$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 ^^H ^^^^H Hfejp ^^^H JH • V\ ^^^^^^^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 ' ]-. •'■.r!': . -, ic.;'v r;£B2 3iSG3 i-4r^- m' nFS^B-^i i9fifi Jtii^ SEP 6 1973 Jln^ - ^; •iq-v) MAY 1 1976 If , ,„, „ -1 ino'^ WC 1 ^ iQKi JUN 2 1 1w- APR 1 '^ Ml LD 21-50m-8,'57 (C8481sl0)476 General Libr. University of Call / Berkeley / DATE DUE Music Library University of California at Berkeley