/ BOOKS BY HENRY T. FINCK Published by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Success in Music and How it is Won. 12mo, iiet,$1.25 Songs and Song Writers. 12mo, . net, $1.25 Wagner and His Works. The Story of His Life, with Critical Comments. With Por- traits. 2 vols. Cr. 8vo, . . . net, $4.00 Cliopin and Other Musical Essays. 12mo net,$1.50 Lotos -Time in Japan. With 16 full-page illustrations. Cr. 8vo, . . . net, $1.75 Spain and Morocco. Studies in Local Color. 12mo net, $1.25 The Pacific Coast Scenic Tour. With 24 full-page illustrations. 8vo, . . net, $2.00 Primitive Love and Love-Stories. 8vo, net, $3.00 SUCCESS IN MUSIC SUCCESS IN MUSIC AND HOW IT IS WON BY HENRY T. IJINCK AITTBOR or "WAGNER AND HIS WORKS," " SONGS AND BONO WRITERS," " CHOPIN," ETC. WITH A CHAPTER ON TEMPO RUBATO BY IGNACE JAN PADEREWSKI NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1913 F ^3 Copyright, 1909, by Charles Scribner's Sons DEDICATED TO THE ARTISTS NAMED AND UNNAMED WHO HELPED TO MAKE THIS BOOK POSSIBLE 304678 PRELUDE When I was a boy I had a flower garden in Oregon, where it seldom rains in summer. Every evening I watered the plants, yet they soon languished in spite of all my hard work. The garden was not a success — and why ? Simply because there was no one to tell me that I did not go deep enough. The ground looked moist, but I had wetted the surface only; the water did not reach the roots, and the poor plants died of thirst. It is because they do not reach the roots of their art that so many young musicians fail. They toil for years, cover- ing much ground in exercising their fingers and vocal cords (usually "in indolent vacuity of thought"), but the vivify- ing moisture goes down only an inch or two, and after a brief season of bloom — or none at all — they disappear for- ever. Edward MacDowell once compasred these debutants to the potted geraniums sold by the florists in spring, every year bringing new ones. The situation is deplorable, not only on account of these discarded, disappointed young singers and players, but because good musicians are urgently needed ever)rwhere. The demand for first-class opera singers, in particular, is very much greater than the supply. Fame and fortune await those who come up to the mark more surely than in almost any other occupation; yet of the thousands who try every year only a few succeed. Why do these succeed where so many fail ? The present volume is an attempt to answer this question. It is a sort of symposium in which many of the world's greatest sing- ers, pianists, violinists, and teachers tell the secrets of their vii viii PRELUDE success. Many of these artists I have had the privilege of knowing personally. From their conversations and let- ters, and from a thousand other sources, I have endeavored to construct a Gradus ad Parnassum, a path showing to all how they can reach the summit. The climbing they must do themselves. Perhaps nothing will surprise, and at the same time encourage, the readers of these biographic sketches so much as the evidence they supply that there are many different avenues to success. There is a chance for every- body — for all, at any rate, who will use their brains and heed the advice given by the famous artists in these pages. To some it may seem that Jenny Lind's career is dwelt on at disproportionate length; but it is a career which illustrates nearly every phase of artist life, and one of the main objects of this volume is to show to young women and men — and their parents — just what sort of adventures, joys, and sorrows they may expect in choosing such a life for themselves or their children. It was, of course, impossible to provide sketches of all the successful musicians — that would have required sev- eral volumes. Some prominent artists are left out simply because I could find nothing unique or particularly inter- esting in their careers; and as I have placed special em- phasis on the fact that every music lesson should be made interesting, it would have been inconsistent if I had not tried to make these chapters interesting too, all the more as they are not intended for students and performers alone, but also for parents, for opera-star worshippers, and for music-lovers in general; for which reason anecdotes and personal details have been interspersed liberally. While this book is divided into sections and chapters treating separately of singers, pianists, violinists, and teachers, I most earnestly advise students to read all the chapters, whether they relate to their particular branch or PRELUDE ix not. Vocalists can learn a great deal by reading about the art and the career of violinists or pianists, who in turn can learn much from them. Marcella Sembrich, for instance, owes much of her success as a singer to the fact that she is also an excellent violinist and pianist. Special pains have been taken to make the Index help- ful, but every reader who wishes to profit fully by the mul- titude of hints here collected would do well to follow a method I have found of great value: make marginal marks of those bits of advice which seem most useful to yourself, then jot these down briefly on a few sheets of paper and read them over again and again and again, recurring to the book for details. Fears have been expressed that the mulitiplication of mechanical piano players and singing machines — one firm alone has done a $50,000,000 business in a single year — will injure musicians and music teachers. They need not worry. This "canned music," as Mr. Sousa has con- temptuously called it, really stimulates the appetite for still better things. But it is evident that mere technic has been placed at a discount by these ingenious and brilliant automatic or semi-automatic instruments, and it follows that if the teachers, singers, and players wish to keep ahead of these machines, they must give most of their attention to the secrets of musical expression and temperament which this volume attempts to reveal. Attention is called particularly to the epoch-making chapter, XXVIII, kindly written for this volume by Mr. Paderewski, on those slight modifications of pace which constitute the very essence and poetry of musical eloquence. CONTENTS PART I MUSIC, MONEY, AND HAPPINESS CHAPTER 'AGE I. Does Music Pay? 3 II. Are Great Artists Happy? 17 PART II SUCCESSFUL SINGERS III. Two Swedish Nightingales 27 Jenny Lind 27 Christine Nilsson 53 IV. Italian Prima Donnas 60 Adelina Patti 60 Catalani and Pasta 69 Tetrazzini: A Musical Mystery ... 75 V. Two Spanish Sisters 84 Pauline Viardot Garcia 84 Maria Malibran 88 VI. The Nationality of Singers 91 jd xii CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE VII. German and Austrian Singers 96 Mara and Sontag 96 Schroder-Devrient, Wagner's Idol . . 99 LiLLi Lehmann, Wagner's Ideal ... 105 Marianne Brandt . 115 Ernestine Schumann-Heink 118 Pauline Lucca . 127 Marcella Sembrich 131 VIII. Melba, Garden, and Calve ...... 138 Nellie Melba 138 Mary Garden . 143 Emma Calve . . . . . . . . . . . 146 IX. Three American Sopranos 156 Lillian Nordica 156 Emma Eames 169 Geraldine Farrar 174 X. Is the Art of Song Decaying? .... 197 XL Modern Improvements in Tenors ... 202 RuBiNi, "King of Tenors" 202 Mario's Modern Traits 204 Tamagno and Campanini ...... 206 Enrico Caruso 208 Why De Reszke was Supreme . . . . 211 XII. Four Up-to-date Baritones 224 Charles Santley 224 Victor Maurel . . 229 Maurice Renaud 234 Ludwig Wullner ......... 242 CONTENTS xui PART III GREAT PIANISTS CHAPTER PAGE XIII. Evolution of the Piano Virtuoso ... 253 XIV. How Beethoven Played and Taught . . 255 XV. Chopin as Pianist and Teacher . . . . 262 XVI. Liszt and His Pupils 275 XVII. Hints by Hans von Bulow 295 XVIII. Rubinstein the Leonine 302 XIX. Paderewski and His Secrets 309 PART IV FOUR TYPES OF VIOLINISTS XX. Paganini and Kubelik 327 NiccoLO Paganini 327 Jan Kubelik 334 XXI. Remenyi and Ole Bull 338 Edouard Remenyi 338 Ole Bull 343 XXII. Spohr and Joachim . 349 Louis Spohr 349 Joseph Joachim 351 [XXIII. WiLHELMj and Kreisler . . 357 August Wilhelmj 357 Fritz Kreisler .......... 36Q xiv CONTENTS PART V TEACHERS, PARENTS, AND PUPILS CHAPTER PAOa XXIV. Some Famous Teachers 369 William Mason: An American Pioneer . 369 Leschetizky, Paderewski's Teacher . '372 Ottokar Sevcik, Kubelik*s Teacher . .378 How Garcia Helped Singers .... 380 Jean de Reszke as Teacher 388 XXV. Hints to Teachers 395 How TO Get PupilS 395 Where to Locate 397 How TO Retain Pupils 399 XXVI. Advice to Parents 405 XXVII. Hints to Pupils, Singers and Players . .411 Genius, Work, and Overwork .... 411 The Short Cut to Success 415 Temperament, Personality, Magnetism, Expression 421 Tempo Rubato, Pedal and Accentuation 428 Singing Distinctly and in English . . 432 Should Americans Study Abroad? . . 434 Starting a Career 440 Programs, Encores, Stage Fright . . . 445 A Few Health Hints 449 XXVIII. Paderewski on Tempo Rubato .... 454 Index 463 PART I MUSIC, MONEY, AND HAPPINESS DOES MUSIC PAY? Every year tens of thousands of young women and youths ask themselves the questions: *' Shall I choose music as a profession? Will it enable me to make a living — to become rich, perhaps, and famous ? Will it insure me as much happiness as I would find in some other career?" At the ripe age of seventy-four, one of the most success- ful and esteemed of modern artists, Sir Charles Santley, wrote a book in which he made this confession: "It is a generally received idea that a singer's life is a merry one — little to do, storms of applause, topped up with bags of gold, and amusement without end. My experience does not confirm that idea in the least; my anticipation which pointed to merriment broke down in the realization. No gold nor amusement could repay the toil, worry, and dis- appointment of a singer's life as I know it." Is this the truth in a nutshell, or is it simply the utter- ance of an artist soured by old age ? Let us look at both sides of the question, the dark side first. I once bought seventeen luscious Bartlett pears in San Francisco for five cents. On another occasion I read that hundreds of bushels of choice ripe peaches had been dumped into the ocean, to empty the boxes. There was an overproduction of fruit, and where there is overproduction the best is a drug in the market. In the musical market there is a deplorable overproduc- tion of both singers and players. The demand is for the best only, and even of the best the public easily gets a 3 4 SUCCESS IN MUSIC surfeit. The others are likely to agree with the famous French prima donna, Desiree-Artot, that "the artistic career is a paradise for those who are on top but an in- ferno for the mediocrities.'^ There is little if any exaggeration in this dismal picture drawn by the editor of the Musical Leader and Concert- Goer: "Recent instances in and around New York are appalling, where well-known artists have been paid $io for a concert or recital appearance, and the singer who receives $ioo or $150 for a performance is a rara avis. The or- chestral organizations, the oratorio societies in New York and the outlying cities, make the claim that they can obtain all the artists needful because of the good advertising such appearances bring. And the larger the society or club or orchestral organization the smaller the amount paid, unless the artist happens to be of particular importance. The claim is made that the advertisement of singing with such and such a club more than repays for the artist's time and labor. Conditions in New York are absolutely outrageous. The 'free list' is in full blast — in fact, is a necessity for the obtaining of an audience — and in giving his recital an artist is bound to face considerable expenditure and no possi- bility of return." Most of the recitals in New York — including many by prominent American and European players and singers — are, indeed, given with the full understanding that there is to be a deficit, but with the hope that the critical notices in the metropolitan journals will help the artists in the other cities. But unless a musician's success is sensational other cities will not hear of it, and the overworked metro- politan critics, moreover, do not usually overflow with helpful enthusiasm. Many years ago Mr. W. S. B. Mathews wrote that Thai- berg and Gottschalk could not have given their concerts in America without the assistance of a piano manufacturer DOES MUSIC PAY? 5 desirous of bringing his instruments before the pubh'c. This is true to the present day of all but a very few of the pianists. Does it follow from all this that musicians should migrate to Europe and remain there? Not if they want money. Deplorable though the situation may be in America, it is better than in Europe. The one great ambition of every European musician, in fact, is to become sufficiently famous to receive a call to the " Dollarland." Even such great and sensationally successful artists as Jenny Lind and Rubinstein had to come to America, as will be seen in later chapters, to win the wealth which enabled them thence- forth to spend their days as they chose. Germany is generally considered the world's musical head-quarters, but it is by no means the paradise of musi- cians. Charles Booth asserts in his book, The Life and Labor of the People of London^ that the organ-grinders who perambulate the streets of that city earn from 80 cents to $5 a day. Germany gives less encouragement to that kind of musicians; her musical proletariat is the orchestral player. His average income is about that of the English 80-cent-a-day organ-grinder, while $5 a day is a goal to which he cannot aspire. The two leading men in the Royal Orchestra of Berlin get about $1,250 a year, but this is far above the usual salaries. The highest pay for any member of the opera orchestra in Vienna is 3,600 crowns ($720) a year, or less than $2 a day. The players in the orchestra of the Hamburg Stadttheater get only $350 a year, and in smaller cities, like Nuremberg, Wurzburg, Rostock, although the musicians have to be sufficiently expert to play Wagner and Richard Strauss, the pay is from $20 to $2 5 a month. " The majority of German orchestral players," says Paul Busching, "belong to-day to the prole- tariat. Many an instrumental player is, so far as the amount and the certainty of his income are concerned, no 6 SUCCESS IN MUSIC better off than a dock laborer on the Hamburg quays or a day laborer in the building trades." There are 50,000 of these players in Germany. As regards the independent musicians, a canvas made in Berlin showed that twenty-six per cent, of them do not earn $12.50 a month, and forty-five per cent, do not earn $15. Equally dismal is the situation of the women and men who sing in the chorus of the German opera-houses. In sixty-four of these theatres the male members receive a monthly salary of from $18.75 to ^45 > while the women get from $18.75 to $37.50. Docking of salary is, moreover, a usual punishment. These, to be sure, are the private soldiers in the musical army. The officers, surely, are better paid? Some of them, yes. There are a few eminent conductors, like Nikisch, Mottl, Weingartner, who earn up to $25,000 a year, by working like beavers, travelling from city to city; but the average German conductor in a provincial opera- house gets only $30 to $50 a month; yet the supply of men willing to work for such an income far exceeds the demand. When the city of Ratibor advertised for a conductor, there were 140 applicants for the place, and 50 of these were university graduates. Hermann Ritter, who mentions this case,* comes to this conclusion after a thorough study of the subject: **If parents ask me whether I would consider it advisable to let their son become a musician I answer: *Do not let him, if you can prevent it; for the career of a musician has more of the dark than of the bright side of life.' " A shoemaker who knows his business will be better off, he adds. Soloists, with very few exceptions, fare no better; indeed, they fare worse, for while the orchestral players and choris- * Ueher die materielle U7td sociale Lage des Orchester-Musikers. Bro- chures on the same subject have also been written by Paul Marsop and Heinrich Waltz. DOES MUSIC PAY? 7 ters at least get a pittance, the givers of recitals usually get nothing — in fact, as a rule, a recital takes money out of their pockets. Among the clippings before me is one which reads: "Berlin is frequently afflicted with as many as 40, 50, or more concerts in one week. There are three concert bureaus in the city. One of these has on its books 490 musicians, including 103 pianists, 86 violinists, 85 sopranos, 53 tenors, etc. Eighteen employees are needed to take care of all these 'artists.'" This was written some years ago. To-day the situation is wc«-se. During the season 1907-8 Berlin had some 1,200 concerts. Dr. Leopold Schmidt, the critic of the Tagehlatty on discovering that he had 54 concerts to cover in one week in October, indulged in these pessimistic reflections: *'We have reached a crisis. The concerts are eating one an- other up, like the two lions of the well-known tale. They take away one another's public, profits, and every chance to secure attention and success, and finally not even the tail remains, in the form of critical notices." The same journal tefls how the audiences at recitals are apt to be made up. Miss X, who plays or sings, sends out about 200 tickets, some of them to prominent persons. One of these is the wife of Professor N. She kindly ac- cepts the tickets, but has no intention of attending the con- cert, so she gives them to her dressmaker, who in turn be- stows them on her assistants, who perhaps go to the con- cert. In one case it was found that of the 200 free tickets only 47 were used. In other German cities there are fewer recitals, but also fewer still who are interested in them. The well-known German composer, Hans Pfitzner, gave a recital of his own songs in Cologne for which not a single ticket was sold. Commenting on this occurrence, a correspondent wrote to the Frankfurter Zeitung: "That Cologne has no public for concerts has long been known. No less a man than Anton 8 SUCCESS IN MUSIC Rubinstein once gave a concert here to empty seats. Last Wednesday we had a concert by the well-known Flonzaley Quartet, which was well attended; but the number of those who paid for their tickets was three." Next to Germany, Italy is considered the most musical country in Europe. Are the prospects for musicians better there? Quite the contrary. Piano, violin, and song re- citals are practically eliminated, the Italian interest in music being monopolized by the opera. Nor does the opera flourish there as it used to. The emoluments paid to singers are so low that all the best ones are enticed away by the higher prices paid in New York and South American cities. The situatk)n is summed up in the words of Leon- cavallo when he was asked if his Roland was to be given in his native country: "Three good singers are required for this opera, and with the voices we have at present here in Italy I would not dare to present myself to the fastidious opera-goers of Milan or Turin." Yet the American or Eng- lish singers who fancy that this dearth might prove their opportunity will be sadly disappointed, for reasons that will be touched upon in the chapter on studying abroad. Paris used to be a good place for recitals, but for reasons unexplained even the greatest soloists now fail to entice the French to the concert halls. Prejudice against soloists is sometimes manifested by hisses even at the well-patron- ized orchestral Sunday concerts. Apart from these, the Parisian appetite is appeased chiefly by opera; and the operatic artists are far from being overpaid, according to American or English ideas. The highest salary at the Op^ra goes to the tenor Alvarez, who gets $i,6oo a month; the leading soprano, Mme. Brdval, has $1,500 a month, while the salaries of the other singers range from $17,000 a year down to $300. At the Op^ra Comique the salaries are much lower than at the Grand Op^ra. Chorus singers in the Parisian opera-houses get $300 a year. DOES MUSIC PAY? 9 "Are organists lunatics?" is the suggestive heading of an article in the London Truth, in which the case is re- corded of a church position worth ;^5o a year for which there were 140 applicants. One of the favorite topics of Sir John Stainer was the poverty of the British organist, due inevitably to overproduction. The highest cathedral salary is ;£3oo a year, and there are some at ;^2oo; "but these are the plums of the profession." In the smaller churches from ;;£2o to £40 a year is paid the organist. " An organ-grinder probably earns as much. It really seems strange that parents should waste their money and the time of their sons on a profession so hopelessly overstocked." Orchestral players are somewhat better off, getting £7^ to £6 per week. As regards recitals by singers and players, the situation is summed up in one sentence: ''The whole business is frightfully overdone." The Telegraph gave figures indicating that during 1907 there were 1,500 con- certs in London — an average of about 29 every week; which indicates that the situation is even worse than in Berlin. The receipts equal the expenditures in very few cases. Deadheads, too, are becoming harder to get, and it may soon be necessary to provide also car fares and ice- cream or lemonade to make them accept free tickets. Speaking of British composers, Alfred Kalisch wrote in the London World: ''It would not be wide of the mark to say that every one of the musicians whose works have been heard or are going to be heard (with the exception of Sir Edward Elgar) is out of pocket by the performance. There is an eminent composer who is reported to have de- clared that as soon as he has made a clear profit of £^0 by his works he will cease composing. As he is still on the active list (luckily) we may assume that his modest ambi- tion has not yet been achieved — and he is one of the most eminent." Let us now look at the other side of the shield. 10 SUCCESS IN MUSIC Undoubtedly the vast majority of musicians have a hard time of it in this world. They are overworked and under- paid. But is not the same true of every other profession, every other employment ? The average earnings of music teachers in America are fully equal to the earnings of other teachers, in the public schools. It has been ascertained that in a list including 467 American cities there were 53,554 positions with annual salaries of $600 and over, besides 14,193 of $500 to $600; and Commissioner W. T. Harris has remarked that *'no teacher has a right to com- plain, on a socialistic basis, if he is receiving a salary for his annual services of $600." There are in the United States perhaps a hundred physicians who earn $50,000 or more a year. Concerning the rest, a writer in Harpefs Weekly estimates that "the average earnings of qualified and certified doctors of medicine in the United States do not exceed $600 a year. Nor are the United States exceptional," he adds, "as re- gards the inadequate pay of the medical profession. Un- doubtedly in a great capital like Berlin, doctors earn more on an average than they do in the minor cities of Germany, to say nothing of the small towns and rural districts. Yet statistics show that of the 2,060 medical practitioners in Berlin, 54 earn from $225 to $260 a year, 261 from $260 to $525, and 206 from $525 to $750. Of practitioners earn- ing from $750 to $1,250 there are 286; and, in the case of 924 practitioners, the income exceeds that last-men- tioned sum. In Italy the average income of the poor-law medical officer, who is not allowed to engage in medical practice, is $500 a year. In Belgium the earnings of coun- try doctors range from $400 to $2,000 a year." From the foregoing it will be seen that the average physician in prosperous America earns only $300 more in a year than an operatic chorus singer does in five months. "Why," says the writer just quoted, "should a young man DOES MUSIC PAY? ii or a young woman want to be a doctor in these days, un- less, indeed, he or she is impelled by an irresistible attrac- tion to the calling?" Why, indeed? Why should a young man or a young woman want to engage in any profession whatsoever in these days? All are equally overstocked; in all, those who earn over $600 a year are the lucky ex- ceptions.* Fortunately there is such a thing as Hope implanted in most mortals. Hope keeps the world on the move. There is always room on top; of that there is no doubt; and we all hope to arrive at the top. Those who have reached it are prosperous. There are some music teachers in New York and elsewhere who earn from $20,000 to $30,000 a year; there are many who earn from $3,000 to $5,000. In London, Paris, Berlin, and smaller cities there are wealthy music teachers. Paderewski's receipts on his first American tour were $95,000; on his second, $160,000; on his third, $248,000; and similar sums came to him during his subsequent tours. This, to be sure, represents the climax of pianistic achieve- ment; but Liszt, Rubinstein, Thalberg, and other players of the past earned fortunes, while among those of the present may be further named Josef Hofmann, who has in Russia and Mexico the same $5,000 houses that Paderewski has in the cities of the United States and England. Kube- lik made half a million dollars with his violin in a few years. Famous singers have at all times earned fabulous sums. Pages of names and figures might be cited in support of this assertion, but a few instances may suffice here; further details will be supplied in the section devoted to the careers * The fact that trained nurses get $25 a week for their service and $35 for contagious cases tempts many young women. But in the words of the New York Sun: "The usual rule is that the nurse lasts only about a dozen years, that she has saved no money to speak of [not being em- ployed all the time], that she has had a career of great hardship, and that she must either marry or seek some other calling." 12 SUCCESS IN MUSIC of successful singers. Catalani, a century ago, found it easy to make $80,000 a year. Malibran got 80,000 francs for a short season in Naples; in London she had ^^125 per night; in 1833 she wrote to her manager that she would accept his offer to sing Sonnambula in English once, but demanded ;£25o, ''payable on the morning of the represen- tation." Pasta got 80,000 rubles (equal in our money to-day to $60,000) for eight performances in St. Petersburg. In the same city Rubini took in 54,000 francs at a single concert. Tamagno once got 640,000 francs (gold) for forty appearances in South America; he left his daughter a fortune; yet this tenor's earnings were a trifle compared with those of Caruso, who has a sure $150,000 a year. Italian tenors of less repute — Zenatello, Bonci, Bassi Masini — have costly villas in picturesque localities in their country. The highest-paid tenor of our time was Jean de Reszke, who often got $3,000 for an evening's work. Of all prima donnas Patti got the highest emoluments; these amounted, in America, to $5,000 a performance — always in advance — and sometimes a percentage in addition. For single concerts, however, Jenny Lind surpassed her. Many of the German and French prima donnas, tenors, baritones, and basses might be mentioned among the wealthy individuals of their country. English and Ameri- can readers need not be reminded of the vast sums earned by such favorites of the day as Sembrich, Melba, Nordica, Eames, Schumann-Heink, Gadski, Lilli Lehmann, Ger- aldine Farrar, Calvd, Tetrazzini, Ternina, who earn be- tween $50,000 and $100,000 or more a year, getting $1,000 to $2,000 for each operatic performance and similar sums for singing at the musicales of millionaires. Sembrich probably averages $5,000 at her song recitals in New York. Caruso has made as much as $200,000 in one year, $55,000 of which was for singing into one of the talking machines. DOES MUSIC PAY? 13 So great, indeed, are the emoluments of many musical artists to-day that we often hear an outcry that they are overpaid. Maybe they are overpaid, but what of it if it pays to overpay them? Many authors, one might say, have been overpaid — among them Gladstone, Tennyson, Kipling, the author of Ben-Hur, and most writers of "best sellers" — yet the publishers found that it was profitable to overpay them.* While some artists received high prices a century or more ago, the average pay of singers and players has gone up steadily. For instance, at the Imperial Opera in Vienna, in our day, the tenor Winkelmann has received $10,000 a year, the baritone Reichmann $8,800, and Frl. Renaud $7,200; while Frau Schlager advanced in fifteen years from the $10 a month she got as a chorus girl to $8,000 a year. Half a century earlier (as Julius Stern attests in his Funfzig Jahre Hoftheater) the leading singers at the same institution received only about $2,400 a year; the famous conductor Esser had $80 a month ! The eminent violinist Henri Vieuxtemps offered his services as concert-master and soloist for $1,200 a year, but his offer was declined for financial reasons. The members of the orchestra at that time got only $12.40 a month. In the financial position of composers there has also been a great improvement. Every lover of music is familiar with the sad tale of the poverty, the neglect, the underpaying of Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Weber, and other great masters. Once Mozart's publisher put a few ducats in his hands and said: "Compose in a simpler and more popular style or I will print no more of your compositions, nor will I give you * A newspaper writer asked a few years ago whether, in view of the fact that the President of the United States is paid $137 a day, Patti was worth $5,000 a night, Jean de Reszke up to $3,000, and Paderewski from $2,000 to $7,000. To which one might reply: Why not, if they can get it? If the President of the United States engages in a pursuit which yields such shabby results, he has no one to blame but himself. 14 SUCCESS IN MUSIC another kreutzer." To which Mozart replied sadly: "Then, my good sir, I must needs resign myself to die of starvation." Schubert's life might have been saved had he had a few florins to leave Vienna — as he was eager to do — on the fatal summer when he got typhoid fever. Weber received only eighty Friedrichsdor for his Freischutz, one of the most successful operas ever written. Chopin was paid so little for his piano pieces — which have since enriched scores of publishers — that he had to teach to make his living. He died in 1849. Contrast with the foregoing some men of our time. Brahms, who died in 1897, left his heirs about $100,000. Many other modern writers of serious music have made fortunes. Among them we may name Verdi (who made millions by his operas and $100,000 by his Requiem) y Am- broise Thomas (whose Mignon brought him and his libret- tist 800,000 francs at a thousand performances) , Massenet, Gounod, Leoncavallo, Puccini. Mascagni has earned at least $100,000 with his Cavalleria Rusticana, and Leonca- vallo probably nearly as much with his / Pagliacci. Hum- perdinck's royalties on Hansel and Gretel amounted to $50,000 in a single year. Richard Strauss's income from his operas, songs, and orchestral works was estimated at a quarter of a million marks in 1908, and he expected to double that sum in a few years. In the realm of light opera or operetta, Offenbach, Lecocq, Audran, Johann Strauss, Suppd, Milloecker, Victor Herbert, Lehar, and many others have made fortunes. Sir Arthur Sullivan is said to have made ;^3o,ooo a year from his operettas alone. Regarding Victor Herbert, "common report has it that his income is as much as $10,000 a week for extended periods," says Mr. Lewis M. Isaacs.* * See his "The Musician as a Money-Maker," in The Bookman for January, 1909. DOES MUSIC PAY? 15 Henry W. Savage claims that The Merry Widow is the most stupendous financial and popular success the theat- rical world has ever known. First produced in Vienna, on December 30, 1905, it had up to the first of April, 1909, 1,503 performances in America, 1,365 in England; total number of performances everywhere, about 18,000. It had been sung in 422 German, 135 English, and 154 American cities. It had been translated into thirteen lan- guages and produced in thirty different countries, including Turkey, Persia, Japan, China, Hindoostan, and Siberia. New York had paid a million dollars to hear it in one year; Chicago paid $364,000 in twenty-six weeks; Boston, $250,000 in eighteen weeks. More than 3,000,000 copies of The Merry Widow waltz had been sold in Europe; and in America the music publishers sold $400,000 worth of Merry Widow scores and selections in twenty-three months. Up to April i, 1909, three American com- panies played to gross receipts of $2,694,000. Does music pay? Probably the most profitable single song ever published was Listen to the Mocking-Bird, on which the publishers are said to have realized $3,000,000. The composer of it, Sep- timus Winner, sold it for $35. A royalty of ten per cent, would have yielded him $300,000. Arditi got only $250 for his famous Kiss Waltz, which brought the publisher who bought it a fortune of $80,000. To-day composers are usually wise enough to ask a royalty instead of a lump sum. Thus, at five cents a copy, Eugene Cowles got $15,750 for the 315,000 sold copies of his Forgotten. Of Chaminade's song. The Silver Ring, over 200,000 copies have been sold. Jaques Blumenthal, the song writer, left a fortune of $300,000. This list of composers, players, and singers who have earned fortunes might be increased indefinitely. Sar- asate's violin playing brought him two million francs. i6 SUCCESS IN MUSIC John Philip Sousa cannot touch anything without turning it to gold. Kubelik lives in a castle and has the income of a prince. Everybody has a chance to get rich — except the musical critic. And every musician is glad he hasn't! n ARE GREAT ARTISTS HAPPY? When I was a freshman at Harvard, fresh from the Oregon wilderness and therefore easily amused, I used to play the violoncello occasionally at one of the Boston theatres as substitute for my esteemed teacher, Wulf Fries, when he happened to be playing sonatas with Rubinstein (1872) or was otherwise engaged. Lydia Thompson was, in those verdant days, one of my favorites, and it was her company that one evening produced at that theatre a play, the hero of which is always unhappy no matter what hap- pens. Even when he has at last won his sweetheart and has his arm around her waist, he turns toward the audience and exclaims, in lugubrious tones: "And yet I am not happy." Often have I thought of that "and yet I am not happy" in reading about or talking with famous artists of the musical persuasion. In 1876 I attended the first Bayreuth Festival. Wagner was anything but happy on that occa- sion. It is true, the grand project which had busied his mind more than twenty years had at last been realized. He had his own opera-house, just where he wanted it; he had his devoted band of players and singers, selected by himself; and among the spectators were an emperor, a king, and many notabilities in the realms of art and litera- ture, while the whole musical world had its eyes on him. But in reality few of the singers were quite equal to their tasks, and he had not had enough money to make the stage settings satisfactory, the consequence being that he suf- 17 i8 SUCCESS IN MUSIC fered tortures. A mishap to the scenery during the per- formance of RJieingold distressed him so that he left the theatre and went home. To Liszt he once wrote: ''None of the past years has gone by without having at least once driven me to the verge of suicide." In another letter he said : '* Oh that I might not arise from my bed to-morrow, awake no more to this loathsome life." And Liszt replied: "Your letters are sad — and your life sadder still. Your greatness constitutes also your misery — the two are united inseparably and must forever harass and torture you." When I gathered the material for my biography of Wagner, I found so much that bore on his unhappiness that I devoted a special chapter of ten pages to it, under the heading of "A Modern Prometheus." Similar chapters might be written about other great masters. Few of them obtained what is generally considered essential to an artist's happiness — the recognition of their genius by their con- temporaries. Among the few singers at Bayreuth who approximated Wagner's ideal was Materna. Admired and applauded by all lovers of dramatic song, her fame was proclaimed on two continents. 1 had met her abroad, and when Theodore Thomas engaged her, with Winkelmann and Scaria, for a Wagner festival in New York, I went down the harbor and boarded the steamer to get her impressions of America be- fore she had landed, in accordance with our charming cus- tom. While we were conversing, the Brooklyn Bridge hove into sight. When I told her, among other things, that that bridge had cost $14,000,000, she exclaimed, "Fifty-six million marks ! If I had that much money I should never sing again." I was surprised at this speech, for I had fancied that to be the acknowledged queen of Wagnerian song was cause enough for superlative happiness — a happiness which must ARE GREAT ARTISTS HAPPY? 19 find its supreme satisfaction in the exercise of her gift of song. Noticing the expression of surprise in my face, she added, with a smile: "At any rate, I should sing only once in a while, in some favorite role." One of the finest operatic voices of the nineteenth cen- tury was that of Emil Fischer. His song seemed as spon- taneous as a bird's, and to hear him sing the genial part of Hans Sachs, for instance, was to get the impression that he was having as good a time as his audience. And yet he was not happy. He told me one day that he never really en- joyed singing, even when he most seemed to. One of Emma Calve's favorite topics of conversation is to warn young girls not to take to the stage for fame or a living. She assures them that their dreams are a mere illusion, and that they will not find true happiness on the stage — not such happiness as awaits them if they will get married, darn stockings, and bring up children. I have heard Lillian Nordica talking in a similar strain; but she has now, she says, stopped giving advice on the subject, as it is useless. Every pianist in the universe envies Paderewski his un- precedented popularity and success. No other pianist, not even Liszt or Rubinstein, ever could earn # quarter of a million dollars in five months, as he has done. But is Paderewski happy while he is earning these $250,000 ? He envies every bootblack or loafing policeman. To travel 20,000 miles in a few months; to sleep — or rather not to sleep — every night in a Pullman car or a wretched hotel, always near a noisy railway station; to repeat the same pieces over and over again; to feel compelled to play, whether he wants to or not, and when he is almost dead from exhaustion; to know that savage critics and envious rivals are always watching intently to discover any slight flaw in his performance and put it under a microscope; to feel that noblesse oblige — that he must always try to be at his 20 SUCCESS IN MUSIC best — these things are not calculated to make a pianist happy. Rubinstein found the American tour so irksome that no sum could ever tempt him to repeat it. With the exception of Liszt, no pianist had ever been so admired, flattered, re- warded, extolled. And yet he was not happy. In the last years of his life he was as sour as a crab-apple. To praise him as a pianist was to annoy rather than to please him. He knew he was more than a pianist — a great composer; and to see his pet aversion, Richard Wagner, become more and more popular, while he himself was neglected, made him the unhappiest of mortals. When Liszt was asked to write his life he replied: "It was enough to live it." Tchaikovsky once wrote to a friend: "Regretting the past, trusting the future, and dissatisfied with the present — such is my life." Shall we then conclude that great composers, players, and singers are necessarily unhappy ? It seems difficult to avoid this conclusion. Arthur Her- vey has expressed the opinion that music is probably the most disheartening of the arts, partly because of its eva- nescence. It would be easy to pile up facts in support of that assertion. A composer who has something new to say is almost sure to be misunderstood at first and to have a hard struggle before he can overcome the indifference of the public and the hostility of the professionals. Then, if he is lucky — and not many are lucky — he has a few years, or possibly a few decades, of popularity, which shortly is followed by indifference, neglect, oblivion. Most operas live about a week. Even the successful ones average only a few decades. Of the concert pieces written, probably one or two in a hundred are played more than once. It would be hard to find anything more disheartening than a glance at the index of Riemann's history of music in ARE GREAT ARTISTS HAPPY? 21 the nineteenth century. It contains 39 columns of names, about 2,300 akogether, mostly of composers. Of these 2,300 names how many are we likely to see during the com- ing season in the repertory of our opera-houses or on our concert programmes ? Not fifty. What has become of the other 2,250? Alack and alas ! Time has swallowed them in its abysmal maw. This is only one aspect of the question. If even the com- posers, who fondly imagine they are writing for all time, are so ephemeral, what shall we say about singers and players, who are seldom at their best and popular more than twenty or thirty years, and whose art of necessity vanishes with them ? And what about the critics, and the teachers, and all the others who devote their lives to music ? Are they not doomed to be promptly forgotten ? Speaking of singers who outlived their fame, Mr. Joseph Bennett says: *'To be unknown among favorites of a later day, to be forgotten by the public who once worshipped, is an experience sharper than any serpent's tooth. I do not know that Clara Novello ever writhed with the keenness of it, but I have seen tears of pain in the eyes of others, and hers may not have been far away." Is music a disheartening art? No more than any other art or profession. Everything just said about music and musicians can be repeated about literature. Do not the magazine editors tell us that they can accept only one or two of every hundred manuscripts offered to them, and do not the publishers say that books — even successful ones — seldom live more than one year, most of them, in fact, being in vogue not much longer than each successive issue of a magazine ? What becomes of all the rejected manuscripts and books ? How many shattered hopes do they represent ? Is it not disheartening ? And think of the journalists — tens of thousands of them, in America and in Europe! Their work, from its very 22 SUCCESS IN MUSIC nature, is ephemeral. Indeed, the best journalist is he whose articles are so peculiarly timely at the moment they are printed that they fade a few days later, like cut flowers. In being dissatisfied with their lot and often unhappy, artists do not differ from other mortals. The doctor is apt to think he would have been happier as a lawyer, and vice versa — a truth already commented on by the old Roman Horace. When I first became a musical critic I thought I was in paradise. Going to concerts and operas had always been my favorite amusement, and now I was to be paid for hearing operas and concerts, and have an extra ticket be- sides for some charming companion! What could be more delightful ? That was twenty-eight years ago. To- day most concerts and operas are such awful bores to me that I find it hard to praise anything, and only genius arouses my interest. I would gladly give my $150 worth of free tickets a week for a chance to live and work on a California ranch. Probably after a few years on the ranch I should wish I had my tickets back! Dryden has shown in eight eloquent lines that in their attitude toward happiness musicians do not differ from other mortals: When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat, Yet, fool'd with hope, men favor the deceit; Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay, To-morrow's falser than the former day; Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest With some new joys, cuts off what we possest. Strange cozenage! none would live past years again, Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain. Artists are, to be sure, an irritable tribe. More keenly than others they feel the gibes and wounds of life. But by way of compensation, they are thrilled by joys beyond the ken of ordinary mortals. Does not the composer enjoy the voluptuous thrill of creating, and is it not a pleasure for ARE GREAT ARTISTS HAPPY? 23 him — and for his interpreters — to think that thousands will be exalted and refreshed by the products of his inspiration ? Failures abound in all activities, and it is unfair to lay them up against music in particular. As for the evanescence of even genius, what of it ? There are new flowers every spring, new autumn leaves of brilliant hues every September. We are too vain, too much con- cerned with our individualities. As long as we have the masterworks, what matters it who wrote them? If Dryden was right in saying that : Pains of love be sweeter far Than all other pleasures are, the same is true of the pains of artistic endeavor, creative or interpretative. As Schopenhauer has remarked: *'If we look up to a great man of the past, we do not think: 'How happy he is to be still admired by all of us!' but: 'How happy he must have been in the immediate enjoyment of a genius, remains of which delight centuries of mortals!' Not in fame, but in the faculty wherewith we win it, lies the true value, and in the begetting of immortal offspring the true enjoyment." The following short sketches of singers and players will bring before the reader's mind many scenes of happiness resulting from the artistic activity and many triumphs such as few mortals enjoy. Caruso once said : " When you hear that an artist intends to retire, don't you believe it, for as long as he keeps his voice he will sing. You may depend upon that." Regard Schubert as a model. No one ever had more reason than he to be disheartened. Nobody seemed to want his songs, yet he continued writing them till -there were nearly six hundred. Hiller asked him one day: " Do you write much?" and Schubert replied: "I compose every morning, and when one piece is done I begin 24 SUCCESS IN MUSIC another." Lachner tells us regarding the same composer that when he had written a piece or a song and had tried it over, he put it away and often forgot all about it. This is the highest type of genius and manhood — the type which does its best, spontaneously and inevitably, and continues doing it regardless of consequences. In proportion as we approximate this type are we useful in the world of music, be we composers, or players, or singers, or critics, or teachers. President Eliot, of Harvard University, once said: " De- light in artistic work is the greatest need of our country. Great music is great thought; no other thought has such perfect transmission. Who gets such perfect interpreta- tion of his thoughts as the great composer? On this ac- count I know of no other profession in the world which has so great a reward." PART II SUCCESSFUL SINGERS Ill TWO SWEDISH NIGHTINGALES Jenny Lind Jenny Lind was fond of sewing, and we have the testi- mony of her maid regarding the quality of her work. "Madame's stitches," she said, "never come out." There have been plenty of girls with voices as beautiful as Jenny Lind's. Why did they fail to duplicate her suc- cess as a singer ? Chiefly because they had not the char- acter, the perseverance, the conscientiousness to make stitches that would ''never come out." To a student of music nothing could be more interesting and instructive than the story of Jenny Lind's life. It illustrates nearly every phase in the career of a public singer regarding which the student desires information, and offers many hints of inestimable value to those preparing for a professional life. It is to be regretted that she never carried out her plan of writing her autobiography, which would have doubtless proved a fascinating book. One of her English friends, the wife of the Bishop of Norwich, once wrote, after giving an enthusiastic account of her singing, that, nevertheless, she would "rather hear Jenny talk than sing." Fortunately there is much that is of biographic value in her letters; and in 1887, a few months before her death, she told her oldest son how her gift for music came to be dis- covered. As a child she sang with every step she took and with every jump of her childish feet. She had a cat with a 27 28 SUCCESS IN MUSIC blue ribbon round its neck, and to this pet she often sang seated in a window looking out on a much-frequented street in Stockholm. One day the maid of a well-known dancer at the Royal Opera passed, and when she got home she told her mistress that she had never heard any one sing so beautifully as this girl sang to her cat. The dancer, whose name was Lundberg, sent for the child, and, after hearing her, strongly advised her mother to have her trained for the stage. The mother had a prejudice against the stage; but she was willing to have Jenny taught singing, and Miss Lundberg sent her with a letter of introduction to the singing-master of the Royal Opera, named Croelius, for whom she sang a selection from an opera by Winter. Croelius was moved to tears and promptly took her to Count Puke, the Director of the Opera. The Count at first refused to hear her because she was so young (only nine), and perhaps also because (as she herself once wrote to the editor of the Biografiskl Lexicon) she was at the time **a small, ugly, broad-nosed, shy, gauche^ altogether under- grown girl"; but when Croelius said : ''Well, if the Count will not hear her, then I will teach her gratuitously, and she will one day astonish you," the director allowed her to sing for him, and he, too, was moved to tears. The result was that Jenny was accepted at once as a free pupil, to be taught singing and given a general educa- tion at the expense of the Swedish government. The mother gave her consent reluctantly, under the pressure of poverty. Jenny's father having contributed little toward her support, she had been keeping a day and boarding school for girls. Thus it came about that the directors of the theatre found a way of paying for Jenny's education as well as her board and lodging while leaving her in her mother's care. It was understood that, in years to come, the young "actress-pupil" was to ''make restitution for the care and expense bestowed on her education." JENNY LIND 29 For ten years the Royal Theatre at Stockholm remained the nursery of Jenny Lind's talent. According to the terms of the contract, she was to receive, until old enough to get a fixed salary, "free tuition in singing, elocution, dancing, and such other branches as belong to the education of a cultivated woman and are requisite for the theatrical pro- fession." These ''other branches," for which her mother was made responsible, were "piano, religion, French, his- tory, geography, writing, arithmetic, and drawing." Later in life Jenny Lind realized vividly how much the value of her musical talent had been enhanced by her early theatrical and general education. She especially "valued her trained skill in expressive and beautiful motion, gained in the dancing school at the Theatre Royal. She moved exquisitely. Her perfect walk, her dignity of pose, her striking uprightness of attitude were characteristic of her to the very last; and no one can fail to recall how she stood before and while she sang. Her grace, her lightness of movement were all the more noticeable from the rather angular thinness of her natural figure; and there can be no doubt that they threw into her acting a charm which was positively entrancing. She knew the value and necessity of all this completeness of training; she felt its lack in those who had entered on the operatic stage by accident, as it were, taking it up only when fully grown simply on account of possessing a beautiful voice. She missed in them the full finish of the perfected art; no beauty in the singing could quite atone for the ignorance of dramatic methods, and of all that constitutes the peculiar environment of the stage."* It was Jenny Lind's good fortune that she also got much practical training on the stage as an actress at an age when * Memoir of Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt. By Henry Scott Holland and W. S. Rockstro. London: John Murray. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1 89 1. Vol. I, pp. 28-29. 30 SUCCESS IN MUSIC her voice was not yet ripe for operatic work. She was only ten years old when she made her appearance on the boards. A year and a half later a critic wrote: "She shows in her acting a quick perception, a fire and feeling, far beyond her years, which seem to denote an uncommon disposition for the theatre." In 1834, her fourteenth year of age, she ap- peared on the stage 22 times; in 1835, 26 times; in 1836, 18 times. It was in this year that she made her first at- tempt in an operatic role — Georgette, in Lindblad's Fron- dorerne. In 1837 she obtained a fixed salary and appeared no fewer than 92 times, in twelve new characters. In 1838 her performances were still, for the most part, in plays, without singing; but she sang the part of Agatha, in Weber's Freischutz, nine times, and in April, 1839, she abandoned plays altogether and thenceforth acted in operas only. It would have been wiser if, in these critical years of a girl's bodily development, she had made less use of her voice, both for singing and acting. But the temptation on the part of the directors to make the most of her gifts at all risks was great, and Jenny came near falling a victim to the deadly peril to which so many aspirants to operatic honors succumb. So great was her popularity that, when only twenty years old, she was appointed court singer as well as a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. The directors of the Opera eagerly offered her the highest sum at their disposal — $750 a year, for a three years' con- tract — and had she accepted the world would have never heard of Jenny Lind, for the overwork to which she was sure to be subjected would have damaged her voice beyond the possibility of repair. At this crisis her common sense and artistic instincts came to the rescue. She declined the offer of the directors — or rather asked permission to postpone its acceptance a year — on the ground that her gifts were "only half devel- JENNY LIND 31 oped"; and, in her own words: "In order to attain the artistic perfection open to me, I have thought it a duty to do what I can, and not to draw back before any sacrifice, either of youth, health, comfort, or labor, not to speak of the modest sum I have managed to save, in the hope of reach- ing what may, perhaps, prove an unattainable aim. In consequence I have decided on a journey to, and a sojourn at, some place abroad, which, through furnishing the finest models in art, would prove to me of the greatest profit." Her plan was to go to Paris and there take lessons of Manuel Garcia, the greatest singing teacher of the nine- teenth century. One foolish thing she did at this moment : she gave a series of concerts in provincial towns, thus still further exhausting her tired vocal organs; but she needed the money this brought her for a year in Paris, and she did not know how near she was to the brink of the precipice. She found that out as soon as she arrived in the French metropolis and called on the famous Spanish master with the request that he take her as a pupil. At his bidding she sang Perche non ho, from Lucia, broke down in the at- tempt, and he pronounced the crushing verdict: "It would be useless to teach you, miss; you have no voice left." With tears of disappointment in her eyes she implored his advice. Could he not bring back her voice ? He knew that such cases are apt to be hopeless; but he felt sorry for this poor girl, hurled from her Swedish triumphs into the abyss of despair, so he agreed to hear her again in six weeks if she promised to speak during that period as little as pos- sible, and not to sing a single note. This she did, spending her time studying French and Italian; and when she re- turned to him they were both delighted to find that the rest-cure had done some good. He agreed to give her two lessons a week, and made it clear to her that it was not over- work so much as a faulty use of the voice that had damaged her. Following his instructions, she was soon able to prac- 32 SUCCESS IN MUSIC tise her exercises hours every day without undue effort or fatigue. Her own account of the Garcia lessons, given in letters to friends, is instructive. To cite a few sentences: "I have to begin again, from the beginning; to sing scales, up and down, slowly, and with great care; then to practise the shake — awfully slowly; and, to try to get rid of the hoarseness, if possible. Moreover, he is very particular about the breathing. I trust I have made a happy choice. Anyhow, he is the best master; and, expensive enough — twenty francs for an hour.'* This was written after she had taken five lessons. In a later letter she said: **I am well satisfied with my singing- master. With regard to my weak points, especially, he is excellent. I think it very fortunate for me that there ex- ists a Garcia." And again: *'My singing is getting on quite satisfactorily, now. I rejoice heartily in my voice; it is clear and sonorous, with more firmness, and much greater agility." These lessons continued ten months, and when they ter- minated, in June, 1842, the Swedish pupil had gained full control of her vocal organs. Ten months may seem a very short time, but the pupil was Jenny Lind and the teacher was Manuel Garcia. He recognized her weak points at once and was able to tell her exactly what to do to mend them; while she had that infinite capacity for taking pains which has been incorrectly given as a definition of genius, but which is certainly the main secret of success in singing as in everything else. Garcia once said to the famous Parisian teacher, Mme. Marchesi, concerning Jenny Lind: "I do not remember ever having had a more attentive, intelligent pupil. Never had I to explain anything twice, but her famous shake cost her no end of trouble, and she shed many tears over the first air from Lucia J ^ JENNY LIND 33 In the letter to the editor of the Swedish biographic dic- tionary already referred to, Jenny Lind says: ''As to the greater part of what I can do in my art, I have myself ac- quired it by incredible work, and in spite of astonishing difficulties; it is from Garcia alone that I learned some few important things. To such a degree had God written within me what I had to study. My ideal was (and is) so high, that no mortal was to be found who in the least degree could satisfy my demands; therefore I sing after no one's 'methode' — only after that of the birds (as far as I am able) ; for their Teacher was the only one who responded to my requirements for truth, clearness, and expression." In these words she indicates modestly but clearly the three factors that had helped her to success: hard work, a good teacher, and the talent God had given her. With- out this talent the hardest work and the best of teachers could not have helped her to the eminence she attained; but, on the other hand, her experience had shown that hard work and talent alone may lead to shipwreck unless an expert pilot is engaged before it is too late. Garcia was her pilot. He taught her the technic without which talent is helpless. He improved the quality of her voice. In the words of one who heard her after her train- ing in Garcia' s studio, ''it had acquired a rich depth of tone, a sympathetic timbre, a bird-like charm in the silvery clearness of its upper register, which at once impressed the listener with the feeling that he had never before heard any- thing in the least degree resembling it." The same writer calls attention to another all-important point: "One great secret — perhaps the greatest of all — the key to the whole mystery connected with this perfect mastery over the technical difficulties of vocalization — lay in the fortunate circumstance that Signor Garcia was so very particular about the breathing. For the skilful manage- ment of the breath is everything, and she attained the most 34 SUCCESS IN MUSIC perfect control over it. Gifted by nature with compara- tively limited sustaining power, she learned to fill the lungs with such dexterity that, except with her consent, it was impossible to detect either the moment at which the breath was renewed or the method by which the action was accomplished." To sum it up in one sentence: "She was born an artist, and, under Garcia's guidance, had now become a virtuosa^^ — a complete mistress of her art. Let it not be supposed for a moment that she fancied Garcia had given the finishing touches to her training. To the end of her career she continued to overcome "astonishing difficulties" by "incredible work." Mme. Birch- Pfeiffer relates that one day she left the prima donna practising the difficult word "zersplittre," and when she re- turned several hours later she found her still wrestling with the same word. By dint of such perseverance she learned to pronounce any word, in any language she knew, with perfect ease and distinctness, on any note, high or low. Her voice was not naturally flexible. "The rich, sus- tained tones of the soprano drammatico,^* her biographers tell us, "were far more congenial to it than the rapid execu- tion which usually characterizes the lighter class of soprano voices. But this she also attained by almost superhuman labor. Her perseverance was indefatigable. ' ' The problem of making all tones in her voice equally beautiful she tackled with the same determination. Select- ing the best six tones of her voice, "she practised these notes, with the semitones between them, more diligently than any others, with the full determination to extend the process until the tone of the remaining portions of the voice became as rich, as pure, and as powerful as that of the six notes which she regarded as forming the fundamental basis of the whole." She succeeded fully in carrying out this intention, "and it is scarcely too much to say that to JENNY LIND 35 this firm resolve, and the clear foresight which prompted it, her ultimate success is mainly to be attributed." Where most of the dramatic sopranos of our time fail is in dynamic shading. They can sing forte or fortissimo beautifully, often thrillingly, but when they attempt a pianissimo^ or even a piano, the quality of the voice de- teriorates and they lose control of pitch and steadiness. Not so with Jenny Lind. Her pianissimo, we are told, was one of the most beautiful features of her singing. "It reached to the remotest comer of the largest theatre or concert-room in which she sang; it was as rich and full as her mezzo forte; yet it was so truly piano that it fell upon the ear with the charm of a whisper, only just strong enough to be audible." Chopin wrote, after hearing her in London, in 1848: ''Her singing is infallibly pure and true; but, above all, I admire her piano passages, the charm of which is indescribable." It was to the skilful management of her breath that she owed this fascinating piano and pianissimo as well as ''that marvellous com- mand of the messa di voce which enabled her to swell out a crescendo to its utmost limit, and follow it, without a break, with a diminuendo which died away to an imper- ceptible point, so completely covering the end of the note that no ear could detect the moment at which it faded into silence." Two more useful hints may be cited from the excellent volumes of Holland and Rockstro. Jenny Lind, they assure us, never allowed herself to sing very difficult pas- sages before the public until she had thoroughly mastered them, but preferred simplifying them to running the risk of an imperfect rendering of the notes. "To the end of her career she never sang in the evening without preparing for the performance by practising for a long time earlier in the day — generally a mezza voce, to avoid fatiguing the voice imnecessarily, but never sparing the time or trouble. 36 SUCCESS IN MUSIC And herein lay the secret of her victory over difficulties which tempt so many less courageous aspirants to despair." Let us now return to Paris, where we left Jenny with her worn voice rejuvenated by the magic of Garcia. She had aroused enthusiasm in Sweden even as a wrongly taught beginner; should she not attempt, now, to win the Parisians with her renovated, purified, and strengthened voice ? Madame Lindblad had written from Sweden that if Jenny came back without having sung in Paris, people would intimate that she was not fit for such a thing. To this she replied: ''It is a very difficult thing to appear here in public. On the stage it would be out of the question. It could only be in the concert-room: and there I am at my weakest point and shall always remain so. What is wanted here is — 'admirers.' Were I inclined to receive them, all would be smooth sailing. But there I say — STOP." To another friend she wrote: "Applause, here, is not always given to talent, but, often enough, to vice — to any obscure person who can afford to pay for it. Ugh! It is too dreadful to see the clacqueurs sitting at the theatre, night after night, deciding the fate of those who are com- pelled to appear." Her friend Lindblad, who was in Paris at this time, wrote to his wife: "Not a soul has here done the least toward making her known. She has "been living as in a convent. Still, she is not sorry to return home; for the greatest stage reputations are here won only through sac- rificing honor and reputation. While the world is resound- ing with their praise, every salon is closed to them, and this even in easy-going Paris. Such homage as Jenny met with in Sweden, no foreign artist ever received. This she feels; and it is for this vivifying atmosphere that she longs." JENNY LIND 37 Longing for home was one of the motives which prompted her to accept an offer from the Royal Theatre at Stockholm, to which she returned without having been heard publicly in Paris. Erroneous assertions to the con- trary have crept into not a few of the biographies and lexi- cons, some saying that she sang at the Opera but failed, and that in consequence she vowed never again to appear in Paris. In truth, she did sing at the Grand Opera, but not for the public, only for a few hearers, among them Meyerbeer, L6on Pillet (manager of the Opera), and Lind- blad. She was not at her best on this occasion, according to Lindblad, and, although the judges liked her voice, no steps were taken to secure her for the Opera. The director of the Theatre-Italien, however, made her an offer; but she declined it, thanking him for the honor of thinking her "worthy to appear before the first audience in the world," but declaring: "The more I think of it, the more I am per- suaded that I am not suited for Paris, nor Paris for me." The offer she accepted from the Stockholm Theatre was not brilliant. She was to get a salary equal to S750 a year, besides a "benefit" and extra "service money" for each appearance; while the silk costumes and bridal gowns were to be paid for by the management. In accepting these terms, she stipulated, in view of the "rather too heavy service to which I had to submit in former times, at the Royal Theatre, and from the evil consequences of which I am still suffering," that she be not obliged to sing more than twice a week, nor more than fifty times during the season, unless an extra fee of a sum equal to $27 be paid her for every representation over and above the said fifty. She had made her last appearance at Stockholm in Norma. This same opera she chose for her reappearance, as if to give the public a chance to make comparisons be- tween then and now. The critics were pleased to observe that her inability to control high sustained notes and the 38 SUCCESS IN MUSIC necessity for simplifying florid passages had disappeared; also, the veiled tones in her voice; and as for the public, it went wild with enthusiasm. But this was Stockholm, her native city. Here she was helped by local pride and patriotic feeling. She could come on the stage, for in- stance, in a national piece, entitled A May Day in Wdrendf as the heroine, riding, at one point, on horseback on to the stage and singing as she rode. These peasant scenes would stir her and the public, and no one would be over- critical. But how about the cities where the atmosphere and the scenes and the audience were not Swedish ? Jenny dreaded to risk singing on a foreign stage — even at Copenhagen. Hans Andersen relates in his autobiog- raphy that she said to him: ''Except in Sweden I have never appeared in public. In my own country all are so kind and gentle toward me; and if I were to appear in Copenhagen and be hissed! I cannot risk it." But when she did appear as Alice, in Robert le Viable, it was, in the words of Andersen, "like a new revelation in the domain of art. The young, fresh voice went direct to the hearts of all. Here was truth and nature. Everything had clear- ness and meaning. In her concerts, Jenny Lind sang her Swedish songs. There was a peculiar and seductive charm about them: all recollection of the concert-room vanished: the popular melodies exerted their spell, sung as they were by a pure voice with the immortal accent of genius. All Copenhagen was in raptures. Jenny Lind was the first artist to whom the students offered a serenade: the torches flashed round the hospitable villa, where the song was sung. She expressed her thanks by a few more of the Swedish songs, and I then saw her hurry into the deepest corner and weep out her emotion. ' Yes, yes,' she said, 'I will exert myself; I will strive; I shall be more efficient than I am now when I come to Copenhagen again. ' " JENNY LIND 39 In her attitude toward applause and appreciation Jenny Lind was, as in everything else relating to art, a model. In a letter written in Paris and referring to her early tri- umphs at home, she declared that the applause of the pub- lic filled her with sorrow rather than with joy because she felt that she did not deserve it. " I knew that I had not made myself worthy of it through my own work." And now that the tribute of the Danish students made her weep with joy, her thought was not: *'I have arrived," but ''I will try to do better next time." Of such is the kingdom of the divine art. Copenhagen was still a Scandinavian city. The ques- tion was. How would the real foreigners, the Germans, for instance, receive Jenny Lind? It was answered on De- cember 15, 1844, when she sang Norma in Berlin, and the leading local critic of the time, Rellstab, wrote that she was "charming from the first note to the last," adding that "among the public there was not one single dissentient voice." She won the hearts of the composers, too, among them Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer, both of whom became her devoted admirers, looking on her as the model singer. Meyerbeer wrote the part of Vielka in his Feldlager in Schlesien expressly for her, and was intensely disappointed when the terms of the contract compelled him to give it to another, who failed to make it a success. The opera was subsequently brought out again with Lind, and, in the words of her friend Josephson, Meyerbeer had, in the in- terim, "to the best of my belief, called upon her at least a hundred times, to consult about this, that, or the other." Her Vielka proved a decided success. "Her singing," says the same writer, "was beautiful, her acting full of genius, life, and fire. The applause was spontaneous and enthu- siastic. Her nervousness, which had kept her practising the whole afternoon and again before the beginning of the opera, was not noticed by any one; nor did it prevent her 40 SUCCESS IN MUSIC either from singing or acting her very best. The public was enchanted and Meyerbeer happy." As for Mendelssohn, after he had heard her in Vienna the first time he wrote to a friend: "Jenny Lind is singing here, and I will say no more than that I have caught the ^ fever,' and that in its most violent form. . . . Such a voice I have never heard in all my life, nor have I ever met with so genial, so womanly, so musical a nature. . . . There is a charm in her voice that I have never known before, surpassing all that other singers have attained to, however powerful their acting on the stage. The Lind soars above all, but not through any single quality. It is the mastery wielded by this anima Candida that works the magic." To another friend, the eminent basso, Franz Hauser, he wrote with reference to ''the Lind": "And to you, as a singer, it must be especially delightful to meet, at last, with the union of such splendid talents, with such profound study and such heart-felt enthusiasm." Talents, Study, Enthusiasm — in those three words Mendelssohn summed up the secret of Jenny Lind's success. She herself appears to have been the last to believe in her worth and her achievements. After her triumphs in Berlin (where she sang at prices for tickets absolutely un- precedented), she was heard in Hamburg with the same result. "It would be impossible," wrote the historian, Dr. Uhde, "to give any idea of the ecstasy into which the whole town of Hamburg was thrown." Twelve times she sang "to houses so crowded that the aid of the police had to be called in to regulate the crush." She "was the first in Hamburg whose whole figure was so completely be- strewn with flowers that she stood upon an improvised carpet of blossoms." Nor were the demonstrations of enthusiasm confined to the opera-house. There was a JENNY LIND 41 serenade and a torchlight procession, followed by fireworks, in her honor. And yet, after all this, she dreaded to sing in Vienna! "I have had the privilege," she wrote to Mme. Birch- Pfeiffer, "of speaking to the Prince and Princess of Met- ternich, here in Frankfurt, at Baron Rothschild's, and they have both advised me to go to Vienna. And yet — only think! — what if I lose my whole reputation! If I do not please! And this anxiety grows so much upon me! And all through next winter the thought of my first appearance in Vienna will follow me like an evil spirit. Ah, yes! lam very much to be pitied." How futile all these fears were we know from Mendels- sohn's reference to the Lind "fever," which he, too, caught in Vienna. "Never within the memory of the Viennese," we read elsewhere, "had such crowds assembled at the theatre or such prices been demanded for admission." Jenny herself wrote to a friend: "At the close I was called back sixteen times, and twelve or fourteen before that. Just count that up! And this reception! I was quite astounded." Her triumph was the greater because the tenor was a singer "at whom every one laughed," as she wrote, while "the whole Italian faction was opposed to me," and the tickets cost four to eight times as much as usual. We cannot follow the prima donna — now in her twenty- fifth year — in her triumphal career. As a matter of course, her amazing success in the German cities soon brought her an offer from London — ;£4,8oo for the season, beginning April 14 and ending August 20, 1847, besides a furnished house, a carriage, and a pair of horses, free of charge, for that period. She made her debut on May 4th, and the ex- citement " exceeded anything that had ever been witnessed by the oldest frequenter of Her Majesty's Theatre." The Queen was one of the greatest enthusiasts; she cast a 42 SUCCESS IN MUSIC superb bouquet from the royal box at the feet of the debu- tante — an incident unparalleled on any former occasion in London. "Yesterday," the singer wrote to a friend, "I made my first appearance here as Alice, in Robert^ and it went so^ that, through the whole night I could not sleep for joy." The critics gave elaborate accounts of her triumph and her art, special attention being called by the Times to the fact that " the sustained notes, swelling with full richness, and fading down to the softest pianoy without losing one iota of their quality, being delicious when loud, delicious when whis- pered, dwelt in the public ear, and reposed in the public heart"; while another critic was particularly impressed by this, that " at the instant the listener, from the habit of hearing other artists, expects the voice to become weak and fatigued — at that moment it bursts forth in greater beauty than ever." A writer in the Musical World attempted a pen-portrait : "Jenny Lind is young, of the middle height, fair-haired, blue-eyed, neither stout nor slender, but well-proportioned, neither fat nor thin, but enough of the one for comeliness, and enough of the other for romance, meek-looking when her features are at rest, full of animation and energy when they are at play." Socially her success was as great as artistically. The Queen not only applauded her in the opera-house but in- vited her to visit her in private. The Duke of Wellington asked her to his country-seat, promising, so Lumley relates, that music should form no topic of the conversation; and other invitations from members of the aristocracy were far more numerous than she could accept. Such things, however, did not add greatly to her happi- ness. Ever since her girlhood she had disliked society, with its artificial etiquette, preferring the joys of nature — wild flowers, trees, and the song of birds. On one occasion. JENNY LIND 43 when Mrs. Grote congratulated her on the flattering atten- tions bestowed on her in London, she answered: "Dear Madame, you are much more proud for me than I am for myself. It certainly was a splendid sight; but I would rather have been rambling with you among the Burnham beeches, after all." Her attitude toward applause on the stage also was different from that of the average artist. Those who knew her best aver that many a time, amid the noisy demonstra- tions over her singing and acting, she would have preferred the quiet of home life. "It seems as if the usual conse- quences of the excitement and jubilation that she every- where creates pass over her," wrote Heinrich Brockhaus. After her second appearance in Vienna in Norma she her- self wrote: "Was called so many times before the curtain that I was quite exhausted. Bah! I do not like it! Everything should be done in moderation, otherwise it is not pleasing," These peculiarities in the character of Jenny Lind pre- pare us for the astonishing thing that happened — her re- tirement from the operatic stage at the early age of twenty- nine! Her first London season, at which she appeared in Robert le Viable, La Sonnambula, La Figlia del Reggimento. I Masnadieri, Le Nozze di Figaro, Norma, was followed by another, even more brilliantly successful, in 1848. The provinces, too, were visited, and the prima donna's share of the profits from these extra performances alone amounted to ;£io,ooo. During this time there was a disquieting rumor in the air, which became more and more positive, that the idol of the stage was about to leave it and devote herself thereafter to concerts. It was only too true, this rumor. Lumley was eager to make a contract for the season of 1849, but she could not be persuaded, and ere long it was announced authoritatively, that Miss Lind had made up her mind positively never to 44 SUCCESS IN MUSIC appear again on the operatic stage. The manager was in despair; the old subscribers had been wondering: "Will Jenny Lind act ? " and when they heard she would not they held back. By way of compromise, she agreed to appear in six operatic concerts — operas without the stage acces- sories. It was a foolish plan. Mozart's Figaro was the first — and the only — victim of it. There was not a trace of the "Jenny Lind fever." The house was "comparatively empty," and "the applause was cold and feeble," as Lum- ley himself relates in his Reminiscences oj the Opera. The plan of the "Six Grand Classical Concerts" was aban- doned, and, to save the manager from ruin. Miss Lind kindly consented to suspend her intention of retiring from the stage and to give a few more performances. That was what the public wanted; once more the house was crowded, and the Lind enthusiasm rose again to fever heat. Carlyle once referred to a Jenny Lind audience as " some three thousand expensive-looking fools." But at this emergency the public was not as foolish as it may have looked. Operas in concert form may be a permissible makeshift — half a loaf is better than no bread — in small towns where no real operatic performances are given; but it is to be noted that Patti, Calve, and other prima donnas who have given such concerts, have usually avoided the cities where actual opera can be heard. The Londoners naturally resented what must have seemed to them a mere caprice on the part of a prima donna, which not only need- lessly mutilated a masterwork by Mozart, but deprived them of the enjoyment of one-half of her art; for Lind's acting was almost as fascinating as her singing, and this was to be ruthlessly sacrificed at these "grand classical concerts!" We have seen that at the very beginning of her career she excelled even more as an actress than as a singer. Subse- JENNY LIND 45 quently the critics seldom failed to dwell on the charm of her dramatic impersonations, and to contrast her concep- tion of famous parts, usually to her advantage, with the acting of her predecessors. The art of these she took every opportunity to study; also that of actresses who did not sing; and she was astonishingly free from jealousy or vanity, as the following extract from a letter attests: "The difference between Mile. Rachel and myself is, that she can be splendid when angry, but she is unsuited for tenderness. I am desperately ugly, and nasty too, when in anger; but I think I do better in tender parts. Of course, I do not compare myself with Rachel. Certainly not. She is im- measurably greater than I. Poor me!" Lindblad, to whom this letter was addressed, wrote re- garding Lind: "You know, she never does herself justice until she is in full action on the stage." A London critic, in discussing her acting, remarked : " In the absence of all stage-trickery or conventionalism may be distinguished the child of genius"; also, that "she never sacrifices sense to sound" — a vice, it may be added, to which singers of her time were generally addicted. To an Englishman she once said: " I scarcely ever think of the effect I am producing, and if the thought does some- times come across me it spoils my acting. It seems to me, when I act, that I feel fully all the emotions of the character I represent. I fancy myself — in fact, I believe myself — to be in her situation, and never think of the audience." Holland and Rockstro cite a lady who wrote: "There was this peculiarity about her acting — that it was entirely part of herself. It seemed not so much that she entered into the part as that she became, for the moment, that which she had to express. For this reason her acting was unequal. She could not render anything in which there was a sugges- tion repugnant to her own higher nature. But in a part that suited her — such as Sonnambula — she expressed every 46 . SUCCESS IN MUSIC varying emotion of the character perfectly because she really felt it." This same opera afforded an illustration of her excep- tional conscientiousness as an actress. Most of the singers of her time who impersonated Amina, the sleep-walker, refused to cross the narrow mimic bridge over the revolving water-wheel, the usual plan being to dress up a member of the chorus for that feat. Lind would have none of this. "I should have been ashamed," she said, "to stand before the audience pretending that I had crossed the bridge if I had not really done it." Such was Jenny Lind the actress. Naturally enough the Londoners resented her determination to deliberately extinguish one-half of her talent. It seemed a sort of semi- suicide, artistically speaking; but the semi-suicide was ruthlessly committed, regardless of everything. Having helped her manager out of his scrape, Lind said farewell to the operatic stage forever on May lo, 1849, Meyerbeer's Robert le Viable being chosen for the occasion. Two other musicians astounded and dismayed the world by retiring prematurely from the scenes of their triumphs. Rossini gave up composing operas thirty-nine years before his death, although the public was clamoring wildly for more and the publishers were offering fabulous sums; and Liszt gave up playing the piano in public, under similar conditions, also thirty-nine years before the end of his life. But in their cases the motives were obvious: Liszt was tired of playing and wanted to give his time to composing and teaching; while Rossini was lazy, tired of composing, and had all the money and fame he wanted. Why did Jenny Lind, at the age of twenty-nine, thirty-eight years before her death, leave the operatic stage, when she had all the musical world at her feet ? There were several reasons. Repugnance to stage life was hereditary in the family. Concerning her mother, JENNY LIND 47 Jenny once wrote: "She, like myself, had the greatest horror of all that was connected with the stage." Richard Wagner, oddly enough, records the same feeling in his own youth. He lived it down; Lind did not. There was a time when the stage seemed to be her para- dise. In October, 1841, she wrote from Paris: *'I am longing for home. I am longing for my theatre. I have never said this before in any of my letters. I know I am contradicting myself, but I rejoice over it. Oh! to pour out my feelings in a beautiful part ! This is, and ever will be, my continual aim, and until I stand there again I shall not know myself as I really am. Life on the stage has in it something so fascinating that I think, having once tasted it, one can never feel truly happy away from it, espe- cially when one has given oneself wholly up to it with life and soul, as I have done. This has been my joy, my pride, my glory!" Six years later we find her writing to a friend to express her gratitude to God for having preserved in her breast her love for her native land — "for it might have happened that I never again should have wished for Sweden after the heavenly — yes! the heavenly career which I have had." Gradually the unpleasant side of stage life forced itself on her attention more and more. "I shall quit the stage in a year from now," she wrote in 1845; and this resolve gained more and more force until it led, as we have seen, to the regretted act in 1849. Mrs. Grote has recorded some of the reasons, given in conversations: "that at the Opera she was liable to be continually intruded upon by curious idlers and exposed to many indescribable ennuis; that the combined fatigue of acting and singing was exhausting; that the exposure to cold coulisses, after exertions on the stage in a heated atmosphere, was trying to the chest; the labor of rehear- sals, tiresome to a degree; and that, altogether, she longed 48 SUCCESS IN MUSIC for the time when she would be rich enough to do without the theatre." To Birch-Pfeiffer, Lind wrote: "You see, Mother Birch, this life does not suit me at all. If you could only see me — the despair I am in whenever I go to the theatre to sing! It is too much for me! This terrible nervousness destroys everything for me. I sing far less well than I should, if it were not for this enemy." On this point one of her friends testifies that, "for in- stance, for several days after a performance of Norma her nerves would be so shattered that she would be unfit for other useful mental occupation." To Mme. Erikson, Lind wrote: "But please to reflect, just a little, how difficult it is to stand all this racing about — alone! alone! . . . Enough to say that my connection with the stage has no attraction for me — that my soul is yearning for rest from all these persistent compliments and this persistent adulation." Her friend Brockhaus wrote: "She does not feel happy. I am convinced that she would gladly exchange all her triumphs for simple, homely happi- ness"; and Holland and Rockstro declare that "to her the stage, with its cold coulisses and its ceaseless round of monotonous hard work, was as prosaic as the routine of the school-room to a jaded governess." Aff'airs of the heart and religious considerations also came into play. She was engaged for a time to a tenor in Stock- holm named Giinther; but to marry him would have meant a continuance of stage life, and for this, and other reasons, the engagement came to an end. In England she was inclined for a time to marry Claudius Harris, a young captain in the Indian army, whose mother had taught him to consider the theatre as outside the pale of religion. The date for the wedding was already fixed, but when the cap- tain insisted, in the drawing up of settlements, that she should pledge herself absolutely to leave the stage forever, JENNY LIND 49 and that he should have control of her earnings, her spirit of independence rebelled, and the captain passed out of her life, like the tenor. She never could persuade herself that the theatre is in itself wicked and hostile to religion; but the general re- ligious atmosphere of England made a deep impression on her and helped to turn her mind from opera to oratorio, the musical specialty of England. Meanwhile, to cite her own words, ''poor Lumley and my colleagues tell me it is ungrateful in me, after having acquired such fame as an actress, to desert the stage as if it were a disgrace; that if I do so, then, instead of raising the profession, as I had hoped to do, I shall sink it lower, as I shall seem to fly from it as a degradation." In nearly every other aspect of her life we have been able to hold up this woman as a model to students ambi- tious of stage honors. Her desertion of the stage is an exception. What if her operatic career was more or less of a martyrdom ? Most great artists have been martyrs, and had they been unwilling to endure the discomforts accom- panying a strenuous life, the history of art, creative and interpretative, would be illustrated with fewer pinnacles. Lind was a traitress to the art operatic, and that is a blot on her esthetic reputation. However, there are not a few who believe, not only on religious grounds, that the oratorio and concert are a higher phase of music than opera. For these she exerted herself thenceforth, leaving to others (to cite her own words) ''the profession which holds so many thorns amongst the roses." Her principal English biographers go so far as to say that great as were her operatic triumphs in London and the provinces, the love that made her name a household word in every English homestead was won in the concert-room and at the oratorio: "It was through Elijah and Messiah^ through the lieder of Mendelssohn so SUCCESS IN MUSIC and Lindblad, and the Swedish Melodies, and the thousand treasures that appeared, later on, in the concert programmes — that the beloved ' Swedish Nightingale' sang her way into the great heart of the British people." In the minds of many serious music-lovers the regret that Jenny Lind abandoned the opera was probably miti- gated by the thought that she had been wasting her rare gifts largely on trivial works. When Carlyle heard her in Sonnamhula he wrote: "Nothing could exceed my ennui. . . . Lind seemed to me a very true, clear, genuine little creature, with a voice of extraordinary extent and little richness of tone, who sang, acted, etc., with consummate fidelity, but had unfortunately nothing but mere nonsense to sing or act. ... It was one o'clock when we got home; on the whole, I do not desire to hear Lind again; it would not bring me sixpence worth of benefit, I think, to hear her sing six months in that kind of material." In the eleven years from March 7, 1838, to May 10, 1849, she had sung 677 times, in thirty operas. Among these thirty there were eight masterworks: Lucia^ Frei- schutz, Magic Flute, Don Juan, Figaro, Les Huguenots, Euryanihe, Armida; but the table given by Holland and Rockstro (Vol. II, p. 305) shows that, with the exception of the first two of these, she was called upon to sing much more frequently in "mere nonsense" operas, as Carlyle aptly called them. Undoubtedly this barbarian taste of the operatic audiences of her time also had some influence in inducing her to devote herself exclusively to the oratorio and the concert stage in which she could ofifer something better. This surmise is borne out by an extract from one of her letters to Birch-Pfeiffer: "What do you say of my having left the stage? I cannot tell you in words how happy I feel about it. I shall sing in concerts as long as I have a voice; but that only gives me pleasure. ... I have begun to sing what has long been the wish of my JENNY LIND 51 heart — Oratorio. There I can sing the music I love; and the words make me feel a better being." She had, of course, been heard in oratorios and concerts many times before she gave up the opera. A notable oc- currence was the performance in London, a year after Mendelssohn's death, of his Elijah^ with Jenny Lind in the soprano part, which he had expressly written for her. "He had studied her voice with microscopic care, and knew the timbre of every note in it as well as if it had been his own." The object of this performance of Elijah calls attention to what became thenceforth the leading motive in her character. It was to help to found a ''Mendelssohn Foun- dation for Free Scholarships in the Leipzig Musical Con- servatory," and it is interesting to note that the first ''Men- delssohn Scholar" to benefit by this fund was Arthur Sullivan, who afterward delighted two continents with his melodious operettas. Previous to this event she had, when she reappeared in Sweden after an absence of two years, laid the foundations of a college the object of which she indicated in these words: "I have assigned the whole amount of my portion of the receipts from the representations in which I shall appear, toward establishing a fund, the income of which is to be devoted to an institution for educating poor children who, while specially endowed for the stage, lack the care of par- ents or relatives, without which, in a moral and artistic respect, they either lose, or else fail to reach, the higher de- velopment for which their gifts would give reasonable hope." Thus she tried to repay her country for the aid she had received as a child; and we are assured that "from the time that she won her place in the European drama, she never sang in her native land again on her own behalf." "To wed myself wholly to well-doing" is her declared in- tention as early as 1848; and there is every reason to be- 52 SUCCESS IN MUSIC lieve that had it not been for this intention the most re- markable episode in her life would never have occurred. This episode was her American tour under the manage- ment of the great showman, P. T. Barnum, which gave rise to incidents and aroused enthusiasm that would have been astounding had she crossed the ocean as the first of the great European prima donnas of the opera, but was doubly so in view of the fact that she sang only in concerts. The English were loath to lose her, and they gave her a "send- off" that any monarch or conquering military hero might have envied. The Liverpool police had informed Bar- num's agent that if Jenny Lind took her departure from the quay at the hour generally expected, they could not insure the safety of life and limb; consequently she went to the pier "by all manner of back streets." Innumerable craft were in the river waiting for the Atlantic to sail; and when the steamer started, what a London journalist called a "great scene" was witnessed: "The immense floating mass began to move, and, as if by magic, all the craft that had been playing about on the surface of the river formed into lines and made a sort of procession." Thousands of men and women lined the shores and cheered as the steamer moved on, while cannon roared farewell salutes. "Every eye was strained to get a sight of Jenny Lind. There the little woman stood on the paddle-box, with her arm in that of Captain West, and waving her handkerchief enthusi- astically." The ocean was merely an intermezzo. In New York the enthusiastic demonstrations were resumed. There was a serenade by a band which was preceded by a procession of 700 members of the fire brigade; there were public recep- tions "at which she presided like a queen, though with less formality"; there was an auction sale for the first concert, which yielded $26,000. The singer's share — $10,000 — as well as her profits on the second concert, she gave to the JENNY LIND 53 principal New York charities. Her gains for the next six were $30,000. But this sum, too, as well as her subsequent gains, she did not intend to keep for her own use. Her object in accepting Barnum's offer was indicated in a letter to Mme. Wichmann: "Since I have no greater wish than to make much money in order to found schools in Sweden, I cannot help looking upon this journey to America as a gracious answer to my prayer to Heaven." For herself she kept only what was necessary to enable her to live and to buy a cottage on the Malvern Hills, Eng- land. Her wants were few and she would not have com- plained if reverses of fortune had compelled her to live literally in accordance with the recipe for true happiness contained in the following lines, written in one of her let- ters from Boston: " Few suspect how unutterably little the world and its splendor have been able to turn my mind giddy. Herrings and potatoes — a clean wooden chair, and a wooden spoon to eat milk-soup with — that would make me skip like a child, for joy. And this — without the slight- est trace of exaggeration," * Christine Nilsson When Jenny Lind was twenty- three years old (in 1843) there was born in Sweden a second girl who was destined to win a place in the first rank of operatic and concert singers — Christine Nilsson. Her parents were so poor * For details regarding Jenny Lind's American tours there is no room or occasion in this volume; they may be found in Barnum's Autobiography and Frith's Autobiography and Reminiscences. It was in America, in 1852, that Lind got married — to Otto Goldschmidt, noted as pianist, conductor, and composer. Her total American profits were $154,000, of which she invested $100,000 for benevolent purposes in Sweden. In the years 1883-6 she taught singing at the Royal College of Music, in London. Her last public appearance was in 1883, at a concert given for the Railways Servants' Benevolent Fund, at the Spa, Malvern Hills. She died on November 2, 1887. 54 SUCCESS IN MUSIC that the community of Hussaby had to help support their family of eight children. Her father had enough skill as a singer to lead the congregation in the Lutheran church, and from him she learned the A B C of music. Her brother Carl owned a violin, on which she taught herself to play. He used to earn a little money by playing at fairs and dances, and one day he took his little sister along; she had a pretty voice and sang the simple Swedish folk songs she had heard. These duos gave so much pleasure that he took her along regularly. Luckily, on one of these occa- sions she was heard by a magistrate named Tomerhjelm, who was so delighted with her singing that he went to her father and offered to give her, at his own expense, a musical as well as a general education. The offer was accepted. Christine was placed in charge of the Baroness de Leuhusen, who took her to Gottenburg and instructed her in German, French, singing, and piano- playing. Subsequently, at Stockholm, she also studied harmony. "At the same time," one of her biographers re- lates, " she studied her violin so conscientiously that, when sixteen years old, her old friend and patron, Tomerhjelm, told her that she should, at his expense, go to Paris, and there earn the glory for which her young head was destined, and that she must, before leaving, give a great concert at Stockholm. Christine was long in doubt whether she should devote her life to the fiddle or to singing, so she de- cided upon coming before the public in both qualities, and played a concerto by Mr. Berwald in the Grande Salle Lacroix, and there, too, she sang the aria of Alice in French." Her violin playing was one of the factors which contrib- uted to her success, as we may infer from what Dr. Hans- lick wrote about her many years later: "Nilsson's intona- tion is always so exquisitely pure that we would suspect her of being a violin player did we not happen to know that she CHRISTINE NILSSON 55 is one." On this point more will be said in the pages de- voted to Marcella Sembrich. A danger to which all students are exposed confronted Christine in Paris: she fell into the hands of a teacher who, by a wrong method, nearly ruined her voice. Fortunately she left him in time for Wartel, who undid the mischief by mak- ing her sing for two and a half years on a, a, ee, every note of the scale, and the last six months with words. " Those who deem this an extraordinarily long trial, or an ex- aggerated, unnecessary course, may take it for granted that if they do not study so conscientiously they will not stand the test of twenty-five years' concerts and operas as Patti and Nilsson did, and retain the voice so full and fresh." At the age of twenty-one she was engaged to sing at the Theatre Lyrique in Paris for nine months, for which she was to get $5,000. Verdi's La Traviala had been trans- lated for the occasion of her debut, and she made at once an unforeseen sensation. " I remember," says a writer in Temple Bar^ " having heard people discuss what might be the reason of this sudden success. Said one, 'She is so young and pretty, she has such a commanding figure, and shows in all her candor such an immense will.' * Oh, no,' said another; 'it is by no means her appearance; it is her extraordinary voice and the command she has over it. Yet there is something strange in her voice {etrange dans sa voix).^ 'Well,' said one of the greatest singers Paris has known, 'is it not sufficient to have something unusual, something that no one else has, in the timbre of the voice; and may it not be that, because all the qualities you men- tion are combined in her, she made such an extraordinary impression upon her audience?' She came out of the struggle with flying colors. The strange part of it, how- ever, is that, although she sang without the slightest emotion before her success, anxiety seized upon her afterward, and she got as nervous as a little schoolgirl at her examination. 56 SUCCESS IN MUSIC It was during the conge (leave) of 1866 that she came to London, and sang at Her Majesty's with the same great and instantaneous success as in Paris. On her return to France at the expiration of her three years' engagement with the Thd^tre Lyrique, she was engaged at the Grand Op6ra, where Ambroise Thomas, at a loss to find an Ophelia for his Hamlet, seeing that the fair-haired, poetical, dreamy-looking Swede combined all the required qualities for this difficult part, intrusted her, as they there say, with the creation; and she then remained three years, a member of the first lyric theatre in France, which with our modest neighbors means the first in the world." Her first visit to America, though only a concert tour, brought her $200,000 net profit, and her manager made $60,000 besides. After her return to Europe she received the following letter, which gives a pleasant glimpse of the impression she had made: United States Senate, Dear Madam: Washington, July 12, 1884. I had the honor to meet you at dinner at President Arthur's a few weeks ago. While several guests were seeking to exchange written cards with you, you said you would be glad to get autographs of all the Senators; and, as in duty bound, I promised to obtain them. I beg you to accept with my respectful compliments the accompanying volume, containing autographs of the Presi- dent, all the Cabinet, all the Justices of the Supreme Court, and all the Senators. The temporary absence of some of the Senators delayed the completion of the work. I remain, Madam, Your obedient servant, Jos. R. Hawley. Nilsson's singing reminded Luigi Arditi greatly of Bosio, "her brilliant fioriture being delivered with the same ex- CHRISTINE NILSSON 57 quisite grace and refinement that characterized the style of the Italian artist. Everything was in favor of the young Swedish artist — her youthful freshness (in itself a priceless charm) a definite individuality; her slight, supple figure, which lent itself to the draping of any classical robe; and, above all, the voice, of extensive compass, mellow, sweet, and rich." During one season Nilsson used to study most of her parts with Arditi at his house, "and most faithfully and conscientiously did she work." The same eminent con- ductor relates that Nilsson, like most artists, suffered from "nerves." "I recollect when she came to my house to go over her parts with me, she used, while singing, to tear the trimmings and laces off her skirts by continually fingering them. Her lady companion, Mme. Richardson, was in despair about her dresses, and used to say how she wished it were fashionable for ladies to wear perfectly plain skirts, devoid of any kind of trimmings, so that Nilsson could not have the chance of spoiling all her passementeries.''^ A famous prima donna must expect all sorts of experi- ences that will put her nerves to the test. The following appeared in the Boston Herald of March 18, 1887: Once in New York a madman followed her for a week under the conviction that the words of love which he had heard her, as Marguerite, address to Faust, were intended for himself. He would spend the day in front of the hotel where she was staying, and whenever she went out he ran alongside of her carriage, kissing his hand to her and calling her his Marguerite. One evening when her parlor was full of company the door suddenly opened and the lunatic rushed in, threw his arms around her, and exclaimed: "Kiss me. Marguerite!" The attack was so sudden and the guests so surprised that none of them thought of going to her assistance; she was obliged to break away from his clutches without aid, and it was she who rang the bell and 58 SUCCESS IN MUSIC sent for a policeman. At the hearing the fellow managed to break loose from the officers, again approached Nilsson, and began frantically to kiss her dress. In the presence of so unmistakable symptoms of madness the prima donna refused to prosecute, and.only asked that he might be kept locked up until she had left the city. In Chicago she was annoyed by another madman, a student, who had fallen in love with her, and was constantly writing to ask her to marry him. One day he arrived at the door of the hotel in a sleigh drawn by four horses, and stated that he had come to take her to church. Her manager got rid of him by assuring the fellow that he was too late, and that he would find Nilsson waiting for him at the church. Diego de Vivo, in summing up this artist's qualities in the New York Sun, said: Christine Nilsson excelled in the composition of a scene, in the power of giving it its fullest importance, and of con- centrating upon it the attention of the spectator. She was most successful in episodes the saliency of which was added to by her personal Swedish beauty and by her sin- gular aspect, rather than by the development of a character or a complicated situation. Hence her permanency as the ideal Ophelia, the ideal Cherubino, and the ideal Queen of Night. According to Dr. Hanslick, her principal charm and talisman was a simplicity and a sincerity of expression which enabled her to move an audience even where the composer had not provided an "effect." While Nilsson was " the favorite of crowned heads and great ladies," she never tried to conceal her peasant origin. The photographs of her parents in peasant costume always were in her room, and when she built a magnificent man- sion she placed in it also the violin which accompanied her first folk songs at the village fair. When she became CHRISTINE NILSSON 59 famous and rich she also remembered that others had helped her when she was poor, and, following the example of Jenny Lind — who had been the artistic model and in- spiration of her youth — she emulated her in generosity, too. Her first earnings were devoted to buying a farm for her parents and another for one of her brothers ; and thence- forth she was ever ready to use her voice in the service of the poor and the victims of misfortunes, such as the Chicago fire and the inundations in Spain. She was twice married, and is still living (1909). Her second husband was Count Casa di Miranda. Prima donnas are supposed to be all rivalry and envy, but when Nilsson sang Mignon (which Thomas had specially altered to make it suit her voice) at Baden-Baden for the first time, she received a card from the famous Viardot- Garcia with these words : " Avec toute son admira- tion pour la delicieuse Mignon," and a note from Pauline Lucca saying: "You were sublime, and it gives me the greatest pleasure to tell you so." One more glimpse of this great artist on the stage and we must ring down the curtain. Sutherland Edwards says regarding her Traviata: "She refined to the utmost a character sadly in want of refinement, and sang in absolute perfection the expressive music of the part. Her Violetta never went into hysterics; and she seemed to die, not of phthisis aided and developed by dissipation, but of a broken heart, like Clarissa Harlowe, or like that Shake- spearian maiden who never told her love. Mile. Piccolo- mini's Violetta was a foolish virgin; Mile. Nilsson's a fallen angel,". ITALIAN PRIMA DONNAS Adelina Patti There have been a few favored singers to whom the exercise of their art came as naturally as swimming does to a fish, flying to a bird. Conspicuous among these is Ade- lina Patti; and the secret of her remarkable success lay largely in the ease and spontaneity of her vocal utterances. Her musical gifts were hereditary, her father, a Sicilian, having been a good tenor, her Roman mother a noted prima donna. The opera company to which they belonged happened to be in Madrid when Adelina was born (Feb- ruary 19, 1843), and three years later they followed an Italian impresario to New York, where she was brought up. Thus it came to pass that like so many who come to America as children, she came to look on English as her mother tongue. She did not, however, forget her Italian, and she also learned to speak French, Spanish, and Ger- man fluently, although she did not, like operatic artists of to-day, need these languages on the stage, as she nearly always sang in Italian. It cost her little effort to learn them — and less efiPort to learn music. To Dr. Hanslick she gave, in 1877, the fol- lowing concise account of her childhood days: An ear for music, a gift for song and delight in it, came to me surprisingly early, wherefore I received as a mere 60 ADELINA PATTI 6i child lessons in singing from my stepbrother^ piano lessons from my sister Carlotta. . . . Thus we lived — three sis- ters and a young and recently married brother, Carlo Patti — in New York with our parents, in peace and free from care. As a little child I was already possessed by a frantic love of music and the theatre. I sat in the opera- house every evening when my mother sang; every melody, every gesture, was impressed on me indelibly. When the performance was over and I had been taken home and put to bed, I got up again stealthily, and by the light of the night lamp played over all the scenes I had seen. A red- lined mantle belonging to my father and an old hat of my mother's trimmed with feathers served me as material for diverse costumes, and thus I acted, danced, twittered through all the operas, barefooted, but romantically at- tired. ... A stroke of bad luck suddenly fell upon us. The im- presario became bankrupt and disappeared without paying the salaries due, the company was disbanded, and there was no more Italian opera. My parents found themselves without income; we were a large family, and thus want and distress soon made themselves felt. My father carried one thing after another to the pawnshop, and knew not on many a day what we were to live on the next. But I knew little of all this and sang on from morning till night. This at last attracted my father's attention and suggested to him that possibly I might, with my clear child-voice, save the family from the worst distress. And, thank Heaven, I did so. Only seven years old, I was asked to appear as a concert singer, and I did it with all the joy and naivete of a child. I was placed in the concert hall on a table near the piano, in order that the hearers might be able to see the little doll, too, and there was no lack of these, or of ap- plause. And do you know what I sang ? That is the most remarkable thing of all: nothing but florid arias, first among them Una voce poco fa from the Barber, with the same embellishments exactly that I use to-day, and other colorature pieces. I had the joy of seeing the pawned 62 SUCCESS IN MUSIC clothes and jewels come back one after another, and con- tentment and comfort prevailed once more in our home * Her mother was a sensible woman; she taught Adelina dressmaking, for, she said, ''a voice is easily lost and the operatic stage is the most uncertain bread-winner" — a maxim which every stage aspirant should take to heart. In course of the next two years the little girl gave three hundred concerts, not only in the cities of the United States, but in Mexico and Cuba; her concert in Santiago was interrupted by an earthquake, and there were plenty of adventures elsewhere. It was then decided to let her voice have a rest for a few years. The concerts referred to were under the management of Maurice Strakosch, who married Patti's older sister Amalia. Subsequently Strakosch entered into partnership with B. Ullmann, impresario of the Italian Opera in New York. This gave Adelina the desired opportunity. She was eager to make her d6hut in opera, but she scorned the idea of appearing in a role of minor importance: prima donna, that is, first woman, or nothing, was her motto. Ullmann at first hesitated, but on November 24, 1859, the sixteen-year-old Patti was heard for the first time in public in an operatic r61e — Lucia, with great success. The Barber of Seville and La Sonnambula followed soon. In the next year other American cities were visited, and on May 14, 1 86 1, she made her debut in London. The result of this was that at the second appearance the audience, the excitement, and the enthusiasm were as great as in the days of Jenny Lind. The record of the rest of her career is simply a long series of stage triumphs. The accent may be placed on * Musikalische Stationen, von Eduard Hanslick. Berlin: Hofmann & Co., 1880. ADELINA PATTI 63 the "long" as well as on the "triumphs." It is almost ludicrous to note Dr. Hanslick's exclamation, written in 1879: "Her eternal youth borders on the miraculous"; and then to read what the London Telegraph remarked anent her appearance at a Ganz concert twenty-nine years later (May, 1908): "Need it be said that the diva, whose first contribution to the program was the immortal Voi che sapete, delighted her admirers yet again, and that they knew not how to make enough of her ? As the result, Mo- zart's famous air was supplemented by Pur dicesti, in which the shakes were compassed with all the old-time perfection of finish, while Gounod's Serenade — with the violin obligato played by Mischa Elman — proved on the singer's lips a thing of such irresistible charm that nothing would content her hearers but a repetition of the song. Later in the afternoon came Tosti's Serenata^ and, even after so many favors, the audience would not suffer Madame Patti to depart until she had recalled countless former triumphs by giving them Home, Sweet Home, sung once again with that perfect feeling for its tender sentiment which has never failed to stir her hearers to the depths of their nature. Madame Patti's voice was better than it has been for years, and it was therefore a matter of course that a marvellously beautiful and inspiring performance should arouse immense enthusiasm. But even those best accus- tomed to the Patti ovations of the past have seldom seen a more thrilling outburst of homage than that evoked by yesterday's magnificent display of art." Thus, for nearly a decade more than half a century has Adelina Patti been able to arouse the enthusiasm of the public and the critics. What is the secret of this longevity of her voice ? It lies in this, that she never abused it and always took good care of her health, resisting the temptations to self- indulgence which her great wealth abundantly afforded 64 SUCCESS IN MUSIC her. She carefully avoided vocal overexertion and excess of any kind. In her own words: "Never in my whole career have I sung oftener than three times a week, and to this precaution I attribute my many years of success." Lilli Lehmann says in her excellent book, How to Sing J that "in Adelina Patti everything was united — the splendid voice, paired with great talent for singing, and the long oversight of her studies by her distinguished teacher Strakosch. She never sang roles that did not suit her voice; in her earlier years she sang only arias and duets, or single solos, never taking part in ensembles. She never sang even her limited repertory when she was indisposed. She never attended rehearsals, but came to the theatre in the evening and sang triumphantly, without ever having seen the persons who sang and acted with her. She spared herself rehearsals, which, on the day of the performance or the day before, exhaust all singers because of the ex- citement of all kinds attending them, and which contribute neither to the freshness of the voice nor to the joy of the profession. . . . "All was absolutely good, correct, and flawless, the voice like a bell that you seemed to hear long after its singing had ceased. "Yet she could give no explanation of her art, and answered all her colleagues' questions concerning it with an ^ Ah, je rCen sais rien^ (I know nothing about it)." It must not be supposed that, since the exercise of her art came to her so easily, Patti did not have to work at all. Lessons she got in her childhood, as we have seen, from members of her family, and these, as she says, were quite systematic. Strakosch also aided her, but not to the extent generally supposed. To cite her own words: "The only r61e I learned with him is Rosina in the Barber) subse- quently when, as an expert singer, I travelled in Europe, he went through my r61es with me." One of her biogra- ADELINA PATTI 65 phers * makes the curious assertion that Strakosch often took her place at rehearsals: "He has gone so far as to sing her part at rehearsals; the initiated have often seen him transformed into Rosina, Lucia, or Amina, replying in character and taking part in a love duet." Throughout her career Patti kept up her exercises, but, of course, they were easy compared to those which less fortunately endowed artists have to submit to. ''Her vocal organs," wrote Hanslick in 1879, "which she has managed with such consummate skill since her childhood, and with the instinctive certainty with which the rest of us perform an ordinary action, hardly need any more practice. Patti ex- ercises solfeggios daily for half an hour, mostly mezza voce; the roles themselves she does not go over. Never does she practise facial expression or gestures before the mirror, be- cause, as she thinks, that only yields grimaces (singeries) .^^ The same Viennese critic, who knew her well and had many talks with her, speaks of some of the remarkable things she was able to do. Her memory was amazing. She learned a new role thoroughly by softly singing it two or three times, and what she had once learned and sung in public she never forgot; so that it was not necessary for her to take the scores in her trunk when she was on tour. Equally remarkable was her sense of pitch. Hanslick was present once when she sang the jewel aria from Faust^ which was followed by noisy demonstrations of enthusiasm lasting many minutes. Suddenly Patti, without signalling the orchestra, took up again the trill on b, the orchestra joined her in the next bar, and there was not the least dif- ference in the pitch. Hanslick' s assertion that she always sang with pure in- tonation is not strictly true, for I have heard her sing off the pitch more than once; but that simply showed she is human. The dozens of performances by her I heard in * Guy de Charnace, in Les Etoiles du Chant. Paris, 1868. 66 SUCCESS IN MUSIC the Academy of Music, New York, convinced me that she was above most singers of her class — a model, especially to her Italian countrywomen — in so far as she avoided all claptrap display not prescribed in her part, such as abnor- mally sustained high tones, interminable trills, arbitrary tempo, and explosive final notes. Her evident relish of her own work and of stage life in general has been one of the secrets of her success. To be sure, she enjoyed the great advantage of being entirely free from nervousness. Even when, as a child of seven, she first appeared as a concert singer, or at sixteen, on the operatic stage, she was, by her own testimony, absolutely ignorant of what stage fright means. Such are the good points of Patti and the advantages she enjoyed. Unlike Jenny Lind, moreover, she had great personal beauty, and beauty is a joy forever, on the stage as well as off. As previously stated, Adelina Patti earned in the course of four decades and a half about $3,750,000. Inasmuch as charity is a virtue but not a duty, it would be foolish to chide her for investing a part of her enormous earnings in a splendid castle in Wales instead of founding schools and hospitals, as Lind did. Moreover, she has sung on numer- ous occasions in aid of meritorious charities, especially in England and Wales, the hospitals of Swansea, Brecon, and Neath, in particular, owing her a debt of gratitude. That there is one blot on her artistic character cannot be denied. She asked so much for her services, particularly in America (where Mapleson had to pay her $5,000 in advance for each appearance), that it was often impossible to engage good singers for the other parts in an opera, which was thus apt to be bungled except so far as her own share in it was concerned. This showed a reprehensible lack of considera- tion for the composers as well as the audiences. In the words of La Mara, " she did not regard her artistic mission, like ADELINA PATTI 67 Pauline Garcia or Jenny Lind,with the holy zeal of a prophet who is impelled to proclaim the exalted gospel of art." Fault was often found with Patti, especially in the last two decades of her stage career, for confining herself to the old-fashioned "prima-donna operas"; but this criticism was injudicious; she was wise in doing what she could do best. There was a time when she was not so wise; a time when a misdirected ambition made her regard her specialty almost with contempt and aspire to things that were beyond her. She was perfection itself, both as actress and singer, in light comic roles, particularly Rosina, in Rossini's Barber oj Seville; Norina, in Donizetti's Don Pasquale; Zerlina, in Mozart's Don Giovanni. But this did not satisfy her. " I am no buffa!" she once said to Hanslick, tossing her head; and when he praised her Zerlina, she retorted: "I would rather sing Donna Anna, and I shall sing her yet." But when she did attempt modern dramatic parts, like Mar- guerite, in Faust; Valentine, in The Huguenots, Carmen, or even, Leonora, in // Trovatore, she fell short of the achievements of many less famous singers.* * Her repertory comprised altogether forty-one operas, as follows: Verdi: La Traviaia, II Trovatore, Ernani, Rigoletto, Aida, Luisa Miller, Giovanna d'Arco, Les Vepres Siciliennes, Un Ballo in MascJiera. Rossini: II Barbiere di Siviglia, Semiramide, La Gazza Ladra, Otello, Mo si in Egitto. Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor, Don Pasqicale, L'Elisir d'Amore, La Figlia del Reggimento, Linda di Chamounix. Meyerbeer: Les Huguenots, UEtoile du Nord, Le Pardon de Ploermel, Robert le Viable. Bellini: La Sonnambula, I Puritani. Mozart : Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, II Flauto Magico. Gounod: Faust, Romeo et Juliette, Mireille. Auber: Les Diamants de la Couronne, Era Diavolo. Poniatowski: Gelmina, Don Desiderio. Bizet: Carmen. Flotow: Marta. Ricci: Crispino e la Comare, Campana: Esmeralda. Lenepveu: Velleda. Cohen: Estrella. 68 SUCCESS IN MUSIC Her failure to reach a high level in dramatic r61es was a matter partly of temperament, partly of intellectual lazi- ness. Arditi, who knew her from her girlhood, relates* that she could enter the room as bright as a ray of sunshine, all smiles and sweetness; " but if any one had had the mis- fortune to ruffle the pretty brows or thwart my Lady Wilful, her dark eyes would flash, her tiny fist would contract with anger, and clouds would speedily gather across the surface of her laughing face and burst forth in torrents of tears almost as quickly as a flash of lightning." But depth of feeling she had none. She married the Marquis de Caux, but not from affection. *' Whoever saw her with the Mar- quis, before or after their marriage, could entertain no doubt that she did not marry him for love. She knew not love, the 'grand passion.'" As for her inteUect, the same friend of hers attests: "I have never perceived in Adelina the least interest in the higher problems of mankind — in science, politics, religion, not even in belles lettres.'''' A book was seldom seen on her table, and he could not even interest her in the lightest of all forms of intellectual exercise — novel reading. It is not of such minds, as we shall see, that great dra- matic singers are made. She was no doubt, as Lenz called her, "the Paganini of vocal virtuosity"; but she did not move the deeper feelings. Berlioz heard her in 1864 as Martha, and it is of interest to read what he wrote about her.f He refers to her as the " ravissante petite Patti," and says that he sent her word that he pardoned her for having made him listen to such platitudes, but that he could do no more than that. "Fortunately there is in this opera the delicious Irish air, The Last Rose of Summer, which she sings with a poetic simplicity that would almost suffice, with its sweet perfume, to disinfect the rest of the score." * My Reminiscences. By Luigi Arditi. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. t Lettres Intimes. Paris: Calmann L^vy. 1882. CATALANI AND PASTA 69 The most dramatic of all operas, those of Richard Wagner, Patti never attempted, although she became a great admirer of them in the later years of her career, being a frequent attendant at the Bayreuth festivals. She was reported as having once said that she would sing Wagner's music after she had lost her voice; but if she ever did make such a silly remark she learned to regret it, after hearing such artists as Lilli Lehmann and Jean de Reszke, who demonstrated that a beautiful voice is as necessary for a proper reproduction of the operas of Wagner as of the operas of Rossini or Mozart. Catalani and Pasta There is a story that Rossini once heard one of his arias sung by Patti, who so overloaded it with ornaments that he asked her sarcastically whose music she was sing- ing. On being told shat she had sung the aria as Strakosch had taught it to her, he pronounced it a " Stracochonnerie'* ("cochon" being French for pig). It was not a polite speech to make, but it must be re- membered that Rossini was a great and plain-spoken re- former who insisted on writing his own ornaments for his airs. Up to his time the Italian composers had usually supplied only the melodic thread for the smgers to use for their embroideries, and there was a good deal of indigna- tion (which to us seems comic) when the composers began to do their own embroidering. "Poor Italy 1^^ wrote Tosi, "pray tell me: do not the Singers nowadays know where the Appoggiaturas are to be made, unless they are pointed at with a finger? In my Time their own Knowledge showed it them. Eternal Shame to him who first intro- duced these foreign Puerilities into our Nation." * * See the Observations on Florid Song of Pier Francesco Tosi. Lon- don, 1743. Pp. 39, 88. 70 SUCCESS IN MUSIC In Patti's day it was no longer the rule for singers to do their own decorating of arias; during the greater part of her career she confined herself generally to the notes set down by the composers. Her success, moreover, was due quite as much to the luscious beauty of her voice and her polished singing of sustained melodies, unadorned, as to her agile execution of embellishments. To see the old- style florid song in full bloom we must go back a few generations. The career of Angelica Catalani, who was bom in 1780, gives us a good view of the operatic ideals which prevailed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There is a tradition that Catalani, after hearing Sontag, said: "She is the first in her style, but her style is not the first." If she really said this, she condemned her own specialty, for it was the same as Sontag's — the florid style. Sontag sometimes appropriated passages suitable for the violin or the piano rather than for the voice, but Catalani made a habit of this; in fact, it was the secret 0} her success with the public. To such an extent did she indulge in in- strumental vocalism that the Parisians called her " 1' instru- ment Catalani " — a queer sort of a compliment for a singer! "She is fond of singing variations on some well-known simple air," wrote Lord Mount Edgcumbe, "and latterly has pushed this task to the very height of absurdity by singing, even without words, variations composed for the fiddle." It is nothing against Catalani that, as one writer says, "she was a florid singer, and nothing but a florid singer, whether grave or airy, in the church, orchestra, or upon the stage"; for one can be a florid singer and still be a model of good taste, as we can see in the case of Patti or Sembrich; but Catalani had no artistic conscience; she was ready to do any circus trick to win applause. "Her principal pl-easure was in the most extravagant and bizarre show- CATALANI AND PASTA 71 pieces, such, for example, as variations composed for the violin on popular airs like God Save the King, Rule Bri- tannia, Cease Your Funning.''^ She carried her departure from the true limits of art to such an outrageous degree as to draw on her head the severest reprobation of all good judges, though the public listened to her wonderful execution with unbounded delight and astonishment.* She not only sang music written for fiddle or flute, but sometimes chose real songs that were utterly unsuitable for a woman's voice; and at times she tried to sing so loudly as to overpower the orchestra, with all the brasses. An English magazine writer gives this picture of her: "When she begins one of the interminable roulades up the scale, she gradually raises her body, which she had before stooped to almost a level with the ground, until, having won her way with a quivering lip and chattering chin to the very top-most note, she tosses back her head and all its nodding feathers with an air of triumph ; then suddenly falls to a note two octaves and a half lower with incredible aplomb, and smiles like a victorious Amazon over a conquered enemy." Her really sublime egotism is illustrated by an anecdote concerning an eminent Hamburg musician who severely criticised her vocal tricks. She shrugged her beautiful shoulders and retorted that he was an "impious man; for, when God has given to a mortal so extraordinary a talent as I possess, people ought to applaud and honor it as a miracle; it is profane to depreciate the gifts of Heaven." Personally, she was admired for the purity of her private conduct, "amid scenes and temptations where numbers would have made shipwreck of all but professional fame"; and she was also noted for her generosity. This, however, * Great Singers. By George T. Ferris. New York: D. Appleton. 1880. 72 SUCCESS IN MUSIC did not extend to managers and audiences. Like Patti, and even more so, she insisted on being "the whole show" herself, when justice to the opera, to its composer, and to the hearers demanded a respectable ensemble. When a manager complained that the sum asked by her made it impossible for him to employ other artists of talent, her husband replied: "Talent! have you not Mme. Catalani? What would you have? If you want an opera company, my wife with four or five puppets is quite sufficient." When she first appeared in England, the eminent tenor Braham was in the same company, but " her jealousy soon rid her of so brilliant a competitor." " She would bear no rival," wrote Lord Mount Edgcumbe, "nor any singer sufficiently good to divide the applause." She was amazingly ignorant of everything not relating to music; nor was her knowledge of that more than super- ficial. She could not read a new song at sight, but had to learn it by playing it over on the piano. As a partial excuse for her manner of singing, it might be maintained that it was not until she applied herself to the ornamental style that she succeeded, having failed in her attempts with sustained and dramatic song. One of her unique tricks, which always astonished her audiences, is described as an undulating tone like that of a musical glass, higher than the highest notes on the pianos of her day. It began with an inconceivably fine tone, which gradually swelled in volume till it made the ears vibrate. "It particularly resembled the highest note of the nightingale, that is reiterated each time more in- tensely, and which with a sort of ventriloquism seems scarcely to proceed from the same bird that a moment before poured his delicate warblings at an interval so dis- jointed." There is one more respect in which Catalani's career provides food for thought. She undertook for a time to CATALANI AND PASTA 73 direct the Theatre Italien in Paris, but made a failure of it — the usual result when musicians try to be managers. Her quondam tenor, Braham, made the same mistake. He spent over ;£6o,ooo in buying the Colosseum and build- ing the St. James's Theatre, with the consequence that he had to go on the stage again at a time when he should have enjoyed the fruits of his labors in peace. Handel, Lucca, lima di Murska, and Italo Campanini are four more conspicuous instances of musicians who would have been wiser to stick to their lasts. From Catalani — whose chief defect was a lack of ar- tistic conscience — it is a pleasure to turn to another Italian singer of infinitely greater artistic respectability — Giuditta Pasta. Though born only eighteen years later than Cata- lani, she is much more modern in taste, aspirations, and achievements. She deserves our commendation the more because she had to work like a beaver to attain the emi- nence she aimed at. At the age of eighteen (she was born in 1798, near Milan) she was for a time in Catalani's opera company without attracting favorable attention; in fact, she was a failure. Her voice was originally of limited compass, weak and husky, and her awkward gestures and general lack of grace presaged anything but the famous actress she was destined to become. Realizing her failure, she retired from the stage temporarily to study with a famous singing master named Scappa. She never suc- ceeded in quite equalizing her tones, and there were times when she sang out of tune; but such defects were forgotten in her art of imparting "to every passage a significance beyond the reach of more spontaneous singers," as Chor- ley, the eminent London critic, put it. "The true secret of her greatness was in the intellect and imagination which lay behind the voice, and made every tone quiver with dramatic sensibility." By dint of hard work she succeeded in extending the 74 SUCCESS IN MUSIC compass of her voice to two octaves and a half, and in greatly improving its quality, giving it richness and power; its flexibility, also, was so much increased that she became famous as a florid singer; but she showed her good taste by refraining, except in rare cases, from adding to the ornaments provided by the composers. She overcame the harshness of her high tones and made of her lower register a medium for the expression of passion in a manner un- precedented on the operatic stage. Her recitative and her declamation were so realistic, so emotional, that she made her audiences forget the artificial conventionalities of opera. ** Her accents were so plaintive, so penetrating, so profoundly tragical, that no one could resist their in- fluence." As an operatic actress. Pasta opened a new epoch. To her, says Sutherland Edwards,* "belongs the credit of having introduced genuine acting into opera. Before Pasta's time the Italian singers contented themselves with the conventional expression, the mechanical gesticulation by which operatic singing will be always more or less dis- figured, so difficult is it to find vocal and histrionic talent combined in the same artist. But when Pasta had once shown how beautiful music might be rendered intensely dramatic, the singers of her time were obliged, as best they could, to follow her example." Her dramatic art saved Bellini's Norma from being a . failure when first produced in London. For her Bellini .* wrote his Sonnamhula; this, however, though she made it famous, gave her histrionic power less scope than Rossini's Otello, in which she aroused the most extraordinary enthu- siasm, not only on the part of the public but of the pro- fessionals, including the critics. Her skill as an actress * The Prima Donna: Her History and Surroundings, from the Seven- teenth to the Nineteenth Centuries. By H. Sutherland Edwards. Two vols. London: Remington & Co. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. TETRAZZINI: A MUSICAL MYSTERY 75 was most eloquently attested by the great Talma in these words: " Here is a woman of whom I can still learn. One turn of her beautiful head, one glance of her eye, one light motion of her hand, is, with her, sufficient to express a passion. She can raise the soul of the spectator to the highest pitch of astonishment by one tone of her voice. O Diol as it comes from her breast, swelling over her lips, is of indescribable efifect." It is gratifying to record that while Pasta never stooped to conquer the masses, as Catalani did, she was no less successful in earning big emoluments. Her operatic salary alone was at one time ;£i 4,000 ($70,000) a year. Wiser than most prima donnas, she deposited her savings in a bank instead of squandering them, but, unfortunately, she chose the wrong bank. It failed, and, like so many others, she had to reappear on the stage after her voice had lost its charm. But even then the consummate artist was rec- ognizable. When Viardot- Garcia heard her the last time, she compared her to Leonardo da Vinci's ^'Last Sup- per'': *' A wreck of a picture, but the picture is the great- est in the world." Tetrazzini: A Musical Mystery A modern Pasta would doubtless delight all opera-goers. Would a Catalani do the same? Not all of them. The critics would rend her savagely, yet she would probably have large and enthusiastic audiences. The general pub- lic loves florid song as much as ever. In summing up the results of the spring and summer season of opera in London (1908) the critics agreed that a great success had been won by Miss Destinn, the dra- matic soprano of the Royal Opera in Berlin, but that nev- ertheless the chief honors went to Mme. Melba and Mme. Tetrazzini. The latter represent the florid style of singing. 76 SUCCESS IN MUSIC The submarine cables almost melted from the glowing accounts of their triumphs. When Mme. Melba celebrated the twentieth anniversary of her debut in London (on June 24, 1908), society, headed by the King and Queen, filled the house; and when the prima donna came to the tre- mendous piece of virtuosity which brings the first act of La Traviata to a close, ''the audience," according to one of the London journalists, " held its breath." The reporter adds: Her vocal gymnastics were simply amazing, and her own intense enjoyment of them was delightful. Up and down the scale she went, in trills and runs and roulades, and when she ended, like a fireworks display, with a brilliant shower of golden notes, the whole house rose and applauded with all its might. When Lursa Tetrazzini made her d^but in London, in the autumn of 1907, she created a sensation such as few singers have ever achieved. This achievement she re- peated in New York a few months later; she saved the season at the Manhattan Opera House, and the newspapers had pages about her career and her art. Her second en- gagement in London proved no less successful. Yet she is by no means a singer of the rank of Patti, Melba, or Sembrich, her voice being perfect only in its top register. Nor is she remarkable as an actress. That she should have created so extraordinary a sensation is certainly strange, if not mysterious; but this is not the mystery we have in mind at present. That mystery is of much wider scope. It is the mystery of florid music in general. Why have the composers of all countries given up writing such music when the public at large evidently likes it better than anything else, demands it with applausive violence, and showers diamonds on the TETRAZZINI: A MUSICAL MYSTERY 77 Pattis and Sembrichs, the Melbas and Tetrazzinis who provide it? The Italians who founded opera, three centuries ago, had high ideals. They were so anxious that the hearers should understand the words to which the music had been wedded that they deliberately avoided not only ornament, but even melody (Caccini boasted of his "noble contempt" for it) , using instead of it a dry, tuneless recitative. But the public soon tired of that sort of thing, and the shrewd com- posers, willing to please, began to supply not only tunes but highly ornamented arias, which the singers still further embroidered in a most lavish style. This fashion contin- ued throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; even great masters like Handel and Mozart were com- pelled to bow to the will of the public. Gluck raised a pro- test, but it had little effect except in Paris, where Rameau had prepared the ground for him. It was not till Beetho- ven, Weber, and Wagner came forward and stubbornly refused to cater to the demand for meaningless staccati, trills, rapid scales, cadenzas, explosive and long-drawn-out high tones, that the spell was broken. And now happened a strange thing — a phenomenon be- lying the teachings of the economists regarding demand and supply. All the composers of all countries, the great as well 5.S the small, followed in the footsteps of the men just named, defied the paying public, and contemptuously and persistently ignored its eager demand for ornamental music. In the German operas since Wagner, including those of Humperdinck and D'Albert, you will listen in vain for florid airs; you will not hear them in the popular operas of modern Frenchmen; Gounod employed them very sparingly; Bizet not at all; florid music is not to be found in the works of Charpentier, of Bruneau, of Saint- Saens; while the latest of the Frenchmen, Debussy, es- chews not only all ornaments, but has gone back to the 78 SUCCESS IN MUSIC recitative of the first opera composers. Stranger still, the Italians, who originated florid music and for centuries enraptured all the world with it, also have given it up com- pletely. Verdi, in his early operas, still made some use of it, but when his genius matured and he came to write Alda, Otello, and Falstaff, he avoided it as scrupulously as Wagner or Debussy; and all the young Italians followed his example. In the operas of Mascagni and Leoncavallo, of Boito and Puccini, and their colleagues, the decorative style known as colorature is absolutely tabooed. Why ? In the reminiscences of Spaun we read how Schubert used to be delighted by the vocal art of the prima donna Milder (for whom Beethoven wrote the r61e of Fidelio). One evening, after a performance of a Gluck opera, he went to a tavern with a friend, the poet Mayrhofer. Their enthusiastic discourse was rudely interrupted by another man present, who declared that it was disgraceful to engage a singer like Milder, as she "could sing no runs or trills." This was too much for the enthusiasts. Schubert jumped up and gave this lover of florid song a piece of his mind as to what true singing meant. Another anecdote. The "violin King," Joachim, was once asked why he had so little sympathy with the admirers of a certain prima donna who was famous for her fioriiure. Upon which he gave this answer: "What would you have? Here have I been endeavoring all my life to imi- tate on the violin the exquisite tones of the human voice; this singer, on the contrary, only seeks to imitate my violin." These two anecdotes explain why persons of musical culture, as a rule, do not care for colorature, and also why great modern composers like Wagner and the mature Verdi dispensed with it. But why do men like Mascagni and Leoncavallo, who are making such frantic efforts to catch the public ear, avoid it? Both have tried to write like Wagner, like the modem Frenchmen, and, of course, TETRAZZINI: A MUSICAL MYSTERY 79 like the Italians, old and new; but one thing they have avoided — the florid style; and in that exception lies the mystery. Why should not composers of the rank of Mascagni and Leoncavallo construct arias trimmed with the baubles the public likes so much? In literature, in all the other arts, the public gets what it wants in an up-to-date guise. But in music it is obliged to put up with stale, silly operas, the very names of which make one yawn, for the sake of hearing the beloved Melba, Sembrich, or Tetrazzini. It is useless to tell the public that florid music is less artistic than dramatic song; you might as well warn it against reading the journals it likes best. After all, it is no crime to take delight in vocal arpeggios, long-drawn-out trills, rapid diatonic scales, and Eifel-tower tones; and it must always be remembered that a Viardot, a Lehmann, a Calv6 can put soul even into such things. Therefore, since we must have such music for the clamorous public, let us at any rate have it in new operas and with new flourishes, and let us bury that silly old Sonnambula and its companions for good and all.* W. J. Henderson has aptly remarked that "if this were not a period almost barren of colorature singers and florid music, Mme. Tetrazzini would perhaps have made less stir. One thing is certain," he adds, "and it is that in this success lies a pregnant suggestion for young singers. Those with light, flexible voices should devote themselves to florid song." It will long remain true that " the singer who can rattle off staccati faster than any one else, who can trill longer than her rivals, who can run more rapid scales, and who can reach higher notes — for her the honor, the glory, the corsage bouquets torn from fair bosoms, and the ever- to-be desired upward flight of the salary." * Goldmark may have had this view in mind when he composed his. opera A Winter's Tale, in which florid air§ are introduced. 8o SUCCESS IN MUSIC At the same time it must be borne in mind that the modern operatic repertory calls chiefly for dramatic sing- ers, and that in the florid field only those of sensational endowments can at present hope to succeed. The florid singer has no big orchestra to help her out in weak mo- ments, as the dramatic singer has; a failure on her part is, therefore, the more conspicuous. Another disadvantage is that she is obliged to bear the whole burden on her shoulders, having to appear in operas which for the most part would have long ago been shelved but for the popular prima donnas who appear in them. Of Rossini's 39 operas only two have survived; of Donizetti's 67, only three or four; of Bellini's 11, only one. And there is a limit to the weight which even these singers can bear. Tetrazzini, on the top wave of her popularity, could not in New York revive popular interest in Meyerbeer's Dinorah or Bel- lini's I Puritani, and similar failures are on record in the activities of her leading rivals. One rather amusing instance may be cited from my days of critical storm and stress (1896-7): "There was a time — not so very long ago — when com- posers of the first rank were obliged to write operas to order for prima donnas, just as tailors make garments for society women. Even Mozart and Rossini had to submit to this tyrannic custom early in their career. Semiramide is an opera of this type, its only excuse for existence being that it gives two or three singers a chance to show off their vocal agility, as was the case last night when the cast included Mme. Melba, Mme. Scalchi, and M. Edouard de Reszke. Mme. Melba and M. de Reszke sang admirably, yet the audience was not large, nor did it ever warm up sufficiently to clamor for an encore. In truth, it was a funereal enter- tainment, the severest criticism on which was the stampede of the audience. Half the boxes and rows of seats in the parquet were empty before the end of the opera, although TETRAZZINI: A MUSICAL MYSTERY 8i that came at the very early hour of 10.50. It is to be hoped that this is the last experiment to revive this hope- lessly antiquated opera. Semiramide, like other works of its class, was not intended to be listened to from beginning to end. The Italians for whom it was written chatted and ate ices except when a florid aria or duo was turned on. When Rossini produced this opera he was accused of imi- tating the Germans, because he smothered the voices 'by the overwhelming weight of the orchestra'! The charge is as amusing as Rossini's utter disregard of the dramatic spirit of the play in his music. The chorus, for instance, which is sung when the ghost of Ninus appears, would lead one to infer that a picnic was going on. The opera was well enough staged, but it should not be staged at all. Requiescat in pace.'''' But let us return to Tetrazzini and discuss the secret of her success. It lay in part, as already intimated, in the rarity of good colorature singers to-day and in the public's abiding love for that sort of thing. In part it lay in the astonishing ease with which she executed the most difficult feats of vocalization in the highest position and the beauty of her tones in that position. Not infrequently there issues from her throat a group of notes that move a sensitive listener to tears by their sheer sensuous beauty. N