about it." He adds that 
 he is going to detest the seashore, and 
 ends with the exclamation, "O Rebec- 
 ca! What shall I do?" Rebecca might 
 56 
 
(threat Compo^er^ 
 
 have answered, "Tell C6cile, instead of 
 me;" and, indeed, I wonder if she did 
 not take occasion to drop a few hint^ 
 to C6cile during her brother's absence 
 in Holland. 
 
 There was another who might have 
 told C^cile how Felix felt toward her, 
 — his mother. For to her he wrote from 
 Scheveningen. that he gladly would 
 send Holland, its dykes, sea baths, 
 bathing-machines, Kursaals and visir 
 tors to the end of the world to be back 
 in Frankfort. "When I have seen this 
 charming girl again, I hope the sus- 
 pense soon will be over and I shall 
 know whether we are to be anything 
 — or rather everything — to each other, 
 or not." Evidently his scrutiny of his 
 own feelings was leading him to a very 
 definite conclusion. He was in Sche- 
 veningen, but his heart was in the city 
 on the Main, and he was wishing him- 
 self back in the Schone Aussicht — 
 longing for that "beautiful view" once 
 more. 
 
 57 
 
C|)e JLotje0 of 
 
 Back to Frankfort he hied himself as 
 soon as the month in Holland was hap- 
 pily over. It was not only back to Frank- 
 fort,it was backtoC6cile,inevery sense 
 of the words ; for if Rebecca and his mo- 
 ther had not conveyed to the delicate 
 beauty some suggestion of the feelings 
 she had inspired in Felix's heart, she 
 herself must have become aware of 
 them, and of something very much like 
 in her own, since matters were not long 
 in coming to a point after his return. 
 He spent August at Scheveningen ; 
 in September his suspense was over, 
 for his engagement to Cecile formally 
 took place at Kronberg, near Frank- 
 fort. Three weeks later he was obliged 
 to go back to his duties at Leipsic. 
 How much he was beloved by the pub- 
 lic appears from the fact that at the 
 next Gewandhaus concert the direc- 
 tors placed on the programme, " Wer 
 ein Holdes Weib Errungen" (He who 
 a Lovely Wife has Won) from "Fide- 
 lio," and that when the number was 
 58 
 
CECILE, WIFE OF MENDELSSOHN 
 
d^reat Composers 
 
 reached, and Felix raised his b^ton, 
 the audience burst into applause which 
 continued a long time. It was their 
 congratulations to their idol on his be- 
 trothal. 
 
 "Les Feliciens" was the title given 
 to Felix and C6cile by his sister Fanny 
 later in life. At this time Mendelssohn 
 himself was indescribably happy. At 
 least, he could not himself find words in 
 which to express all he felt. It is plea- 
 sant to find that a great composer is no 
 exception to the rule which makes lov- 
 ers "too happy for words." "But what 
 words am I to use in describing my 
 happiness?" he writes to his sister. "I 
 do not know and am dumb, but not for 
 the same reason as the monkeys on the 
 Orinoco — far from it." 
 
 We gain an ideaof C6cile's social posi- 
 tion from Felix's statement, contained 
 in this same letter, that he and his fian- 
 cee are obliged to make one hundred 
 and sixty-three calls in Frankfort. This 
 was written before he had returned to 
 
 59 
 
Clje iloljesf of 
 
 his duties in Leipsic. Christmas again 
 found him with his betrothed and again 
 writing to Fanny — this time about a 
 portrait of C6cile, which her family had 
 given him. "They gave me a portrait 
 of her on Christmas, but it only stirred 
 up afresh my wrath against all bad art- 
 ists. She looks like an ordinary young 
 woman flattered." (Rather a good bit 
 of criticism.) "It really is too bad that 
 with such a sitter the fellow could not 
 have shown a spark of poetry." It is 
 quite evident that Felix was much in 
 love with his fair fianc6e. 
 
 He and C6cile were married in her 
 father^s former church in March, 1837. 
 During their honeymoon Felix wrote 
 to his friend, Eduard Devrient, the fa- 
 mous actor, from the Bavarian high- 
 lands. A rare spirit of peace and con- 
 tentment breathes through the letter. 
 "You know that I am here with my 
 wife, my dear C6cile, and that it is our 
 wedding tour; that we already are an 
 old married couple of six weeks' stand- 
 60 
 
(threat Compo0er0 
 
 ing. There is so much to tell you that 
 I know not how to make a beginning. 
 Picture it to yourself. I can only say 
 that I am too happy, too glad; and yet 
 not at all beside myself, as I should have 
 expected to be, but calm and accus- 
 tomed, as though it could not be other- 
 wise. But you should knowmy C6cile!" 
 Evidently such a love as was here de- 
 scribed was not a mere sentimental 
 flash in the pan. It was an affection 
 founded on reciprocal tastes and sym- 
 pathies, the kind that usually lasts. 
 C6cile was refined and delicate, and 
 beautiful. She was just the woman to 
 grace the home that a fastidious man 
 like Mendelssohn would want to esta- 
 bUsh. 
 
 The most insistent note to be ob- 
 served in his correspondence from this 
 time on is that of a desire to remain 
 within his own four walls. Fanny had 
 been advised to go to the seashore for 
 her health, but had delayed doing so 
 because loath to leave her husband. 
 
 6i 
 
Clje JLotits of 
 
 << 
 
 Think of me," writes Felix, urging 
 her to go, "who must in a few weeks, 
 though we have not been married four 
 months yet, leave Cecile here and go 
 to England by myself — all, too, for the 
 sake of a music festival. Gracious me! 
 All this is no joke. But possibly the 
 death of the King of England will in- 
 tervene and put a stop to the whole 
 project." The life of a king meant little 
 to Felix in the distressing prospect of 
 being obliged to leave his Cecile. Felix, 
 the husband, was not as eager to travel 
 as Felix, the bachelor, had been. 
 There are various "appreciations" of 
 Cecile. The least enthusiastic, per- 
 haps, is that of Hensel, Felix's brother- 
 in-law. He says that she was not a 
 striking person in anyway, neither ex- 
 traordinarily clever, brilliantly witty, 
 nor exceptionally accomplished. But 
 to this somewhat indefinite observa- 
 tion he adds that she exerted an influ- 
 ence as soothing as that of the open 
 sky, or running water. I ndeed, H ensel's 
 62 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 first frigid reserve yielded to the opin- 
 ion that C^cile's gentleness and bright- 
 ness made Felixes life one continued 
 course of happiness to the end. It was 
 some time after the marriage before 
 Mendelssohn's sisters saw C6cile for 
 the first time. The good they heard of 
 her made them the more impatient to 
 meet her. "I tell you candidly," the 
 clever Fanny writes to her, "that by 
 this time, when anybody comes to talk 
 to me about your beauty and your eyes, 
 it makes me quite cross. I have had 
 enough of hearsay, and beautiful eyes 
 were not made to be heard." When at 
 last Fanny did see C6cile, this fond 
 sister of Felix's, who naturally would 
 be most critical, was enthusiastic over 
 her. "She is amiable, simple, fresh, 
 happy and even-tempered, and I con- 
 sider Felix most fortunate. For though 
 loving him inexpressibly, she does not 
 spoil him, but when he is moody, meets 
 him with a self-restraint which in due 
 course of time will cure him of his mood- 
 
 63 
 
Cl)e JLotits of 
 
 iness altogether. The effect of her pre- 
 sence is like that of afresh breeze, she 
 is so light and bright and natural.'' 
 To my mind, however, Devrient has 
 drawn the bestword portraitof her. Af- 
 ter their first meeting he wrote : " How 
 often we had pictured the kind of wo- 
 man that would be a true second half 
 to Felix; and now the lovely, gentle 
 being was before us, whose glance and 
 smile alone promised all that we could 
 desire for the happiness of our spoilt 
 favorite." Later, Devrient finished the 
 picture : "C6cile was one of those sweet, 
 womanly natures whose gentle sim- 
 plicity, whose mere presence, soothed 
 and pleased. She was slender, with 
 strikingly beautiful and delicate fea- 
 tures; her hairwas between brown and 
 gold; but the transcendent lustre of her 
 great blue eyes, and the brilliant roses 
 on her cheeks, were sad harbingers of 
 early death. She spoke little and never 
 with animation, and in a low, soft voice. 
 Shakespeare's words, 'my gracious si- 
 64 
 
THE MENDELSSOHN MONUMENT IN LEIPSIG 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 lence/ applied to her, no less than to 
 Cordelia." 
 
 Thus, while C6cile does not seem to 
 have been an extraordinarily gifted 
 woman from an artistic or intellectual 
 point of view, it is quite evident that 
 she possessed a refinement that must 
 have appealed forcibly to a man brought 
 up in such genteel surroundings and 
 as sensitive as Mendelssohn. Such a 
 woman must have been, after all, bet- 
 ter suited to his delicate genius than a 
 wife of unusual gifts would have been. 
 For it is a helpmeet, not another ge- 
 nius, that a man of genius really needs 
 most. The woman who, without being 
 prosy or commonplace and without al- 
 lowing herself to retrograde in looks 
 or in personal care, can run a house- 
 hold in a systematic, orderly fashion is 
 the greatest blessing that Providence 
 can bestow upon genius. Evidently C6- 
 cile was just such a woman. Her tact 
 seems to have been as delicate as her 
 beauty. Without, perhaps, having di- 
 
 65 
 
d)e ILotje0 of 
 
 rectly inspired any composition of her 
 husband's, her gentleness, her simple 
 grace, doubtless left their mark on 
 many bars of his music. 
 
 It seems doubly cruel that death 
 should have cut Felix down when he 
 had enjoyed but ten happy years with 
 his C6cile. Yet had his life been long, 
 thepangof separation would soon have 
 come to him. Devrient had not been 
 mistaken when he spoke of "those sad 
 harbingers of early death ;" and Cecile 
 survived Felix scarcely five years. 
 
 Felix's death occurred at Leipsic in 
 1847. In September, while listening to 
 his own recently composed "Nacht 
 Lied" he swooned away. His system, 
 weakened by overwork, succumbed, 
 nervous prostration followed, and on 
 November4he died. Sudden death had 
 carried off his grandfather, father, mo- 
 ther and favorite sister; and he had a 
 presentiment that his end would come 
 about in the same way. During the dull 
 half-sleep preceding death he spoke 
 66 
 
d^reat Compoeers 
 
 but once, and then to C6cile in answer 
 to her inquiry how he felt — "Tired, 
 very tired." 
 
 Devrient tells how he went to the 
 house of mutual friends in Dresden 
 for news of Mendelssohn's condition, 
 when Clara Schumann came in, a let- 
 ter in her hand and weeping, and told 
 them that Felix had died the previous 
 evening. Devrient hastened to Leipsic, 
 and C6cile sent for him. I cannot close 
 this article more fittingly than with his 
 description of their meeting in the pre- 
 sence of the illustrious dead — the cher- 
 ished friend of one, the husband of the 
 other. 
 
 "She received me with the tender- 
 ness of a sister, wept in silence, and 
 was calm and composed as ever. She 
 thanked me for all the love and devo- 
 tion I had shown to her Felix, grieved 
 for me that I should have to mourn so 
 faithful a friend, and spoke of the love 
 with which Felix always had regarded 
 me. Long we spoke of him ; it comforted 
 
 67 
 
C|)e lUtjes of 
 
 her, and she was loath for me to de- 
 part. She was most unpretentious in 
 her sorrow, gentle, and resigned to live 
 for the care and education of her chil- 
 dren. She said God would help her, and 
 surely her boys would have the inher- 
 itance of some of their father's genius. 
 There could not be a more worthy 
 memory of him than the well-balanced, 
 strong and tender heart of this mourn- 
 ing widow." 
 
 68 
 
anO tfyt Countess Delpfiine Potodta 
 
Cftopttt 
 
 anti ti^e 
 
 Counters SDelp|)ine i^otocfta 
 
 lER voice was destined to be 
 the last which should vibrate 
 upon the musician's heart. 
 Perhaps the sweetest sounds 
 of earth accompanied the parting soul 
 until they blended in his ear with the 
 first chords of the angels' lyres." 
 
 It is thus Liszt describes the voice 
 of Countess Delphine Potocka as it 
 vibrated through the room in which 
 Chopin lay dying. Witnesses disagree 
 regarding details. One of the small 
 company that gathered about his bed 
 says she sang but once, others that she 
 sang twice ; and even these vary when 
 they name the compositions. Yet how- 
 ever they may differ on these minor 
 points, they agree as to the main in- 
 cident That the beautiful Delphine 
 
 71 
 
C!)e JLotjeg of 
 
 sang for the dying Chopin is not a mere 
 pleasing tradition; it is a fact. Her 
 voice ravished the ear of the great com- 
 poser, whose life was ebbing away, and 
 soothed his last hours. 
 
 "Therefore, then, has God so long de- 
 layed to call me to Him. He wanted to 
 vouchsafe me the joy of seeing you." 
 These were the words Chopin whis- 
 pered when he opened his eyes and saw, 
 beside his sister Louise, the Countess 
 Delphine Potocka, who had hurried 
 from a distance as soon as she was noti- 
 fied that his end was drawing near. She 
 was one of those rare and radiant souls 
 who could bestow upon this delicate 
 child of genius her tenderest friend- 
 ship, perhaps even her love, yet keep 
 herself unsullied and an object of ado- 
 ration as much for her purity as for 
 her beauty. Because she was Chopin's 
 friend, because she came to him in his 
 dying hours, because along paths un- 
 seen by those about them her voice 
 threaded its way to his very soul, no 
 72 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 From the portrait by Schick 
 
(threat Compostrs 
 
 life of him is complete without mention 
 of her, and in the mind of the musical 
 public her name is irrevocably asso- 
 ciated with his. Each succeeding bio- 
 grapher of the great composer has 
 sought to tell us a little more about her 
 — yet little is known of her even now 
 beyond the fact that she was very beau- 
 tiful — and so eager have we been for a 
 glimpse of her face that we have ac- 
 cepted without reserve as an authentic 
 presentment of herfeatures the famous 
 portrait of a Countess Potocka who, I 
 find, died some seven or eight years 
 before Delphine and Chopin met. 
 
 But we have portraits of Delphine by 
 Chopin himself, not drawn with pencil 
 or crayon, or painted with brush, but 
 her face as his soul saw it and trans- 
 formed it into music. Listen to a great 
 virtuoso play his two concertos. Ask 
 yourself which of the six movements is 
 the most beautiful. Surely your choice 
 will fall on the slow movement of the 
 second — dedicated to the Countess 
 
 73 
 
C!)e 5Lot)es of 
 
 Delphine Potocka, and one of the com- 
 poser's most tender and exquisite pro- 
 ductions; or play over the waltzes— 
 the one over which for grace and poetic 
 sentiment you will linger longest will 
 be the sixth, dedicated to the Countess 
 Delphine Potocka. 
 
 Liszt, who knew Chopin, tells us that 
 the composer evinced a decided pre- 
 ference for the Adagio of the second 
 concerto and liked to repeat it fre- 
 quently. He speaks of the Adagio, this 
 musical portrait of Delphine, as almost 
 ideally perfect ; now radiant with light, 
 now full of tender pathos ; a happy vale 
 of Tempe, a magnificent landscape 
 flooded with summer glow and lustre, 
 yet forming a background for the re- 
 hearsal of some dire scene of mortal an- 
 guish, a contrast sustained by a fusion 
 of tones, a softening of gloomy hues, 
 which, while saddening joy, soothes 
 the bitterness of sorrow. 
 
 What a lifelike portrait Chopin drew 
 in this "beautiful, deep-toned, love- 
 74 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 laden cantilena"! For was it not the 
 incomparable Delphine who was de- 
 stined to "soothe the bitterness of sor- 
 row" during his final hours on earth? 
 But while hers was a soul strung with 
 chords that vibrated to the slightest 
 breath of sorrow, she could be vivacious 
 as well. She was a child of Poland, that 
 land of sorrow, but where sorrow, for 
 very excess of itself, sometimes reverts 
 to joy. And so she had her brilliant, joy- 
 ous moments. Chopin saw her in such 
 moments, too, and, that the recollec- 
 tion might not pass away, for all time 
 fixed her picture in her vivacious moods 
 in the last movement, the Allegro vi- 
 vace of the concerto, with what Niecks, 
 one of the leading modern biographers 
 of the composer, calls its feminine soft- 
 ness and rounded contours, its grace- 
 ful, gyrating, dance-like motions, its 
 sprightliness and frolicsomeness. In 
 the same way in the waltz, there is an 
 obvious mingling of the gay and the 
 sad, the tender and the debonair. Cho- 
 
 75 
 
%^t JLotjes of 
 
 pin thought he was writing a waltz. 
 He really was writing "Delphine Po- 
 tocka." He, too, was from Poland, and 
 that circumstance of itself drew them 
 to each other from the time when they 
 first met in France. 
 
 One of Chopin's favorite musical a- 
 musements, when he was a guest at 
 the houses of his favorite friends, was 
 to play on the piano musical portraits 
 of the company. At the salon of the 
 Countess Komar, Delphine's mother, 
 he played one evening the portraits of 
 the two daughters of the house. When 
 it came to Delphine's he gently drew her 
 light shawl from her shoulders, spread 
 it over the keyboard, and then played 
 through it, his fingers, with every tone 
 they produced, coming in touch with 
 the gossamer-like fabric, still warm 
 and hallowed for him from its contact 
 with her. 
 
 It seems to have been about 1830 that 
 Delphine first came into the compos- 
 er's lif^. In that year the Count and 
 76 
 
(threat Compo0et0 
 
 Countess Komar and their three beau- 
 tiful daughters arrived in Nice. Count 
 Komar >yas business manager for one 
 of the Potockas. The girls made bril- 
 liant matches. Marie became the Prin- 
 cess de Beauvau-Craon; Delphine be- 
 came the Countess Potocka, and Na- 
 thalie, the Marchioness Medici Spada. 
 The last named died a victim to her 
 zeal as nurse during a cholera plague 
 in Rome. 
 Chopin was a man who attracted wo- 
 men. His delicate physique, — he died 
 of consumption,— -his refined, poetic 
 temperament, and his exquisite art as 
 a composer combined with his beau- 
 tiful piano playing, so well suited to the 
 intimate circle of the drawing-room, to 
 make his personality a thoroughly fas- 
 cinating one. Moreover, he was, be- 
 sides an artist, a gentleman, with the 
 reserve yet charm of manner that char- 
 acterizes the man of breeding. In men 
 women admire two extremes, — splen- 
 did physical strength, or the delicacy 
 
 77 
 
C|)e ILoMts of 
 
 that suggests a poetic soul. Chopin was 
 a creator of poetic music and a gentle 
 virtuoso. His appearance harmonized 
 with his genius. He was one of his own 
 nocturnes in which you can feel a vague 
 presentiment of untimely death. 
 
 He is described as a model son, an af- 
 fectionate brother and a faithful friend. 
 His eyes were brown; his hair was 
 chestnut, luxuriant and as soft as silk. 
 His complexion was of transparent de- 
 licacy ; his voice subdued and musical. 
 He moved with grace. Born near War- 
 saw, in 1809, he was brought up in his 
 father's school with the sons of aristo- 
 crats. He had the manners of an aris-- 
 tocrat, and was careful in his dress. / 
 
 But despite his sensitive nature, he 
 could resent undue familiarity or rude- 
 ness, yet in a refined way all his own. 
 Once when he was a guest at dinner 
 at a rich man's house in Paris, he was 
 asked by the host to play — a patent 
 violation of etiquette toward a distin- 
 guished artist. Chopin demurred. The 
 78 
 
(Bxtat Compo2ier0 
 
 host continued to press him, urging 
 that Liszt and Thalberg had played in 
 his house after dinner. 
 
 "But," protested Chopin, "I have 
 eaten so little !" and thus put an end to 
 the matter. 
 
 Some twenty or thirty of the best sa- 
 lons in Paris were open to him. Among 
 them were those of the Polish exiles, 
 some of whom he had known since their 
 school-days at his father*s. He was in 
 the truest sense of the word a friend of 
 those who entertained him — in fact, 
 one of them. For a list of those among 
 whom he moved socially read the de- 
 dications on his music. They include 
 wealthy women, like Mme. Nathaniel 
 de Rothschild, but also a long line of 
 princesses and countesses. In the salon 
 of the Potocka he was intimately at 
 home, and it was especially there he 
 drew his musical portraits at the piano. 
 Delphine, his brilliant countrywoman, 
 vibrated with music herself. She pos- 
 sessed " une belle voixdesoprano, "and 
 
 79 
 
CI)e Hotjes of 
 
 sang ** d'apr^s la m6thode des maJtres 
 dltalie." 
 
 In her salon were heard such singers 
 as Rubini, Lablache,Tamburini, Mali- 
 bran, Grisi and Persiani. Yet it was her 
 voice Chopin wished to hear when he 
 lay dying! Truly hers must have been 
 a marvellous gift of song! At her salon 
 it was his delight to accompany her 
 with his highly poetical playing. From 
 what is known of his delicate art as a 
 pianist it is possible to imagine how 
 exquisitely his accompaniments must 
 have both sustained and mingled with 
 that '* belle voix de soprano ." He had a 
 knack of improvising a melody to any 
 poem that happened to take his fancy, 
 and thus he and Delphine would treat 
 to an improvised song the 61ite of the 
 musical, artistic, literary and social 
 world that gathered in her salon. It is 
 unfortunate that these improvisations 
 werelightlyforgottenbythecomposer, 
 for he has left us few songs. Delphine 
 ''tookas much trouble in giving choice 
 80 
 
COUNTESS POTOCKA 
 From the famous pastel in the Royal Berlin Gallery. Artist unknown 
 
<15reat Compo0er0 
 
 musical entertainments as other peo- 
 ple did in giving choice dinners." Her 
 salon must have been a resort after the 
 composer's own heart. 
 
 Liszt, who knew Delphine well dur- 
 ing Chopin's lifetime, and from whose 
 letters, as yet untranslated into Eng- 
 lish, I have been able to unearth a few 
 references to her (the last in May,i86i, 
 nearly twelve years after Chopin died, 
 and the last definite reference to her 
 which I have been able to discover), 
 says that her indescribable and spirit- 
 ed grace made her one of the most ad- 
 mired sovereigns of the society of Paris. 
 He speaks of her "ethereal beauty" 
 and her "enchanting voice" which en- 
 chained Chopin. Delphine was, in fact, 
 "famous for her rare beauty and fas- 
 cinating singing." 
 
 No biography of Chopin contains so 
 much as the scrap of a letter either 
 from him to her, or from her to him. 
 That he should not have written is 
 hardly to be wondered at, considering 
 
 8i 
 
Clje JLotjes of 
 
 that letter writing was most repug- 
 nant to him. He would take along walk 
 in order to accept or decline an invi- 
 tation in person, rather than indite a 
 brief note. Moreover, in addition to this 
 trait, he was so often in the salon of 
 the Countess Potocka that much cor- 
 respondence with her was unneces- 
 sary. I have, however, discovered two 
 letters from her to the composer. One, 
 written in French, asks him to occupy 
 a seat in her box at a Berlioz concert. 
 The other is in Polish and is quite long. 
 It is undated, and there is nothing to 
 show from where it was written. Evi- 
 dently, however, she had heard that 
 he was ailing, for she begs him to send 
 her a few words, poste restante, to Aix- 
 la-Chapelle, letting her know how he 
 is. From this request it seems that she 
 was away from Paris (possibly in or 
 near Poland), but expected to start for 
 the French capital soon and wished to 
 be apprised of his condition at the ear- 
 liest moment. The anxious tone of the 
 82 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 letter leads me to believe that it was 
 written during the last year of the com- 
 poser's life, when the insidious nature 
 of the disease of which he was a vic- 
 tim had become apparent to himself 
 and his friends. ... "I cannot," she 
 writes, "wait so long without news 
 of your health and your plans for the 
 future. Do not attempt to write to 
 me yourself, but ask Mme. Etienne, or 
 that excellent grandma, who dreams 
 of chops, to let me know about your 
 strength, your chest, your breathing." 
 Delphine also was well aware of the 
 unsatisfactory state of his finances, 
 for she writes that she would like to 
 know something about "that Jew; if 
 he called and was able to be of service 
 to you." What follows is in a vein of 
 sadness, showing that her own Ufe was 
 not without its sorrows. "Here every- 
 thing is sad and lonely, but my life goes 
 on in much the usual way ; if only it will 
 continue without further bitter sor- 
 rows and trials, I shall be able to sup- 
 
 83 
 
Clje 3lot)e0 of 
 
 port it. For me the world has no more 
 happiness, no more joy. All those to 
 whom I have wished well ever have re- 
 warded me with ingratitude or caused 
 me other tribulations. " (The italics are 
 hers.) "After all, this existence is no- 
 thing but a great discord." Then, with 
 a " que Dieu vous garde, " she bids him 
 au revoir till the beginning of October 
 at the latest. 
 
 Note that it was in October, 1849, that 
 Chopin took to his deathbed; that in 
 another passage of the letter she ad- 
 vised him to think of Nice for the win- 
 ter ; and that it was from Nice she was 
 summoned to his bedside. It would 
 seem as if she had received alarming 
 advices regarding his health ; had has- 
 tened to Paris and then to the Riviera to 
 make arrangements for him to pass the 
 winter there ; and then, learning that 
 the worst was feared, had hurried back 
 to solace his last hours. 
 
 Then came what is perhaps the most 
 touching scene that has been handed 
 84 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 down to us from the lives of the great 
 composers. When Delphine entered 
 what was soon to be the death cham- 
 ber, Chopin's sister Louise and a few 
 of his most intimate friends were ga- 
 thered there. She took her place by 
 Louise. When the dying man opened 
 his eyes and saw her standing at the 
 foot of his bed, tall, slight, draped in 
 white, resembling a beautiful angel, 
 and mingling her tears with those of 
 his sister, his lips moved, and those 
 nearest him, bending over to catch his 
 words, heard him ask that she would 
 sing. 
 
 Mastering her emotion by a strong 
 effort of the will, she sang in a voice 
 of bell-like purity the canticle to the 
 Virgin attributed to Stradella,— sang 
 it so devoutly, so ethereally, that the 
 dying man, "artist and lover of the 
 beautiful to the very last," whispered 
 in ecstasy, "How exquisite! Again, 
 again!" 
 
 Once more she sang— this time a 
 
 85 
 
Cl)e JLotjes of 
 
 psalm by Marcello. It was the haunted 
 hour of twilight. The dying day draped 
 the scene in its mysterious shadows. 
 Those at the bedside had sunk noise- 
 lessly on their knees. Over the mourn- 
 ful accompaniment of sobs floated the 
 voice of Delphine like a melody from 
 heaven. 
 Chopin died on October 17, i849,(just 
 as the bells of Paris were tolling the 
 hour of three in the morning. He was 
 known to love flowers, and in death he 
 literally was covered with them. The 
 funeral was held from the Madeleine, 
 where Mozart's " Requiem " was sung, 
 the solos being taken by Pauline Viar- 
 dot-Garcia, Castellan and Lablache. 
 Meyerbeer is said to have conducted, 
 but this has been contradicted. H e was, 
 however, one of the pallbearers on the 
 long way from the church to Pere la 
 Chaise. When the remains were low- 
 ered into the grave, some Polish earth, 
 which Chopin had brought with him 
 from Wola nineteen years before and 
 86 
 
o = 
 
(Bxtat Composers 
 
 piously guarded, was scattered over 
 the coffin. There is nothing to show 
 what part, save that of a mourner, Del- 
 phine Potocka took in his funeral. But 
 though it was the famous Viardot-Gar- 
 cia whose voice rang out in the Made- 
 leine, it was hers that had sung him to 
 his eternal rest. 
 
 How long did Delphine survive Cho- 
 pin? In 1853 Liszt met her at Baden, 
 postponing his intended departure for 
 Carlsruhe a day in order to dine with 
 her. In May, 1861, he met her at dinner 
 at the Rothschilds'. When Chopin's 
 pupil, Mikuli, was preparing his edi- 
 tion of the composer's works, Delphine 
 furnished him copies of several com- 
 positions bearing expression marks 
 and other directions in the hand of Cho- 
 pin himself. Mikuli dated his edition 
 1879. It would seem as if the Countess 
 still were living at or about that time. 
 
 Besides the aid she thus gave in the 
 preparation of the Mikuli edition of 
 Chopin's works, there is other evidence 
 
 87 
 
C|)e 3lotje0 of 
 
 that she treasured the composer's me- 
 mory. In 1857, when he had been dead 
 eight years, there was pubHshed a bio- 
 graphical dictionary of PoHsh and Sla- 
 vonic musicians, a book now very rare. 
 Although the Potocka was only an 
 amateur, her name was included in the 
 publication. Evidently the biographies 
 of living people were furnished by 
 themselves. Chopin's fame at that time 
 did not approximate what it is now. 
 Yet in the second sentence of her bio- 
 graphy Delphine records that she was 
 "the intimate friend of the illustrious 
 Chopin." 
 
 Forgetting that the line of the Po- 
 tockis is along one, the public for years 
 has associated with Chopin the famous 
 pastel portrait of Countess Potocka in 
 the Royal Berlin Gallery. The Coun- 
 tess Potocka of that portrait had a ca- 
 reer that reads like a romance, but she 
 was Sophie, not Delphine Potocka. 
 My discovery of a miniature of Coun- 
 tess Sophie Potocka in Philadelphia, 
 88 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 painted some fifteen or twenty years 
 later than the Berlin pastel, and of nu- 
 merous references to her in the diary 
 of an American traveller who was en- 
 tertained by her in Poland early in the 
 last century, were among the interest^ 
 ing results of my search for informa- 
 tion regarding Delphine, but they have 
 no place here. Probably the public, 
 which clings to romance, still will cling 
 to the pastel portrait of Countess Po- 
 tocka as that of the woman who sang 
 to the dying Chopin— and so the por- 
 trait is reproduced here. 
 
 Barrias, the French historical painter,? 
 who was in Paris when Chopin lived 
 there, painted "The Death of Chopin.": 
 It shows Delphine singing to the dying' 
 man. As Barrias had his reputation as 
 a historical painter to sustain and as 
 the likenesses of others on the canvas 
 are correct, it is not improbable that 
 he painted Delphine as he saw or re- 
 membered her. If so, this is the only 
 known portrait of Chopin's faithful 
 
 89 
 
Wbt 3lotjes of 
 
 friend, theCountess Delphine Potocka. 
 Of course no one who undertakes to 
 write about Chopin (or only to read 
 about him for that matter) can escape 
 the episode with Mme. Dudevant,— 
 George Sand,— who used man after 
 manasliving"copy,"andwhenshehad 
 finished with him cast him aside for 
 some newexperience. But the story has 
 been admirably told by Huneker and 
 others and its disagreeable details need 
 not be repeated here. It may have been 
 love, even passion, while it lasted, but 
 itended in harsh discord ; whereas Del- 
 phine, sweet and pure and tender, ever 
 was like a strain of Chopin's own ex- 
 quisite music vibrating in a sympathe- 
 tic heart 
 
 90 
 
Eo&ett ano Clata 
 
laobert anD Clara 
 
 OBERT and Clara Schu- 
 mann are names as closely 
 linked in music as those of 
 Robert and Elizabeth Bar- 
 rett Browning in literature. Robert 
 Schumann was a great composer, Clara 
 Schumann a great pianist. In her dual 
 rdle of wife and virtuosa she was the 
 first to secure proper recognition for 
 her husband's genius. Surviving him 
 many years, she continued the foremost 
 interpreter of his works, winning new 
 laurels not only for herself but also for 
 him. He was in his grave — yet she had 
 but to press the keyboard and he lived 
 in her. Despite the fact that tastes un- 
 derwentachangeandWagnerbecame 
 the musical giant of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, Clara, faithful to the ideal of her 
 youth and her young womanhood, saw 
 to it that the fame of him whose name 
 
 93 
 
C|)e 3LoMts of 
 
 she bore remained undimmed. Hers 
 was, indeed, a consecrated widow- 
 hood. 
 Robert was eighteen years old, Clara 
 onlynine,whentheyfirstmet;butwhile 
 he had not yet definitely decided on a 
 profession, she, in the very year of their 
 meeting, made her d6but as a pianist, 
 and thus began a career which lasted 
 until 1896, a period of nearly seventy 
 years ! When they first met, Schumann 
 was studying law at the Leipsic Uni- 
 versity. Born in Zwickau, Saxony, in 
 1810, he showed both as a boy and as a 
 youth not only strong musical procli- 
 vities, but also decided literary predi- 
 lections. In the latter his father, a book- 
 seller and publisher, who loved his 
 trade, saw a reflection of his own tastes, 
 and they were encouraged rather more 
 sedulously than the boy's musical bent. 
 It was in obedience to his father's 
 wishes that he matriculated at Leip- 
 sic, although he composed and played 
 the piano, and his desire to make mu- 
 94 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 From a portrait by E. Bendemann 
 
 ^ ^\. O - ' ■:. j 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 sic his profession was beginning to get 
 the upper hand. His meeting with the 
 nine-year-old girl decided him — so 
 early in her life did she begin to influ- 
 ence his career! 
 
 Schumann had been invited by his 
 friends, Dr. and Mrs. Carus, to an even- 
 ing of music, and especially to hear the 
 piano playing of a wonder-child — a 
 "musical fairy," his hostess called her. 
 In the course of the evening he accom- 
 panied Frau Carus in some Schubert 
 songs, when, chancing to look up, he 
 saw a child dressed in white, her pretty 
 face framed in dark hair, her expressive 
 eyes raised toward the singer in rapt 
 admiration. The song over, and the ap- 
 plause having died away, he stepped 
 up to the child, laid his hand kindly on 
 her head, and asked, "Are you musical, 
 too, little one?" 
 
 Acurious smileplayed around her lips. 
 She was about to answer, when a man 
 came to her and led her to the piano, 
 and the first thing Schumann knew the 
 
 95 
 
Clje ILotje0 of 
 
 shapely little hands struck into Beet- 
 hoven's F-minor Sonata and played it 
 through with a firm, sure touch and 
 fine musical feeling. No wonder she had 
 smiled at his question. 
 
 "Was I right in calling her a* musical 
 fairy'?" asked Frau Carus of Schu- 
 mann. 
 
 "Her face is like that of a guardian 
 angel in a picture that hangs in my 
 mother's room at home," was his re- 
 ply. Little he knew then that this child 
 was destined to become his own good 
 fairy and "guardian angel." Had he 
 foreseen what she was to be to him, he 
 could not more aptly have described 
 her. The most important immediate 
 result of the meeting was that he be- 
 came a pupil of her father, Friedrich 
 Wieck, whose remarkable skill as a 
 teacher had carried his daughter so 
 far at such an early age. The lessons 
 stopped when Schumann went to Hei- 
 delberg to continue his studies, but he 
 and Wieck, who was convinced of the 
 96 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 young man's musical genius, corre- 
 sponded in a most friendly manner. 
 
 Clara, who was born in Leipsic in 1819, 
 became her father's pupil in her fifth 
 year. It is she who chiefly reflected 
 glory upon himasamaster, but, among 
 his other pupils, Hans von Billow be- 
 came famous, and Clara's half-sister 
 Marie also was a noted pianist. Wieck's 
 system was not a hard-and-fast one, 
 but varied according to the individu- 
 ality of each pupil. He was to his day 
 what Leschetizky, the teacher of Pa- 
 derewski, is now. Very soon after her 
 meeting with Schumann, Clara made 
 her public d6but, and with great suc- 
 cess. Among those who heard and 
 praised herhighlyduringthis first year 
 of her public career was Paganini. 
 
 In 1830, two years after the first meet- 
 ingof Robert and Clara, Schumann, his 
 father having died, wrote to his mother 
 and his guardian and begged them to 
 allow him to choose a musical career, 
 referring them to Wieck for an opinion 
 
 97 
 
Cl)e 3lolje0 of 
 
 as to his musical abilities. The mother 
 wrote to Wieck a letter which is highly 
 creditable to her heart and judgment, 
 and Wieck^s replyis equally creditable 
 to him as a friend and teacher. Evi- 
 dently his powers of penetration led 
 him to entertain the highest hopes for 
 Schumann. Among other things he 
 writes that, with due diligence, Robert 
 should in a few years become one of 
 the greatest pianists of the day. Why 
 Wieck's hopes in this particular were 
 not fulfilled, and why, for this reason, 
 Clara*s gifts as a pianist were doubly 
 useful to Schumann, we shall see 
 shortly. 
 
 Schumann entered with enthusiasm 
 upon the career of his choice. He left 
 Heidelberg and took lodgings with the 
 Wiecks in Leipsic. Clara, then a mere 
 girl, though already winning fame as 
 a concert pianist, certainly was too 
 young for him to have fallen seriously 
 inlovewith,orforhertohaveresponded 
 to any such feeling. Even at that early 
 98 
 
ROBERT AND CLARA SCHUMANN IN 1847 
 From a lithograph in possession of the Society of Friends of Music, Vienna 
 
(threat Compo0er0 
 
 age, however, she exercised a strange 
 power of attraction over him. His for- 
 mer literary tastes had given him a 
 great fund of stories and anecdotes, 
 and he dehghted in the evenings to ga- 
 ther about him the children of the fa- 
 mily, Clara among them, and entertain 
 them with tales from the Arabian 
 Nights and ghost and fairy stories. 
 Among his compositions at this time 
 are a set of impromptus on a theme by 
 Clara, and it is significant of his regard 
 for her that later he worked them over, 
 as if he did not consider them in their 
 original shape good enough for her. 
 Then we have from this period a letter 
 which he wrote to the twelve-year-old 
 girl while she was concertizing in 
 Frankfort, and in which the expres- 
 sions certainly transcend those of a 
 youth for a child, or of an elder brother 
 for a sister, if one cared to picture their 
 relations as such. Indeed, he writes to 
 her that he often thinks of her "not as 
 a brother does of a sister, nor as one 
 
 99 
 
Wl^t 3lot)e0 of 
 
 friend of another, but as a pilgrim of a 
 distant altar-picture." He asks her if 
 she has composed much, adding, "In 
 my dreams I sometimes hear music — 
 so you must be composing." He con- 
 fides in her about his own work, tells 
 her that his theoretical studies (with 
 Heinrich Dorn) have progressed as far 
 as the three-part fugue ; and that he has 
 a sonata in B minor and a set of "Pa- 
 pillons" ready; then jokingly asks her 
 how the Frankfort apples taste and in- 
 quires after the health of the F above 
 the staff in the "jumpy Chopin varia- 
 tion," and informs her that his paper is 
 givingout. " Everythinggivesout, save 
 the friendship in which I am Fraulein 
 C. W.*s warmest admirer." 
 For a letter from a man of twenty-one 
 to a girl of twelve, the above is remark- 
 able. IfClara had not afterward become 
 Robert's wife, it would have interest 
 merely as a curiosity. As matters even- 
 tuated, it is a charming prelude to the 
 love-symphonyof two lives. Moreover, 
 
 100 
 
<15reat Cofttp€E0er0 
 
 there seems to have been ample ground 
 for Schumann's admiration. Dorn has 
 left a description of Clara as she was 
 at this time, which shows her to have 
 been unusually attractive. He speaks 
 of her as a fascinating girl of thirteen, 
 "graceful in figure, of blooming com- 
 plexion, with delicate white hands, a 
 profusion of black hair, and wise, glow- 
 ingeyes. Everything about her was ap- 
 petizing, and I never have blamed my 
 pupil, young Robert Schumann, that 
 only three years later he should have 
 been completely carried away by this 
 lovely creature, his former fellow-pupil 
 and future wife." Her purity and her 
 genius, added to her beauty, may well 
 have combined to make Robert, mu- 
 sical dreamer and enthusiast on the 
 threshold of his career, think of her, 
 when absent, "as a pilgrim of a distant 
 altar-picture." 
 She was clever, too, and through her 
 concert tours was seeing much of the 
 world for those days. In Weimar she 
 
 lOI 
 
played for Goethe, the great poet him- 
 self getting a cushion for her and pla- 
 cing it on the piano stool in order that 
 she might sit high enough; and not only 
 praising her playing, but also present- 
 ing her with his likeness in a medallion. 
 The poet Grillparzer, after hearing her 
 play in Vienna Beethoven's F-minor 
 Sonata, wrote a delightful poem, " Clara 
 Wieck and Beethoven's F-minor So- 
 nata." It tells how a magician, weary 
 of life, locked all his charms inashrine, 
 threw the key into the sea, and died. In 
 vain men tried to force open the shrine. 
 At last a girl, wandering by the strand 
 and watching their vain efforts, simply 
 dipped her white fingers into the sea 
 and drew forth the key, with which she 
 opened the shrine and released the 
 charms. And now the freed spirits rise 
 and fall at the bidding of their lovely, 
 innocent mistress, who guides them 
 with her white fingers as she plays. 
 The imagery of this tribute to tiara's 
 playing is readily understood. In Paris 
 
 102 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 she heard Chopin and Mendelssohn. 
 All these experiences tended to her 
 early development, and there is little 
 wonderifSchumannsawherolderthan 
 she really was. 
 
 In 1834 Schumann's early literary 
 tastes asserted themselves, but now in 
 connection with music. He founded the 
 "Neue Zeitschrift fiir Musik," which 
 under his editorship soon became one 
 of the foremost musical periodicals of 
 the day. Among his own writings for it 
 is the enthusiastic essay on one of Cho- 
 pin's early works, in which Schumann, 
 as he did later in the case of Brahms, 
 discovered the unmistakable marks of 
 genius. The name of Chopin brings me 
 back to Wieck's prophecy regarding 
 Schumann as a pianist. The latter in 
 his enthusiasm devised an apparatus 
 for finger gymnastics which he prac- 
 tised so assiduously that he strained 
 one of his fingers and permanently im- 
 paired his technique, making a pian- 
 istic career an impossibility. Through 
 
 103 
 
Cl)e JLotjes of 
 
 this accident he was unable to intro- 
 duce his own piano works to the pub- 
 lic, so that the importance of the ser- 
 vice rendered him by Clara, in taking 
 his compositions into her repertoire, 
 both before and after their marriage, 
 was doubled. 
 One evening at Wieck's, Schumann 
 was anxious to hear some new Chopin 
 workswhichhehadjustreceived.Real- 
 izingthat his lame finger rendered him 
 incapable of playing, he called out de- 
 spairingly: 
 
 "Who will lend me fingers?" 
 "I will," said Clara, and sat down and 
 played the pieces for him. She "lenthim 
 her fingers;" and that is precisely what 
 she did for him through life in making 
 his piano and chamber music composi- 
 tions known. Familiarity with Schu- 
 mann's music enables us of to-day to 
 appreciate its beauty. But for its day it 
 was, like Brahms' music later, of a kind 
 that makes its way slowly. Left to the 
 general musical public, it probably 
 104 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 would have been years in sinking into 
 their hearts. Such music requires to be 
 publicly performed by a sympathetic 
 interpreter before receiving its meed of 
 merit. Schumann had hoped to be his 
 own interpreter. He saw that hope van- 
 ish, but a lovely being came to his aid. 
 She saw his works come into life ; their 
 creation was part of her own existence ; 
 she fathomed his genius to its utmost 
 depths; her whole being vibrated in 
 sympathy with his, and when she sat 
 down at the piano and pressed the keys, 
 it was as though he himself were the 
 performer. She was his fingers — fin- 
 gers at once deft and delicate. She 
 played with adouble love — love for him 
 and love for his music. And why should 
 she not love it? She was as inuch the 
 mother of his music as of his children. 
 I have already indicated that Clara 
 probably developed early. At all events, 
 there are letters from Schumann to her, 
 at fourteen, which leave no doubt that 
 he was in love with her then, or that she 
 
 105 
 
C|)e ?lote0 of 
 
 could have failed to perceive this. In 
 one of these letters he proposes this 
 highly poetic, not to say psychological, 
 method of communicating with her. 
 "Promptly at eleven o^clock to-mor- 
 row morning," he writes, "I will play 
 the Adagio from the Chopin variations 
 and will think strongly— in fact only— 
 of you. Now I beg of you that you will 
 do the same, so that we may meet and 
 
 see each other in spirit Should you 
 
 not do this, and there break to-morrow 
 at that hour a chord, you will know that 
 it is I." 
 
 However far the affair may or may not 
 have progressed at this time, there was 
 a curious interruption during the fol- 
 lowing year. Robert appears to have 
 temporarily lost his heart to a certain 
 Ernestine von Fricken, a young lady 
 of sixteen, who was one of Wieck*s pu- 
 pils. Clara consoled herself by permit- 
 ting a musician named Banck to pay 
 her attention. For reasons which never 
 have been clearly explained, Schu- 
 io6 
 
CLARA SCHUMANN AT THE PIANO 
 
d^reat Composers 
 
 tnann suddenly broke with Ernestine 
 and turned with renewed ardor to 
 Clara, while Clara at once withdrew 
 her affections from Banck and retrans- 
 ferred them to Schumann. We find him 
 writing to her again in 1835: 
 
 "Through all the Autumn festivals 
 there looks out an angeFs head that 
 closely resembles a certain Clara who 
 is very well known to me." By the fol- 
 lowing year, Clara then being seven- 
 teen, things evidently had gone so far 
 that, between themselves, they were 
 engaged. "Fate has destined us for 
 each other," he writes to her. " I myself 
 knew that long ago, but I had not the 
 courage to tell you sooner, nor the 
 hope to be understood by you." 
 
 Wieck evidently had remained in ig- 
 norance of the young people's attach- 
 ment, for, when on Clara's birthday the 
 following year (1837) Schumann made 
 formal application in writing for her 
 hand, her father gave an evasive an- 
 swer, and on the suit being pressed, 
 
 107 
 
Cl)e lLtj\Jts of 
 
 he, who had been almost Hke a second 
 father to Robert, became his bitter 
 enemy. Clara, however, remained faith- 
 ful to her lover through the three years 
 of unhappiness which her father's sud- 
 den hatred of Robert caused them. In 
 1839 she was in Paris, and from there 
 she wrote to her father: 
 
 "My love for Schumann is, it is true> 
 a passionate love ; I do not, however, 
 love him solely out of passion and senti- 
 mental enthusiasm, but, furthermore, 
 because I think him one of the best of 
 men, because I believe no other man 
 could love me as purely and nobly as 
 he or so understanding^ ; and I believe, 
 also, on my part that I can make him 
 wholly happy through allowing him to 
 possess me, and that I understand him 
 as no other woman could." 
 
 This love obviously was one not 
 lightly bestowed, but Wieck remained 
 obdurate and refused his consent. Then 
 Schumann took the only step that un- 
 der the circumstances was possible- 
 108 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 Wieck*s refusal of his consent being a 
 legal bar to the marriage, Robert in- 
 voked the law to set his future father- 
 in-law's objections aside. The case 
 was tried, decided in Schumann's fa- 
 vor, and on September 12, 1840, Ro- 
 bert Schumann and Clara Wieck were 
 married in the village of Schonefeld, 
 near Leipsic. That year Schumann 
 composed no less than one hundred 
 and thirty-eight songs, among them 
 some of his most beautiful. They were 
 his wedding gift to Clara. 
 After their marriage his inspiration 
 blossomed under her very eyes. She 
 was the companion of his innermost 
 thoughts and purposes. Meanwhile his 
 musical genius and critical acumen 
 ever were at her command in her work 
 as a pianist. Happily, too, a reconcilia- 
 tion was effected with Wieck, and we 
 find Clara writing to him about the first 
 performance of Schumann's piano 
 quintet (now ranked as one of the finest 
 compositions of its class), on which oc- 
 
 109 
 
Clje ILo'Dts of 
 
 casion she, of course, played the piano 
 part. 
 
 Four years after their marriage the 
 Schumanns removed to Dresden, re- 
 mainingthereuntil 1850, when theyset- 
 tled in Diisseldorf, where Robert had 
 been appointed musical director. There 
 was but one shadow over their lives. At 
 times a deep melancholy came over 
 him, and in this Clara discerned with 
 dread possible symptoms of coming 
 mental disorder. Her fears were only 
 too well founded. Early in February, 
 1854, he arose during the night and 
 demanded light, saying that Schubert 
 had appeared to him and given him a 
 melody which he must write out forth- 
 with. On the 27th of the same month, 
 he quietly left his house, went to the 
 bridge across the Rhine and threwhim- 
 self into the river. Boatmen prevented 
 his intended suicide. When he was 
 brought home and had changed his wet 
 clothes for dry ones, he sat down to 
 work on a variation as if nothing had 
 no 
 
THE SCHUMANN MONUMENT IN THE BONN CEMETERY 
 
d^reat Composers 
 
 happened. Within less than a week he 
 was removed at his own request to a 
 sanatorium at Endenich, where he died 
 July 29, 1856. 
 
 Clara survived him forty years, wear- 
 ing a crown of laurels and thorns— the 
 laurels of a famous pianist, the thorns 
 of her widowhood. It was a widowhood 
 consecrated, as much as her wifehood 
 had been, to herhusband*s genius. She 
 died at Frankfort, May 19, 1896, and is 
 buried beside her husband in Bonn. 
 
 Ill 
 
fran? timt 
 ano ^10 Caroline 
 
Jf ran? m^}t 
 
 anti ^is Carolpne 
 
 N the famous Wagner- Liszt 
 correspondence, Liszt writes 
 from Weimar, under date 
 of April 8, 1853, "Daily the 
 Princess greets me with the lines 
 'Nicht Gut, noch Geld, noch Gott- 
 liche Pracht/" The lines are from " Got- 
 terdammerung," the whole passage 
 being— 
 
 "Nor goods, nor gold, nor godlike splendor; 
 Nor house, nor home, nor lordly state; 
 Nor hollow contracts of a treach'rous race, 
 Its cruel cant, its custom and decree. 
 Blessed, in joy and sorrow, 
 Let love alone be." 
 
 The lady who according to Liszt daily 
 greeted him with these significant 
 lines was the Princess Carolyne Sayn- 
 Wittgenstein. Since 1848 she and her 
 young daughter Marie had been living 
 with Liszt at the Altenburg in Weimar. 
 
 "5 
 
C|)e Hotjesf of 
 
 She remained there until i860, twelve 
 years,whenshewentto Rome, whither, 
 in due time, Liszt followed her, to make 
 the Eternal City one of his homes for 
 the rest of his life. His last letter to her 
 is dated July6, 1886, the year and month 
 of his death, so that for a period of nearly 
 forty years he enjoyed the personal and 
 intellectual companionship of this re- 
 markable woman. Their relations form 
 one of the great love romances of the 
 last century. 
 
 Liszt's letters to the Princess, written 
 in French and still untranslated, are 
 in four volumes. They were published 
 by the Princess's daughter. Princess 
 Marie Hohenlohe, as a tribute to Liszt 
 the musician and the man. They teem 
 with his musical activities— informa- 
 tion regarding the numerous celebri- 
 ties with whom he was intimate, the 
 musicians he aided, his own great 
 works. But their rarest charm to me 
 lies in the fact that from them the care- 
 ful reader can glean the whole story of 
 116 
 
FRANZ LISZT. 
 Painting by Ary Scheffer. 
 
d^reat Compoget0 
 
 the romance of Liszt and Carolyne, 
 from its very beginnings to his death. 
 
 We know the fascinating male figure 
 in this romance — the extraordinary 
 combination of unapproached virtu- 
 oso, great composer, and man of the 
 world ; but who was the equally fasci- 
 nating woman? 
 
 Carolyne von Iwanowska was born 
 near Kiew, Russian Poland, in Febru- 
 ary, 1819. When she still was young 
 her parents separated, and she divided 
 her time between them. Her mother 
 possessed marked social graces, tra- 
 velled much, was a favorite at many 
 courts, and, as a pupil of Rossini's in 
 singing, was admired by Spontini and 
 Meyerbeer, and was sought after in the 
 most select salons, including that of 
 Metternich, the Austrian chancellor. 
 From her Carolyne inherited her charm 
 of manner. 
 
 Intellectually, however, she was 
 wholly her father's child; and he was 
 her favorite parent. He was a wealthy 
 
 117 
 
Cl)e JLotes of 
 
 landed proprietor, and in the adminis- 
 tration of his estates, he frequently con- 
 sulted her. Moreover he had an active, 
 studious mind, and he found in her an 
 interested companion in his pursuits. 
 Often they sat up until late into the 
 night discussing various questions, 
 and both of them — smoking strong 
 cigars! 
 
 In 1836 her hand was asked in mar- 
 riage by Prince Nicolaus von Sayn- 
 Wittgenstein. She thrice refused, but 
 finally accepted him at her father's in- 
 stigation. The prince was a handsome 
 but otherwise commonplace man, and 
 not at all the husband for this charm- 
 ing, mentally alert and finely strung 
 woman. The one happiness that came 
 to her through this marriage was her 
 daughter Marie. 
 
 Liszt came to Kiew on a concert tour 
 in February, 1847. He announced a 
 charity concert, for which he received 
 a contribution of one hundred rubles 
 from Princess Carolyne. H e already had 
 118 
 
d^reat Composers 
 
 heard of her, but she had been described 
 to him as a miserly and peculiar per- 
 son. The gift surprised him the more 
 for this. He called on her to thank her, 
 found her a brilliant conversationalist, 
 was charmed with her in everyway, and 
 concluded that what the gossips con- 
 sidered peculiarities were merely the 
 evidences of an original and positive 
 mentality. Upon the woman, who was 
 in revolt against the restraints of an 
 unhappy married life, Liszt, from whose 
 eyes shone the divine spark, who was 
 as much au fait in the salon as at the 
 piano, and who already had been wor- 
 shipped by a long succession of wo- 
 men, made a deep impression. Thus 
 they were drawn to each other at this 
 very first meeting. 
 
 When, a little later, Liszt took her in- 
 to his confidence regarding his ambi- 
 tion to devote more time to composi- 
 tion, and communicated to her his idea 
 of composing a symphony on Dante's 
 "Divine Comedy" with scenic illus- 
 
 119 
 
C|)e %.o\its of 
 
 trations, she offered to pay the twenty- 
 thousand thalers which these would 
 cost. Liszt subsequently changed his 
 mind regarding the need of scenery to 
 his "Dante," but the Princess's gener- 
 ous offer increased his admiration for 
 her. It was a tribute to himself as well 
 as to his art, and an expression of her 
 confidence in his genius as a composer 
 (shared at that time by but few) which 
 could not fail to touch him deeply. It 
 at once created a bond of artistic and 
 personal sympathy between them. She 
 was carried away by his playing, and 
 the programme of his first concert 
 which she attended was treasured by 
 her, and after her death, forty years 
 later, was found among her posses- 
 sions by her daughter. 
 
 If it was not love at first sight between 
 these two, it must have been nearly 
 that. Liszt came to Kiew in February, 
 i847.Thesame month Carolyne invited 
 him to visit her at one of her coun- 
 try seats, Woronince. Brief correspon- 
 
 120 
 
LISZT AT THE PIANO 
 
 %i! -m^ 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 dence already had passed between 
 them.To his fifth note he adds, as a post- 
 script, "I am in the best of humor . . . 
 and find, now that the world contains 
 Woronince, that the world is good, very 
 good!" 
 
 The great pianist continued his tour 
 to Constantinople. When he writes to 
 the Princess from there, he already "is 
 at her feet." Later in the same year he 
 is hers "heart and soul." Early the fol- 
 lowing year he quotes for her these 
 lines from " Paradise Lost : " 
 
 "For contemplation he, and valour formed, 
 For softness she, and sweet attractive grace ; 
 He for God only, she for God in him!" 
 
 She presents him with a baton set 
 with jewels ; he writes to her about the 
 first concert at which he will use it He 
 transcribes Schubert's lovely song, 
 "My sweet Repose, My Peace art 
 Thou," and tells her that he can play it 
 only for her. At the same time their let- 
 ters to each other are filled with refer- 
 ences to public affairs and literary, ar- 
 
 121 
 
C|)e JLotoeg of 
 
 tistic and musical matters. They are 
 the letters of two people of broad and 
 cultivated taste, who are drawn to each 
 other by every bond of intellect and 
 sentiment. Is it a wonder that but lit- 
 tle more than a year after they met, the 
 Princess decided to burn her bridges 
 behind her and leave her husband? 
 Through his friend. Prince Felix Lich- 
 nowsky, Liszt arranged that they 
 should meet at Krzyzanowitz, one of 
 the Lichnowsky country seats in Aus- 
 trian Silesia. "May the angel of the 
 Lord lead you, my radiant morning 
 star!" he exclaims. At the same time 
 he has an eye to the practical side of 
 the affair, and describes the place as 
 just the one for their meeting point, be- 
 cause Lichnowsky will be too busy to 
 remain there, and there will not be a 
 soul about, save the servants. 
 
 It was shortly before the revolution 
 
 of 1848. To gain permission to cross 
 
 the border, the Princess pretended to 
 
 be bound for Carlsbad, for the waters. 
 
 122 
 
(Bxtat Compo0er0 
 
 Liszt's valet met her and her daughter 
 as soon as they were out of Russia, took 
 them to Ratibor, where they were re- 
 ceived by Lichnowsky, who conducted 
 them to Liszt. After a few days at this 
 place of meeting, they went to Graz, 
 where they spent a fortnight in an- 
 other of the Lichnowsky villas. Among 
 the miscellaneous correspondence of 
 Liszt is a letter from Graz to his friend 
 Franz von Schober, councillor of lega- 
 tion at Weimar, where Liszt was set- 
 tled as court conductor. In it he de- 
 scribes the Princess as "without doubt 
 an uncommonly and thoroughly bril- 
 liant example of soul and mind and in- 
 telligence (with a prodigious amount 
 of esprit as well). You readily will un- 
 derstand," he adds, "that henceforth 
 I can dream very little of personal am- 
 bition and of a future wrapped up in 
 myself. In political relations serfdom 
 may have an end; but the dominion of 
 one soul over another in the spirit re- 
 gion—should that not remain inde- 
 
 123 
 
Cl)e 3Lotje0 of 
 
 structible?"— Oh, Liszt's prophetic 
 soul! Thereafter his life was shaped 
 by this extraordinary woman, for weal 
 and, it must be confessed, for reasons 
 which will appear later, partly for woe. 
 
 The Grandduchess of Weimar took 
 the Princess under her protection, and 
 she settled at Weimar in the Alten- 
 burg, while Liszt lived in the Hotel 
 zum Erbprinzen. Many tender mis- 
 sives passed between them. "Bon jour, 
 mon bonange!" writes Liszt. "Onvous 
 aime et vous adore du matin au soir et 
 du soir au matin." — "On vous attend 
 et vous b6nit, ch^re douce lumi^re de 
 mon ^me!" — "Je suis triste comme 
 toujours et toutes les fois que je n'en- 
 tends pas votre voix — que je ne re- 
 garde pas vos yeux." 
 
 One of the billets relates to an inci- 
 dent that has become historic. Wag- 
 ner had been obliged, because of his 
 participation in the revolution, to flee 
 from Dresden. He sought refuge with 
 Liszt in Weimar, but, learning that 
 124 
 
THE PRINCESS CAROLYNE IN HER LATER YEARS AT ROME 
 
(threat Compogers 
 
 the Saxon authorities were seeking 
 to apprehend him, decided to con- 
 tinue his flight to Switzerland. He was 
 without means and, at the moment, 
 Liszt, too, was out of funds. In this ex- 
 tremity, Liszt despatched a few lines 
 to the Princess. "Can you send me 
 by bearer sixty thalers? Wagner is 
 obliged to flee, and I am unable at pre- 
 sent to come to his aid. Bonne et heu- 
 reuse nuit ." The money was forthcom- 
 ing, and Wagner owed his safety to 
 the Princess. This is but one instance 
 in which, at Liszt's instigation, she 
 was the good fairy of poor musicians. 
 About ayear after the Pf incesssettled 
 in the Altenburg, Liszt, too, took up 
 his residence there. From that time un- 
 til they left it, it was the Mecca of mu- 
 sical Europe. Thither came Von Billow 
 and Rubinstein, then young men ; Joa- 
 chim andWieniawski; Brahms, on his 
 way to Schumann, who, as the result 
 of this visit from Brahms, wrote the fa- 
 mousarticle hailing him as the coming 
 
 125 
 
C|)e JLo\)ts of 
 
 Messiah of music; Berlioz, and many, 
 many others. The Altenburg was the 
 headquarters of the Wagner propa- 
 ganda. From there came material and 
 artistic comfort to Wagner during 
 the darkest hours of his exile and po- 
 verty. 
 
 Wendelin Weissheimer, a German 
 orchestral leader, a friend of Liszt and 
 Wagner, and of many other notable 
 musicians of his day, has given in his 
 reminiscences (which should have 
 been translated long ago) a delightful 
 glimpse of life at the Altenburg. He 
 describes a dinner at which Von Bron- 
 sart, the composer, and Count Lauren- 
 cin, the musical writer, were the other 
 guests. At table the Princess did the 
 honors "most graciously," and her "di- 
 vinity," Franz Liszt, was in "buoyant 
 spirits. " After the champagne, the com- 
 pany rose and went upstairs to the 
 smoking-room and music salon, which 
 formed one apartment, "for with Liszt, 
 smoking and music-making were, on 
 126 
 
(threat Compo2er0 
 
 such occasions, inseparable." One 
 touch in Weissheimer's description 
 recalls the Princesses early acquired 
 habit of smoking. 
 "He [Liszt] always had excellent 
 Havanas, of unusual length, ready, and 
 they were passed around with the 
 coffee. The Princess also had come up- 
 stairs. When Liszt sat down at one of 
 the two pianos, she drew an armchair 
 close up to it and seated herself expec- 
 tantly, also with one of the long Ha- 
 vanas in her mouth and pulling delec- 
 tably at it. We others, too, drew up near 
 Liszt, who had the manuscript of his 
 * Faust' symphony open before him. Of 
 course he played the whole orchestra; 
 of course the way in which he did it 
 was indescribable ; and — of course we 
 all were in the highest state of exalta- 
 tion. After the glorious 'Gretchen' di- 
 vision of the symphony, the Princess 
 sprang up from the armchair, caught 
 hold of Liszt and kissed him so fer- 
 vently that we all were deeply moved. 
 
 127 
 
Cl)e ilotjes of 
 
 [In the interim her long Havana had 
 gone out.]" 
 
 Theyears which Liszt passed with the 
 Princess at the Altenburg, and when 
 he was most directly under her influ- 
 ence, were the most glorious in his ca- 
 reer. Besides the "Faust" symphony, 
 he composed during this period the 
 twelve symphonic poems, thus origi- 
 nating a new and highly important 
 musical form, which may be said to 
 bear, in their liberation from pedantry, 
 the same relation to the set symphony 
 that the music drama does to opera; 
 the "Rhapsodies Hongroises;" his 
 piano sonata and concertos ; the "Gra- 
 ner Messe;" and the beginnings of his 
 "Christus" and "Legend of the Holy 
 Elizabeth." The Princess ordered the 
 household arrangements in such a 
 way that the composer should not be 
 disturbed in his work. No one was ad- 
 mitted to him without her vis6 ; she at- 
 tended to the voluminous correspon- 
 dence which, with a man of so much 
 128 
 
(threat Composetg 
 
 natural courtesy as Liszt, would have 
 occupied an enormous amount of his 
 time. He was the acknowledged head 
 of the Wagner movement, at that time 
 regarded as nothing short of revolu- 
 tionary; he was looked upon as the 
 friend of all progressive propaganda 
 in his art; to play for Liszt, to have his 
 opinion on performance or composi- 
 tion, was the ambition of every musical 
 celebrity, or would-be one; his coop- 
 eration in innumerable concerts and 
 music festivals was sought for. His was 
 a name to conjure with. Between him 
 and these assaults on his almost pro- 
 verbial kindness stood the Princess, 
 and the list of his great musical pro- 
 ductions during this period, to say 
 nothing of his literary work, like the 
 rhapsody on Chopin, is the tale of what 
 the world owes her for her devotion. 
 The relations between Liszt and the 
 Princess were frankly acknowledged, 
 and by the world as frankly accepted, 
 as if they were two exceptional beings 
 
 129 
 
Clje Jlotoes of 
 
 in whom one could pardon things 
 which in the case of ordinary mortals 
 would mean social ostracism.The near- 
 est approach to this situation was that 
 of George Eliot and Lewes. But with 
 Liszt and his Princess the world, pos- 
 sibly after the fashion of the Continent, 
 was far more lenient, and their lives in 
 their outward aspects were far more 
 brilliant. No exalted mind in literature, 
 music, art or science passed through 
 Weimar, or came near it, without being 
 drawn to the Altenburg as by a magnet. 
 There seems to have been within its 
 walls an almost uninterrupted intel- 
 lectual revel, or, to use a trite expres- 
 sion, which here is most apt, a steady 
 feast of reason and flow of soul. The 
 sojournjof Liszt and the Princess in the 
 Altenburg was a "golden period" for 
 Weimar, a revival of the time when 
 Goethe lived there and reflected his 
 glory upon it. 
 
 And yet— convention is the result of 
 the concentrated essence of the expe- 
 130 
 
(Bxtat Compo0er0 
 
 rience of ages ; and no one seems able 
 to break through it without the effort 
 leaving a scar. It cast its shadow even 
 over the life at the Altenburg. There 
 remained one great longing to the Prin- 
 cess, the nonfulfilment of which was 
 as a void in her soul. She yearned to 
 bear the name of the man she adored. 
 During the twelve years of their Wei- 
 mar sojourn she battled for it, but in 
 vain. Then she transferred the battle- 
 field to Rome. 
 Her husband, a Protestant, had found 
 no difficulty in securing a divorce from 
 her. She was an ardent Roman Cath- 
 olic, and the church stood in her way, 
 her own relatives, who had been scan- 
 dalized at her flight, being active in 
 invoking its opposition. She went to 
 Rome in the spring of i860, to press 
 her suit at the very centre of churchly 
 authority. Liszt remained in Weimar 
 awaiting word from her. It took her 
 more than a year to secure the Pa- 
 pal sanction. Then, when everything 
 
 131 
 
Cije 3lot)e0 of 
 
 seemed auspiciously settled and her 
 marriage with Liszt a certainty, her en- 
 thusiasm led her to take a step which, 
 at the very last moment, proved fatal 
 to her long-cherished hope. 
 
 Had she returned at once to Weimar, 
 her union with Liszt undoubtedly 
 would have taken place. But no. In her 
 joy she must go too far. In Rome, there 
 where the marriage had been inter- 
 dicted, there where she had success- 
 fully overcome opposition to it, there it 
 should take place. Her triumph should 
 be complete. 
 
 Liszt was sent for. His last two letters 
 to her before their meeting in Rome 
 are dated from Marseilles in October, 
 1861. The marriage was to take place 
 October 22, his fiftieth birthday. He 
 writes her from the Hotel des Empe- 
 reurs, himself " plus heureux que tous 
 les empereurs du monde! " and again, 
 " Mon long exil va finir ." Yet it was 
 only just beginning! 
 
 He arrived in Rome on October 20. 
 132 
 
d^reat Compo0er0 
 
 All arrangements for the ceremony in 
 the San Carlo al Corso had been made. 
 Then, by a strange fatality, it chanced 
 that several of the Princess's relations, 
 who were most bitter against her, en- 
 tered upon the scene. Of all times, they 
 happened to be in Rome at this critical 
 moment, and, getting wind of the im- 
 pending marriage, they entered a vio- 
 lent protest. When, on the evening of 
 the 2ist, Liszt was visiting the Prin- 
 cess, a Papal messenger called and an- 
 nounced that His Holiness had decided 
 to forbid the ceremony until he could 
 look into the matter more fully, and re- 
 quested from her a resubmission of the 
 documents bearing on the case. 
 To the Princess, then on the threshold 
 of realizing her most cherished hopes, 
 this was the last stroke. Her over- 
 wrought nature saw in it a judgment 
 of Heaven. She refused to resubmit the 
 papers; and even, when a few years 
 later. Prince Wittgenstein died and 
 she was free, she regarded marriage 
 
 133 
 
Cl)e Jlotjes of 
 
 with Liszt as opposed by the Divine 
 will. A strain of mysticism, nurtured by 
 busy ecclesiastics, developed itself in 
 her ; she became possessed of the idea 
 that she was a chosen instrument in 
 the Church's hands to further its in- 
 terests ; and with feverish, desperate 
 energy she devoted herself to literary 
 work as its champion. She had her own 
 press, which set up each day's work 
 and showed it to her in proof the next. 
 She did not leave Rome except on one 
 occasion, and then for less than a day, 
 during the remaining twenty-six years 
 of her life. 
 It has been hinted more than once 
 that the Princess's course was not as 
 completely governed by religious mys- 
 ticism as might be supposed— that her 
 sensitive nature had divined in Liszt 
 an unexpressed opposition to the mar- 
 riage, as if, possibly, he did not wish to 
 be tied down to her, yet felt bound in 
 honor, because of the sacrifices she 
 had made for him, to appear to share 
 134 
 
(threat Compo0er0 
 
 her hope. La Mara (Marie Lipsius), the 
 editor of the Liszt letters and whose 
 interesting notes form the connecting 
 links in the correspondence, does not 
 take this view. It is noticeable, how- 
 ever, although Liszt and the Princess 
 saweach other frequently whenever he 
 was in Rome, and he became an abb6 
 probably through her influence, that 
 while in some of his letters to her in 
 later years there are notes of regret, 
 those written after the crisis in Rome 
 breathe an intellectual rather than a 
 personal affinity. 
 
 Be this as it may, it was a tragedy in 
 his life as well as in her own. Practi- 
 cally the rest of his life was divided, 
 each year, between Budapest, at the 
 Conservatory there; Weimar, but no 
 longer at the Altenburg; and Rome, 
 but not at the Princess's residence. 
 Piazza di Spagna. Thus he had three 
 homes— none of which was home. The 
 "golden period" of his life, as well as 
 the Altenburg itself, where others now 
 
 135 
 
C!)e JLo^efif of 
 
 were installed, were dim shadows of 
 the past. Liszt was the ^' grand old 
 man " of the piano, and is a great figure 
 among composers ; but whoever knows 
 the story of the last years of his life, 
 sees him a wandering and pathetic fig- 
 ure. He died at Bayreuth in July, 1886; 
 Carolyne survived him less than a year. 
 The literary work of her twenty-six 
 years in Rome probably will be forgot- 
 ten ; it will be the linking of her name 
 with Liszt, and its association with the 
 "golden period" of Weimar, that will 
 cause her to be remembered. 
 
 136 
 
Magnet? 
 anQ Co$ima 
 
Wlagner 
 
 mis Co2^tma 
 
 [O woman not a professional 
 musician has ever played so 
 important a part in musical 
 history as "Frau Cosima," 
 the widow of Richard Wagner. In fact, 
 has any woman, professional musician 
 or not? Bear in mind who "Frau Co- 
 sima" is. She is the daughter of Franz 
 Liszt, the greatest pianist and one of 
 the great composers of the last cen- 
 tury, and was the wife and, in the most 
 exalted meaning of the term, the help- 
 meet of the greatest of all composers! 
 The two men with whom Cosima has 
 thus stood in such intimate relation 
 are exceptional even among great 
 musicians. Composers are usually 
 strongly emotional, inspired in all that 
 pertains to their art, but with a spe- 
 cialist's lack of interest in everything 
 else. Not so, however, Liszt or Wag- 
 
 139 
 
Ci)e 5lot)e0 of 
 
 ner, for not since the time of Beethoven 
 had there been two musicians who, in 
 the exercise of their art, approached 
 it from so clear an intellectual standi 
 point. Beethoven through the great- 
 ness of his mind was able to enlarge 
 the symphonic form, which had been 
 left by Haydn and Mozart. It became 
 more responsive, more plastic, in his 
 hands. Form in art is the creation of 
 the intellect ; what goes into it is the 
 outflow of the heart. Thus Liszt ere 
 ated the Symphonic Poem, and Wag 
 ner completely revolutionized the mu 
 sical stage by creating the Music 
 Drama. Into the Symphonic Poem, 
 into the Music-Drama, they put their 
 hearts ; but the creation of these forms 
 was in each an intellectual tour de 
 force. The musician who thinks as 
 well as feels is the one who advances 
 his art. In the historic struggle be- 
 tween Wagner and the classicists 
 Liszt played a large part. He was the 
 first to produce "Lohengrin" — was, as 
 140 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 From the original lithograph of the Egusquiza portrait 
 
 ^IC 
 
 6: (■■ 
 
(threat Composer0 
 
 orchestral conductor, its subtle inter- 
 preter, and, thus, a pioneer of the new 
 school; he was Wagner's steadfast 
 champion through life, and a beautiful 
 friendship existed between "Richard" 
 and "Franz." 
 
 Even now the reader can begin to 
 realize the role Cosima has played in 
 music. That she is the daughter of 
 Liszt is not in itself wonderful, but that 
 she should have fulfilled the mission to 
 which she was born is one of the most 
 exquisite touches of fate. Liszt was 
 one of Wagner's first champions and 
 friends. He came to the composer's aid 
 in the darkest years of his career — 
 during that long exile after Wagner 
 had been obliged to flee from Germany 
 because of his participation in the re- 
 volution of 1848. It was, in fact, through 
 Liszt thatWagner received the means 
 to continue his flight from the Saxon 
 authorities and cross the border to 
 safety in Switzerland. 
 
 Nor did Liszt's beneficence stop 
 
 141 
 
ts^lje 3lote0 of 
 
 there. From afar he continued to be 
 Wagner^s good fairy. To fully appre- 
 ciate Liszt's action at this time, one 
 must keep in mind the position of the 
 Saxon composer. To-day his fame is 
 world-wide; we can scarcely realize 
 that there was a time when his genius 
 was not recognized, but at that time 
 he was not famous at all. Those who 
 had the slightest premonition of what 
 the future would accord him were a 
 mere handful of enthusiasts. Such a 
 thing as a Wagner cult was undreamed 
 of. Hehad produced three worksforthe 
 stage. "Rienzi" had been a brilliant 
 success, "The Flying Dutchman" a 
 mere succes d'estime , "Tannhauser"a 
 comparative failure. From a popular 
 point of view he had not sustained the 
 promise of his first work. We know 
 now that compared with his second and 
 third works "Rienzi" is trash, and that 
 rarely has a composer made such won- 
 derful forward strides in his art as did 
 Wagner with "The Flying Dutch- 
 142 
 
d^reat Composer0 
 
 man "and "Tannhauser." But that was 
 not the opinion when they were pro- 
 duced. The former, although it is now 
 acknowledged to be an exquisitely 
 poetic treatment of the weird legend, 
 was voted sombre and dull, and "Tann- 
 hauser" was simply a puzzle. After lis- 
 tening to "Tannhauser," Schumann 
 declared that Wagner was unmusical ! 
 Unless a person is familiar with Wag- 
 ner's life, it is impossible to believe 
 how bitter was the opposition to his 
 theories and to his music. Does it seem 
 possible now that he had to struggle 
 for twenty-five years before he could 
 secure the production of his "Ring of 
 the Nibelung"? Yet such was the case. 
 Then, too, he was poor, and sometimes 
 driven to such straits that he contem- 
 plated suicide. 
 
 When the public remained indifferent 
 to one of his works and critics reviled 
 it, Wagner's usual method of reply 
 was to produce something still more 
 advanced. Thus, when "Tannhauser" 
 
 ^43 
 
Cl)e JLo\jes of 
 
 proved caviar to the public, and seemed 
 to affect the critics like a red rag waved 
 before a bull, he promptly sat down and 
 wrote and composed " Lohengrin." But 
 how should he, an exile, secure its pro- 
 duction? There it lay a mute score. As 
 he turned its pages, the notes looked 
 out at him appealingly for a hearing. 
 It was like a homesick child asking 
 for its own. What did Wagner do? He 
 wrote a few lines to Liszt. The answer 
 was not long in coming. Liszt was al- 
 ready making the necessary arrange- 
 ments to accede to Wagner's request 
 and produce "Lohengrin "in Weimar, 
 where he was musical director. Liszt's 
 name gave great 6clat to the under- 
 taking; and through the acclaim which, 
 with the aid of his pupils and admirers, 
 he understood so well how to create, it 
 attracted widespread attention, musi- 
 cians from far and near in Germany 
 coming to hear it. Of course, opinions 
 on the work were divided, but the band 
 ofWagner enthusiasts received acces- 
 144 
 
(threat Compo0er0 
 
 sions, and the interest in the produc- 
 tion had been too intense not to leave 
 an impression. The performance was, 
 in fact, epoch-making. It raised a 
 "Wagner question" which would not 
 down; which kept at least his earlier 
 works before the public; and which 
 made him, even while still a fugitive 
 from Germany, and an exile, a promi- 
 nent figure in the musical circles of the 
 country that refused him the right to 
 cross its borders. 
 
 All this was done by Liszt. Next to 
 Wagner's own genius, which would 
 eventually have fought its way into the 
 open, the influence that first brought 
 Wagner some degree of recognition 
 was Franz Liszt. His assistance to 
 Wagner at this stage in that compos- 
 er's career cannot be overestimated. 
 He was his tonic in despair, his solace 
 in his darkest hours. Few men appear 
 in a nobler role than Liszt in his cor- 
 respondence with Wagner during this 
 period. Is it not marvellous that some 
 
 145 
 
C|)e ILot)e0 of 
 
 twenty years later, at another crisis in 
 Wagner's life, another being came to 
 his aid and became to him as a haven 
 of rest ; and that that being should have 
 been none other than the daughter of 
 his earlier benefactor, Franz Liszt? 
 Fate often is cruel and often unaccount- 
 able, but in this instance it seems to 
 have acted the role of Cupid with an 
 exquisite sense of what was appropri- 
 ate, and to have set the crowning glory 
 of a great woman's love upon Wag- 
 ner's career. 
 
 When Liszt was producing "Lohen- 
 grin," aiding Wagner pecuniarily, and 
 cheering him in his exile, Cosima Liszt 
 was a young girl in Paris, where she, 
 her elder sister Blandine (afterward 
 the wife of Emile Ollivier, who became 
 thewarministerof Napoleon theThird) 
 and her brother Daniel lived with 
 Liszt's mother. It was in Mme. Liszt's 
 house that Wagner first met her. He 
 had gone to Paris in hopes of furthering 
 his cause there. During his sojourn he 
 146 
 
COSIMA. WIFE OF WAGNER 
 From a portrait bust made before her marriage 
 
dPreat Compo0er0 
 
 held a reading of his libretto to "The 
 Ring of the Nibelung'*at Mme. Liszt's 
 before a choice audience, which in- 
 cluded Liszt, Berlioz and Von Biilow. 
 This occurred in the early fifties. Co- 
 sima, who was among the listeners, 
 was at the time fifteen or sixteen years 
 old. The mere fact of her presence at 
 the reading is recorded. Whether she 
 was impressed with the libretto or its 
 author we do not know. It is probable 
 that their meeting consisted of nothing 
 more than the mere formal introduc- 
 tion of the composer to the girl who 
 was the daughter of his friend Liszt, 
 and who was to be one of the small and 
 privileged gathering at the reading. 
 Wagner soon left Paris, and if she made 
 any impression on him at that time, 
 he does not mention the fact in his 
 letters. 
 
 Whoever takes the trouble to read 
 Liszt's correspondence, which is in se- 
 ven volumes and nearly all in French, 
 will have little difficulty in discerning 
 
 147 
 
C|)e 3Lot)e0 of 
 
 that Cosima was his favorite child. He 
 speaks of her affectionately as **Co- 
 sette" and "Cosimette." Like his own, 
 her temperament was artistic and re- 
 sponsive, and she also inherited his 
 charm of manner and his exquisite 
 tact, which, if anything, herearly bring- 
 ing up in Paris enhanced. In 1857, when 
 she was twenty, Wagner sawher again 
 and describes her as "Liszt's wonder- 
 ful image, but of superior intellect." 
 
 Well might Wagner speak of her re- 
 semblance to her father as wonderful. 
 I have seen Liszt and Cosima together, 
 on an occasion to be referred to later, 
 and was struck with the remarkable 
 likeness between father and daughter. 
 
 Both were idealists ; if he had his eyes 
 upon the stars, so had she. Here is a 
 passage from one of Liszt's letters: 
 
 " Une pensee favorite de Cosima: ^De 
 quelque cot6 qu'un tourne la torche, 
 la flamme se redresse et monte vers 
 le ciel. '" ("A favorite thought of Co- 
 sima's : * Whichever way you may turn 
 148 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 the torch, the flame turns on itself and 
 still points toward the heavens.'") 
 
 A woman whose life holds that motto 
 is in herself an inspiration. Whatever 
 turn fortune takes, her aspirations still 
 blaze the way. She herself is the torch 
 of her motto. 
 
 Although not a musician, although 
 keeping herself consistently in the 
 background during Wagner's life 
 (much as a mere private secretary 
 would), her influence at Bayreuth was 
 continually felt; and since his death 
 she has been the head and front of the 
 Wagner movement, and yet without 
 seeking publicity. Her intellectual 
 force quietly assured her the succes- 
 sion. There have been protests against 
 her absolute rule, but she has serenely 
 ignored them. She still moulds to her 
 will all the forces concerned in the Bay- 
 reuth productions. 
 
 When Mme. Nordica was preparing 
 to sing " Elsa " at Bayreuth, it was Frau 
 Cosimawhowentovertherdlewithher, 
 
 149 
 
C|)e 3Lot)e0 of 
 
 sometimes repeating a single phrase a 
 hundred times in order to assure the 
 correct pronunciation of one word. It 
 taxed the singer to the utmost; but she 
 found Wagner's widow willing to work 
 as long and as hard as she herself 
 would. The performance established 
 Mme. Nordica as a Wagner singer. 
 Despite the criticisms that have been 
 heaped upon Frau Wagner for assum- 
 ing to set herself up as the great con- 
 servator of Wagnerian traditions, it is 
 significant that when, some years later, 
 Mme. Nordica decided to add "Sieg- 
 linde" to her repertoire, but with no 
 special purpose of singing it at Bay- 
 reuth, she arranged with Frau Cosima 
 to go over the role with her, and in or- 
 der to do so made a trip to Switzerland, 
 where the former was staying. So far 
 as adding to her reputation was con- 
 cerned, there was not the slightest rea- 
 son for Mme. Nordica to do this. That 
 the American prima donna elected to 
 study with Frau Cosima shows that 
 150 
 
d^reat Compogers 
 
 she must have found Wagner's widow 
 a woman of rare temperament. 
 
 Cosima was not Wagner's first love, 
 nor even his first wife. For in Novem- 
 ber, 1836, he had married Wilhelmina 
 Planer, the leading actress of the the- 
 atre in Magdeburg where he was mu- 
 sical director of opera. Her father was 
 a spindle-maker. It is said that her de- 
 sire to earn money for the household, 
 rather than the impetus of a well-de- 
 fined histrionic gift, led her to go on 
 the stage; but, once on the stage, she 
 discovered that she had unquestion- 
 able talent, and played leading char- 
 acters in tragedyand comedy with suc- 
 cess. 
 
 Minna is described as handsome, but 
 not strikingly so ; of medium height and 
 slim figure, with "soft, gazelle-like 
 eyes which were a faithful index of a 
 tender heart. " Later, however, the Prin- 
 cess Sayn-Wittgenstein wrote to Liszt 
 that she was too stout, but praised her 
 management of the household and her 
 
 151 
 
C|)e Ilotjeg of 
 
 excellent cuisine. Her nature was the 
 very opposite of Wagner's. Where he 
 was passionate, strong-willed and am- 
 bitious, she was gentle, affectionate 
 and retiring. Where he yearned for con- 
 quest, she wanted only a well-regu- 
 lated home. But she could not follow 
 him in his art theories, and as they as- 
 sumed more definite shape she became 
 less and less able to comprehend them 
 and, finally, they became almost a 
 sealed book to her. 
 
 Doubtless, the ill success of "The Fly- 
 ing Dutchman" and "Tannhauser," 
 works which, after "Rienzi," puzzled 
 people, engendered her first misunder- 
 standing of Wagner's genius. Some 
 may be surprised that this lack of ap- 
 preciation did not bring about a sepa- 
 ration sooner, instead of after nearly 
 a quarter of a century of married life. 
 But when a man is struggling with 
 poverty, the woman who unobtrusively 
 aids him in bearing it is regarded by 
 him as an angel of light, and the ques- 
 152 
 
Richard and Cosima Wagner 
 
(threat Compofi^ers 
 
 tion as to whether she appreciates his 
 genius or not becomes a secondary one 
 in the struggle for existence. 
 
 But when at last there is some prom- 
 ise of success, some relief from drudg- 
 ery, and with it a little leisure for 
 companionship — then, too, there is 
 opportunity for an estimate of intel- 
 lectual quality. Then it is that the man 
 of genius discovers that the woman 
 who has stood by him through his po- 
 verty lacks the graces of mind neces- 
 sary to his complete happiness, and 
 the self-sacrificing wife who has been 
 his drudge, in order that he might the 
 better meet want, and who has per- 
 haps lost her youth and her looks in 
 his service, is forgotten for some one 
 else. The worst of it is that the world 
 forgets her and all she has done for the 
 great man in her quiet, uncomplaining 
 way. The drudge never finds a page in 
 the "Loves of the Poets." The woman 
 who comes in and reaps where the 
 other has sown, does. 
 
 153 
 
Clje 3lot)e0 of 
 
 Wagner's friend, Ferdinand Praeger, 
 has much to say of Minna's fine qual- 
 ities. But he also tells several anecdotes 
 which completely illustrate how abso- 
 lutely she failed to comprehend Wag- 
 ner's genius and ambition. Praeger vi- 
 sited them in their "trimly kept Swiss 
 chalet" in Zurich in the summer of 
 1856. One day when Praeger and Minna 
 were seated at the luncheon table wait- 
 ing for Wagner, who was scoring the 
 "Nibelung," to come down from his 
 study, she asked: "Now, honestly, is 
 Richard really such a great genius?" 
 Remember that this question was 
 asked about the composer of "The 
 Flying Dutchman," "Tannhauser" 
 and "Lohengrin." If she was unable 
 to discover his genius in these, how 
 could she be expected to follow its loft- 
 ier flights in his later works? 
 
 On another occasion when Wagner 
 
 was complaining that the public did 
 
 not understand him, she said: "Well, 
 
 Richard, why don't you write some- 
 
 154 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 thing for the gallery?" So little did she 
 understand the man whose genius was 
 founded upon unswerving devotion to 
 artistic truth. 
 
 During Praeger's visit, a former 
 singer at the Magdeburg opera and 
 her two daughters called on Wagner. 
 They sang the music of the Rhine- 
 daughters from "Rheingold." When 
 they finished singing, Minna asked 
 Praeger: "Is it really as beautiful as 
 you say? It does not seem so to me, 
 and I 'm afraid it would not sound so 
 to others." 
 
 While, as can be shown from pas- 
 sages in his correspondence, Wagner 
 appreciated the homely virtues of his 
 first wife, and never, even after they 
 had separated, allowed a word to be 
 spoken against her, the last years of 
 theirmarried life were stormy. She had 
 been tried beyond her strength, and, 
 not sharing her husband's enormous 
 confidence in his artistic powers, she 
 had not the stimulus of his faith in his 
 
 155 
 
Cl)e JLotjeg of 
 
 ultimate success to sustain her. More- 
 over a heart trouble with which she 
 was afflicted resulted, through the 
 strain to which their uncertain mate- 
 rial condition subjected her, in a grow- 
 ing irritability which was accentu- 
 ated by jealousy of women who en- 
 tered the growing circle of Wagner's 
 admirers as his genius began to be ap- 
 preciated. 
 
 The crisis came in 1858, when they 
 separated, Minna retiring to Dresden. 
 Two years later, when Wagner was ill 
 in Paris, she went there and nursed 
 him, but they separated again. An in- 
 teresting fact, not generally known, 
 is that, in 1862, when Wagner was in 
 Biebrich on the Rhine composing his 
 "Meistersinger," Minna came from 
 Dresden as a surprise to pay him a 
 visit — evidently an effort to effect a 
 reconciliation. Wendelin Weisshei- 
 mer, a conductor at the opera in May- 
 euse on the opposite bank of the river 
 and a close friend of Wagner's at that 
 156 
 
(threat Compogerg 
 
 time, has left an enlightening record 
 of the episode. 
 
 Wagner, he says, "the heaven-storm- 
 ing genius, who knew no bounds, tried 
 to play the role of Hausvater— of lov- 
 ing husband and comforter. He had 
 some cold edibles brought in from the 
 hotel, made tea, and himself boiled half 
 a dozen eggs. [What a picture! The 
 composer of "Tristan" boiling eggs!] 
 Afterwards he put on one of his fami- 
 liar velvet dressing-gowns and a fit- 
 ting barretta, and proceeded to read 
 aloud the book of * Die Meistersinger.' 
 
 "The first act passed off without mis- 
 hap save for some unnecessary ques- 
 tions from Minna. But at the begin- 
 ning of the second act, when he had 
 described the stage-setting — *to the 
 right the cobbler shop of Hans Sachs ; 
 to the left,' etc., — Minna exclaimed: 
 
 "'And here sits the audience!* at the 
 same time letting a bread-ball rollover 
 Wagner's manuscript. That ended the 
 reading." 
 
 157 
 
C|)e ilotjefif of 
 
 The visit of course was futile. Minna 
 returned to Dresden, where she died in 
 1866. Poor Minna ! A good cook, but she 
 did not appreciate his genius, would 
 seem to sum up her story. Yet it is but 
 just that we should pay at least a pass- 
 ing salute to this woman who was the 
 love of Wagner's youth and the drudge 
 of his middle life, and who, from the 
 distance of her lonely separation, saw 
 him basking in the favor of the king, 
 who, too late for her, had become his 
 munificent patron. — What a contrast 
 between her fate and Cosima's! 
 
 Were it not for Liszt's letters, meagre 
 would be the information regarding 
 Cosima before her marriage to Wag- 
 ner. But by going over his voluminous 
 correspondence and picking out re- 
 ferences to her here and there, I am 
 able to give at least some idea of her 
 earlier life. 
 
 This extraordinary woman, who 
 brought Wagner so much happiness 
 and of whom it may be said that no 
 158 
 
(Bxtat Composers 
 
 other woman ever played so important 
 a part in the history of music, came 
 to her many graces and accompHsh- 
 ments by right of birth. She was the 
 daughter of Liszt and the Countess 
 d'AgouIt, a French author, better 
 known under her pen name of "Daniel 
 Stern." Thus she had genius on one 
 side of her parentage and distin- 
 guished talent on the other ; and, on 
 both sides, rare personal charm and 
 tact. 
 
 The Countess d'Agoult's father, Vis- 
 count Flavigny, was an old Royalist 
 nobleman. While an emigr6 during the 
 revolution, he had married the beauti- 
 ful daughter of the Frankfort banker, 
 Bethman. After the Flavignys re- 
 turned to France, their daughter, 
 an extremely beautiful blonde, was 
 brought up, partly at the Flavigny 
 chateau, partly at the Sacr6 Coeur de 
 Marie, in Paris. Talented beyond her 
 years, her wit and beauty won her 
 much admiration. At an early age she 
 
 159 
 
Cl)e JLotoesf of 
 
 married Count Charies d'Agoult, a 
 French officer, a member of the old 
 aristocracy and twenty years her 
 senior. 
 
 When she first met Liszt she was 
 twenty-nine years old, had been mar- 
 ried six years and was the mother of 
 three children. She still was beautiful, 
 and in her salon she gathered around 
 her men and women of rank, esprit 
 and fame. In 1835 Liszt left Paris after 
 the concert season there. The Coun- 
 tess followed him, and the next heard 
 of them they were in Switzerland. 
 They remained together six years, 
 Cosima, born in 1837, being one of 
 the three children resulting from the 
 union. In the Countess's relations with 
 Liszt there appears to have been a 
 curious mingling of la grande passion 
 and hauteur. For when, soon after she 
 had joined him in Switzerland, he 
 urged her to secure a divorce in order 
 that they might marry, she drew her- 
 self up and replied: " Madame la Com- 
 160 
 
<!5reat Composers? 
 
 tessed'Agoultne sera jamais Madame 
 Liszt! '' Certainly none but a French- 
 woman would have been capable of 
 such a reply under the same circum- 
 stances. Equally French was her hus- 
 band's remark when, the Countess's 
 support having been assumed by Liszt, 
 he expressed the opinion that through- 
 out the whole affair the pianist had 
 behaved like a man of honor. 
 After the separation of Liszt and 
 Countess d'Agoult, he entrusted the 
 care of the three children to his mother. 
 During a brief sojourn in Paris, Wag- 
 ner met Cosima, then a girl of six- 
 teen, for the first time. She formed 
 with Liszt, Von Biilow, Berlioz and a 
 few others the very small, but ex- 
 tremely select, audience which, at the 
 house of Liszt's mother, heard Wag- 
 ner read selections from his "Nibe- 
 lung" dramas. In 1855, the burden of 
 the care of the children falling too 
 heavily upon Liszt's mother, the duty 
 of looking after the daughters was 
 
 161 
 
CDe ILot)e0 of 
 
 cheerfully undertaken by the mother 
 of Hans von Biilow, who resided in 
 Berlin. 
 
 In a letter written by Von Biilow in 
 June, 1856, he speaks of them in these 
 interesting terms: "These wonderful 
 girls bear their name with right — 
 full of talent, cleverness and life, they 
 are interesting personalities, such as I 
 have rarely met. Another than I would 
 be happy in their companionship. But 
 their evident superiority annoys me, 
 and the impossibility to appear suffi- 
 ciently interesting to them prevents 
 my appreciating the pleasure of their 
 society as much as I would like to — 
 there you have a confession, the can- 
 dor of which you will not deny. It is not 
 very flattering for a young man, but it 
 is absolutely true." Yet, a year later, 
 he married Cosima, one of the girls 
 whose "superiority" so annoyed him. 
 
 How strange, in view of what hap- 
 pened later, that Von Biilow so planned 
 his wedding trip that its maiti objec- 
 162 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 tive was a visit to Zurich in order that 
 he might present Cosima to Wagner, 
 who had not seen her since she had 
 formed one of his audience at the 
 "Rheingold" reading in Paris. It is in a 
 letter to his friend, Richard Pohl, writ- 
 ten the day before his wedding, that 
 Von Biilow mentions the "Wagner- 
 stadt," Zurich, as the aim of his wed- 
 ding journey. Was it Fate — or fatality 
 — that led him thither with Cosima? 
 The daughter of Liszt, the bride of Von 
 Biilow, being conducted on her honey- 
 moon to the very lair of the great com- 
 poser for whom she was, within a few 
 years, to leave her husband! What 
 wonderful musical links destiny wove 
 in the life of this woman who herself 
 was not a musician! 
 
 Hans and Cosima arrived at Zurich 
 early in September. "For the last fort- 
 night," writes Von Biilow, under date 
 of September 19, 1857, "I and my wife 
 have been living in Wagner's house, 
 and I do not know anything else that 
 
 163 
 
Cl)e SLotjes of 
 
 could have afforded me such benefit, 
 such refreshment as being together 
 with this wonderful, unique man, whom 
 one should worship as a god." 
 
 On his side Wagner was charmed 
 with the Von Billows. In one of his let- 
 ters he speaks of their visit as his most 
 delightful experience of the summer. 
 "They spent three weeks in our little 
 house ; I have rarely been so pleasantly 
 and delightfully affected as by their in- 
 formal visit. In the mornings they had 
 to keep quiet, for I was writing my 
 'Tristan,* of which I read them an act 
 aloud every week. If you knewCosima, 
 you would agree with me when I con- 
 clude that this young pair is wonder- 
 fully well mated. With all their great in- 
 telligence and real artistic sympathy, 
 there is something so light and buoy- 
 ant in the two young people that one 
 was obliged to feel perfectly at home 
 with them." 
 
 Wagner allowed them to depart only 
 under promise that they would return 
 164 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 next year, which they did, to find a 
 household on the verge of disruption 
 and to be unwilling witnesses to some 
 of the closing scenes of Wagner's first 
 marriage. 
 
 During her childhood in Paris Cosima 
 was frail and delicate. Liszt, in one of 
 his letters, confesses that this caused 
 him to regard her with a deeper affec- 
 tion than he bestowed on her elder sis- 
 ter. Later he speaks of her as a rare 
 and beautiful nature of great and spon- 
 taneous charm. A friend of Liszt's who 
 saw herat the Altenburg in i860 writes 
 that she was pale, slender, wan and 
 thin to a degree, and that she crept 
 through the room like a shadow. Liszt 
 was greatly concerned about her, for 
 the year previous her brother Daniel 
 had died of consumption, and he feared 
 she might be stricken with the same 
 malady. 
 
 Daniel's death was a sad experience 
 through which they passed together, 
 and which strengthened the ties of ten- 
 
 165 
 
C!)e Htfots of 
 
 derness that drew Liszt to his younger 
 daughter. The son died in his father's 
 arms and in her presence. She had 
 nursed him devotedly in his last illness. 
 "Cosima tells me," Liszt wrote, before 
 he had seen Daniel on his sick-bed, 
 ''that the color of his beard and of his 
 hair has taken on a touch of brownish 
 red, and that he looks like a Christ by 
 Correggio." Together, after Daniel's 
 death, they knelt beside his bed "pray- 
 ing to God that His will be done —and 
 that He reconcile us to that Divine 
 will, in according us the grace on our 
 part to accept it without a murmur." 
 Such a scene was a memory for a life- 
 time. Cosima herself, in one of her let- 
 ters, gives a beautiful description of 
 her brother's passage from life. "He 
 fell back into the arms of death as into 
 those of a guardian angel, for whom he 
 had been waiting a long time. There 
 was no struggle ; without a distaste for 
 life, he seemed, nevertheless, to have 
 aspired ardently toward eternity." 
 i66 
 
(Bxtat Composers 
 
 With a pretty touch Liszt gives an 
 idea of Cosima's interest in others. It 
 seems that a certain Frau Stilke was 
 anxious to possess a gray dress of 
 moir6 antique, and Liszt had per- 
 suaded the Princess Sayn-Wittgen- 
 stein to place the necessary sum for 
 buying it at his daughter's disposal. 
 "In order to estimate the cost," he 
 writes, "Cosette has devised this ex- 
 cellent formula: It should be a dress 
 such as one would give to persons who 
 want adress — only it is necessary that 
 it should be gray and of moir6 antique 
 to satisfy the ideal of taste of the per- 
 son in question." 
 
 Wagner does not seem to have seen 
 Cosima after the Von Billows' second 
 visit to him at Zurich until they came 
 to him for a visit at Biebrich during the 
 summer of 1862. What a contrast Co- 
 sima must have seemed to poor Minna 
 who, in the same house and but a short 
 time before, had desecrated the manu- 
 scriptof"DieMeistersinger"byallow- 
 
 167 
 
Wtft Jlotjes of 
 
 ing a bread-ball to roll over it! Wag- 
 ner's favorable opinion of Hans and 
 Cosima underwent a great change dur- 
 ing their sojourn with him. In a letter, 
 after speaking of Von Billow's depres- 
 sion owing to poor health, he writes: 
 "Add to this a tragic marriage ;ayoung 
 woman of extraordinary, quite unpre- 
 cedented, endowment, Liszt's wonder- 
 ful image, but of superior intellect." 
 
 That this woman who so impressed 
 Wagner was in her turn filled with 
 iadmiration for his gifts appears from 
 two letters which, during the summer 
 of 1862, she wrote from Biebrich to her 
 father. In one of these she speaks en- 
 thusiastically of some of the "Tristan" 
 music. The other letter concerns "Die 
 Meistersinger:" 
 
 "The * Meistersinger' is to Wagner's 
 other conceptions what the * Winter's 
 Tale ' is to Shakespeare's other works. 
 Its fantasy is founded on gayety and 
 drollery, and it has called up the Nu- 
 remberg of the Middle Ages, with its 
 168 
 
(threat Composers 
 
 guilds, its poet-artisans, its pedants, 
 its cavaliers, to draw forth the freshest 
 laughter in the midst of the highest, 
 the most ideal poetry." 
 
 It is evident that two souls so sym- 
 pathetic could not long remain in prox- 
 imity without craving a closer union. 
 "Coming events cast their shadows 
 before," remarks one who often was 
 present during the Biebrich visit of the 
 Von Billows to Wagner. 
 
 How deeply Cosima sympathized 
 with Wagner's aims even then is shown 
 by another episode of this visit. One 
 evening the composer outlined to his 
 friends his plans for "Parsifal," adding 
 that it probably would be his last work. 
 The little circle was deeply affected, 
 and Cosima wept. Strange prescience! 
 "Parsifal" was not produced until 
 twenty years later, yet it proved to be 
 the finale of Wagner's life's labors. 
 
 The incident has interest from an- 
 other point of view. It shows that Wag- 
 ner had his plans for "Parsifal" fairjy 
 
 169 
 
Clje SLotjes of 
 
 matured in 1862, and that it was not, 
 as some critics, who see in it a deca- 
 dence of his powers, claim, a late after- 
 thought, designed to give to Bayreuth 
 a curiosity somewhat after the fagon 
 of the Oberammergau "Passion Play." 
 Decadence? Henry T. Finck, the most 
 consistent and eloquent champion 
 Wagner has had in America, sees in 
 it no falling off in the composer's ge- 
 nius ; nor do I. Wagner's scores always 
 fully voice his dramas,— "Parsifal" as 
 completely as any. The subject simply 
 required different musical treatment 
 from the heroic "Ringof the Nibelung" 
 and the impassioned "Tristan." 
 
 In aletter written by Wagner in June, 
 1864, occurs this significant sentence: 
 "There is one good being who bright- 
 ens my household." The "good being" 
 was Cosima, who from now on was de- 
 stined to fill his life with the sunshine 
 of love and of devotion to his art. 
 
 "Since I last saw you in Munich," 
 Wagner writes to a friend, "I have not 
 170 
 
(threat Compo0et0 
 
 again left my asylum, which in the 
 meanwhile also has become the refuge 
 of her who was destined to prove that 
 I could well be helped, and that the 
 axiom of my many friends, that ' I could 
 not be helped,' was false! She knew 
 that I could be helped, and has helped 
 me: she has defied every disapproba- 
 tion and taken upon herself every con- 
 demnation." 
 
 This was written in June, 1870, a year 
 after Cosima had borne him Siegfried, 
 and two months before their marriage. 
 For in August, 1870, the following an- 
 nouncement was sent out: 
 
 "We have the honor to announce our 
 marriage, which took place on the 25th 
 of August of this year in the Protestant 
 Church in Lucerne. 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 
 Cosima Wagner, n^e Liszt. 
 *• August 25, 1870.- 
 
 When, in 1882, 1 attended the first per- 
 formance of "Parsifal" in Bayreuth, 
 
 171 
 
Cl)e JLo\)e0 of 
 
 I had frequent opportunity of seeing 
 Wagner and Frau Cosima. Probably 
 the best view I had of them together, 
 and of Franz Liszt at the same time, 
 was at a dinner given by Wagner to 
 the artists who took part in the per- 
 formances. It was in one of the restau- 
 rants near the theatre on the hill over- 
 looking Bayreuth. Wagner's entrance 
 upon the scene was highly theatrical. 
 All the singers and a few other guests 
 had been seated, and Liszt, Frau Co- 
 sima and Siegfried Wagner were in 
 their places when the door opened and 
 in shot Wagner. It was as well calcu- 
 lated as the entrance of the star in a 
 play. On his way to his seat he stopped 
 and chatted a few moments with this 
 one and that one. Instead of Wagner 
 sitting at the head of the table and 
 his wife at the foot, they sat together 
 in the middle. It seemed impossible for 
 him, though, to remain seated more 
 than a few minutes at a time, and he 
 was jumping up and down and run- 
 172 
 
<I5reat Composers 
 
 ning about the table all through the 
 banquet. On the other side of Wagner 
 sat Liszt; on the other side of Frau 
 Cosima, Siegfried Wagner, then still 
 a boy. Among the four there were two 
 pairs of likenesses. Liszt was gray; 
 but, although Frau Cosima's hair was 
 blonde, and her face smooth and fair as 
 compared with her father's, which was 
 furrowed with age and boldly aquiline, 
 she was his child in every lineament. 
 Moreover, the quick, responsive light- 
 ing up of the features, her graceful 
 bearing, her tact — that these were in- 
 herited from him a brief surveillance 
 of the two sufficed to disclose. Com- 
 bined with these fascinating, but after 
 all more or less superficial character- 
 istics was the stamp of a rare intel- 
 lectual force on both faces. No one see- 
 ing them together needed to be told 
 that Cosima was a Liszt. 
 Nor did any one need to be told that 
 Siegfried was a Wagner. The boy was 
 as much like his father as his mother 
 
 173 
 
Clje JLotjes of 
 
 was like hers. Feature for feature, 
 Wagner was reproduced in his son. 
 That there should be no trace of the 
 mother, and such a mother, in the boy's 
 face struck me as remarkable; but 
 there was none. Siegfried Wagner 
 was a veritable pocket edition of his 
 famous father. His later photographs 
 as a youngman show that much of this 
 likeness has disappeared. After din- 
 ner, there were speeches. Wagner, his 
 hand resting affectionately on Liszt's 
 shoulder, paid a feeling tribute to the 
 man who had befriended him early in 
 his career and who had given him the 
 precious wife at his side. I remember 
 as if it had been but last night the ten- 
 derness with which he spoke the words 
 die theure Gattin. 
 
 It was a wonderful two or three hours, 
 that banquet, with the numerous nota- 
 bilities present, and at least two great 
 men, Liszt and Wagner, and one great 
 woman, the daughter of Liszt and the 
 wife of Wagner ; and the experience is 
 174 
 
d^reat Composers 
 
 to be treasured all the more, because 
 few of those present saw Wagner 
 again. Early in the following year he 
 died at Venice. He is buried in the 
 garden back of Wahnfried, his Bay- 
 reuth villa. He was a great lover of 
 animals, and at his burial his two fa- 
 vorite dogs, Wotan and Mark, burst 
 through the bushes that surround the 
 grave and joined the mourners. One 
 of these pets is buried near him, and on 
 the slab is the inscription: "Here lies 
 in peace Wahnfried's faithful watcher 
 and friend— the good and handsome 
 Mark." 
 
 What Cosima was to Wagner is best 
 told in Liszt's words, written to a friend 
 after a visit to Bayreuth, in 1872, when 
 his favorite child had been married to 
 Wagner two years. "Cosima still is my 
 terrible daughter, as I used to call her, 
 — an extraordinary woman and of the 
 highest merit, far above vulgar judg- 
 ment, and worthy of the admiring sen- 
 timents which she has inspired in all 
 
 175 
 
d^reat Compo0er0 
 
 who have known her. She is devoted 
 to Wagner with an all-absorbing en- 
 thusiasm, like Senta to the Flying 
 Dutchman — and she will prove his 
 salvation, because he listens to her and 
 follows her with keen perception." 
 That Bayreuth with Wagner's death 
 did not become a mere tradition, that 
 the Wagner performances still con- 
 tinue there, is due to Frau Cosima. 
 She is Bayreuth. No woman has made 
 such an impression on the music of her 
 time as she. Yet she is not a musician ! 
 
 THE END 
 
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