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THE AMATEUR SERIES.
l2mo. Blue clolh.

ON AOTOES AND THE AET OF ACTING.

By George Henry Lewes.

THE LIFE OF J. M. W. TIJENER, E.A. :

Founded on Letters and Papers furnished by his Friends
and Fellow-Academicians. With illustrations facsimiled
in colors, from Turner's original drawings. By Walter
Thorn bury. $2.75.

AET LIFE AND THEOEIES CF EIOHAED WAGNEE:

Selected from his writings and translated by Edward L.
Burlingame. With a I'reface, a Catalogue of Wagner's
publibhed works, and drawings of the Bayreuth Opera
House. $2.00.

EEOENT MUSIO AND MUSICIANS:

As described in the Diaries and Correspondence of Ignaz
Moscheles. Selected by his wife, and adapted from the
original German by A. D. Coleridge. %z.co.

EEOENT AET AND SOCIETY:

As described in the Autobiography and Memoirs of Heury
Fothergill Chorley. Compiled from the Edition of Henry
G. Hewlett, by C. H. Jones. $2.00.

AUTOBIOGEAPHY AND MUSICAL GEOTESQUES.

By Hector Berlioz. Translated by W. F. Apthorp. $2.00.

HENRY HOLT 6- CO.,

12 East 23d St., New York.

AMATEUR SERIES.

HECTOR BERLIOZ

SELECTIONS

FROM HIS LETTERS, AND ESTHETIC, HUMOROUS,
AND SATIRICAL WRITINGS

TRANSLATED, AND PRECEDED BV

A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

WILLIAM F. APTHORP

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1879

^-I^O^

TRANSLATORS PREFACE,

TN making the following selections from the prose
-■■ writings of Hector Berlioz, my main object has been
to give to the English-reading public such passages as
are most strikingly characteristic of the man.

In the three volumes, entitled respectively '' Lcs
Soirees d' Orchestre!' '' Les Grotesques cie la Miisiqne,''
and ''A Travers Chants^' there might have been found
several chapters of more serious value to the art of
Music than many that I have selected ; but they only
cover ground that has been gone over often before, and
do not throw so much light upon Berlioz's own intrinsic
nature as do some of the apparently more trivial selec-
tions I have preferred to make.

The *' Lamentations of Jeremiah," for instance, may
be called the most futile imaginable bit of rambling
penny-a-lining, but it admirably reflects the state of

iii

iv TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

mind of a man of Berlioz's sensitive temperament, who
is forced to get bread and butter by irksome critical
hack-work.

The ten letters from Germany form part of Berlioz's
Autobiography, although they were published in France
long before that work appeared in print. It seems to
me that they give a more vivid picture of certain
phases of a composer's professional life than any letters
of the sort that have ever been published. They are
open letters, written for publication, and although ex-
tremely familiar in their form, it is only in the one to
Franz Liszt that we find the writer using the brotherly
''tur

The chapter on the production of Dcr Frcischiltz in
Paris is also taken from the Autobiography, but I have
thought best to put it under the head ''A Travers
CJiants^' as it is too short to form a separate division of
this volume. My especial reason for putting it in at all
was that it forms a very good companion piece to the
chapter on the same subject in my friend Mr. Edward
L. Burlingame's Art Life and Theories of Richard
Wagner, and gives the reader an authentic view, from
within, of a much discussed transaction.

A few words about the spirit in which I have made
these translations may not be out of place here. Ber-
lioz's style is peculiarly colloquial, often slangy, for a

TRA NSLA TOR' S PRE FA CE. v

Frenchman. His writing seems singularly careless, no-
tably in the matter of a proper connection of tenses ;
he flies from present to aorist with the most sublime
nonchalance. In this I have followed him closely. I
have also been more anxious to preserve what I could
of the characteristic cut of French phraseology, than to
make a translation which could lay claim to distinct
literary merit from a purely English point of view.

In writing the BiograpJiical Sketch I have, as before,
dwelt more especially upon incidents in Berlioz's life
which show his individual personality in the strongest
light, than upon those which are of merely historical
value. I have tried to show what the man was, rather
than what he did. The intrinsic value to the world of
his artistic doings is, as yet, problematical, although we
see to-day ever-increasing signs of his having won an
enduring place in the temple of Fame. But if all his
compositions were to sink into total oblivion, his per-
sonality, and the influence he exerted upon his sur-
roundings, and the art of Music in general, would still
be interesting and worthy of serious note.

Take him for all in all, he was a man ; one so
genuine, through and through, that it may be doubted
whether he could even form a conception of what a
sham really was. And surely History can show us few
figures in which utter veracity of character exhibits
itself in so explosive and drastic a shape.

vi TRJXSLA TOR'S PREFACE.

I have depended for facts almost exclusively upon
the AutobiogvapJiy ; but, as no man can be reasonably
expected to report authentically upon his own death, I
have taken some facts from a very excellent notice of
Berlioz, written after his death, by his intimate friend
Ernest Reyer,

The catalogue of Berlioz's published works, which
forms the second Appendix to this volume, is as com-
plete and exact as I could make it by correcting the
composer's own catalogue by Hofmeister's more recent
one of music published in Europe. The various num-
bers of the latter work were put at my disposal through
the courtesy of Mr. Arthur P. Schmidt, and Mr. Carl
Priifer, of Boston, whom I herewith thank.

W. F. A.

Boston, June 19, 1S79.

TABLE OF CONTENTS,

PAGE.

Translator's Preface - - - - - iii

Biographical Sketch ----- 3

First Journey to Germany :

First Letter, to Monsieur A. Morel,

{Brussels, Mayence, Frankforf) - - - 81

Second Letter, to Monsieur Girard,

{Stuttgard, Hcchi7igeji) - - - "95

Third Letter, to Franz Liszt,

{Alanheim, Weimar) - - - - no

Fourth Letter, to Stephen Heller,

{Leipzig) - - - - - 123

Fifth Letter, to Ernst,

{Dresden) - - - - - - 138

Sixth Letter, to Henri Heine,

{Brunswick, Hamburg) - - - - 150

Seventh Letter, to Mademoiselle Louise Berlin,

{Berlin) - - - - - - 164

Eighth Letter, to Monsieur Habeneck,

{Berlin) - - - - - - 176

Ninth Letter, to Monsieur Desmarest,

{Berlin) - - - - - -191

Tenth Letter, to Monsieur G. Osborne,

{Hanover, Darmstadt) - - - _ 207

vii

viii cox TEXTS.

Selections from "Evenings in the Orchestra":

Prologue _-__-- 225

Seventh Evening. An Historical and Philosophical
Study De viris illustribus urbis Romae. — A Roman
Woman. — Vocabulary of the Language of the Ro-
mans __-_-- 228
Eighth Evening. Romans of the New World. — Mr.

Barnum. — Jenny Lind's Trip to America - - 255

Ninth Evening. The Opera in Paris. — The Lyric

Theatres in London. — A Study of Morals - 262

Selections from "Musical Grotesques":

Prologue. Letter to the Author from the Chorus of

the Opera _-__-- 279

The Author's Reply to the Chorus of the Opera 282

Introduction ------ 289

The Right of Playing in 7^ in a Symphony in D 291
A Crowned Virtuoso ----- 292

A New Musical Instrument - - - 292

The Regiment of Colonels - - - - 293

A Cantata ------ 294

The Evangelist of the Drum _ - _ 295

The Apostle of the Flageolet - - - 297

The Prophet of the Trombone _ _ - 298

Orchestra Conductors - - - - 298

Appreciators of Beethoven - - - - 300

Sontag's Version ----- 300

Not to be danced in £" - - - - 301

A Kiss from Rossini - - - - 301

A Clarinet Concerto - . - _ 302

Musical Instruments at the Universal Exposi-
tion - _____ 304

A Rival OF Erard - - - - -314

Prudence and Sagacity of a Provincial. — Alex-
andre's Melodium-Organ - - - 315
Prudent Matches - - - - - 318

Great News - - - - - - 318

Barley-Candy.— Severe Music - - - 319

CONTENTS. ix

The Dilettanti in Blouses and Serious Music 322
Lamentations of Jeremiah - - - - 326

Success of a Miserere _ _ . _ 340

Little Miseries of Big Concerts - - - 340

Death to Flats _ _ _ - _ 344

The Flight into Egypt _ _ _ _ 345

A First Appearance. — Despotism of the Director
OF THE Opera ----- 349

A Saying of M. Auber's _ _ _ - 354

Sensibility and Laconicism. — A Funeral Ora-
tion in three Syllables . _ - 354
Selections from " A Travers Chants " :

T. Music ------ 357

IL Beethoven in Saturn's Ring. — The Mediums 371
IIL The Present Condition of the Art of Sing-
ing IN the Lyric Theatres of France and
Italy, and the Causes that have brought
it about. — Large Halls.— Claqueurs, In-
struments OF Percussion _ - - 376
IV. The Bad Singers. — The Good Singers. — The

Public. — The Claqueurs - - - 392

V. The Freischutz at the Opera - - 395

VI. To BE, OR NOT TO BE. — PARAPHRASE - - 400

Appendix A. Funeral Discourse over the body of Hector
Berlioz, delivered by M. Guillaume, President of the
Academic des Beaux-Arts _ _ - - 405

Appendix B. Catalogue of Berlioz's published works - 409

Index ------- 423

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH,

THE remarkable man whose name stands at the
head of these pages, and whose ''grand profile of a
wounded eagle" figured for half a century or more in
French and European musical life, was born on the
iith of December, 1803, in the little town of La Cote-
Saint-Andre in the Department of the Isere in France,
a small county-town lying between Vienne, Grenoble,
and Lyons.

"During the months preceding my birth," he writes,
"my mother did not dream, like Virgil's, that she
would bring forth a laurel -bough. However painful
this avowal may be to my self-love, I must add that she
did not even believe, like Olympias, the mother of Al-
exander, that she bore a flaming brand in her breast.
Passing strange, I admit, but nevertheless true. I sim-
ply saw the light without any of the precursory signs,
usual in poetic ages, announcing the advent of those
predestined to glory. Is it because our times are want-
ing in poetry ?" Born, then, after the simple fashion of
common mortals, and, we will suppose, ushered into the
world with the usual amount of midwifery, parental
admiration, and wailing; destined in after life to reap

4 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

what he sowea and no more, In quite the common way.
But he was not in the least a common mortal ; in fact,
one of the strangest shapes this earth has yet witnessed,
sowing in the most remarkable manner, and reaping no
i:ss remarkable crops, very often to his own astonish-
ment and confusion ; whizzing and whirring through
existence by such fitful, eccentric, ignis-fatiiits paths that
men were often, and to some extent still are, at a loss
to discover what meaning and virtue lay in him. The
virtue that we discern in him is Faith ; an unshaken be-
lief that Truth is the proper life-element of men of all
degrees ; that from Truth all good must come, and that
Untruth either in thought or deed can breed nothing
but evil. It is this faith alone, which was a very living
faith with him, and did not exist on paper merely, to be
worn round the neck as a label or price-ticket for the
inspection of mankind, but was of a much deeper and
more efficient nature, that makes his life a lovely spec-
tacle to us. It is the one pure, sterling element in a
character in which all else was more or less distorted.
A character in which much was awTy and which an ex-
ceptionally hard experience of life did not tend to
straighten ; but which has come to the not too discern-
ing vision of men in such a topsy-turvied shape, re-
fracted through the distorting media of the man's own
personal vanity, and the utter, at times wanton, misap-
prehension of his contemporaries, that it seems at first
sight very chaotic indeed.

In his relation to art we must as yet be content to
take Berlioz to a great extent at his own valuation.
All that he did was so original, both in essence and out-
ward form, that the world has not yet had time to
thoroughly digest it — has indeed found it indigestible
to quite an unprecedented degree. Here is his own ac-
count (much abridged) of his musical doings and suf-
ferings :

BIO GRA PHICA L SKE TCIL

"The principal cause of the long war that has been
waged against me lies in the antagonism that exists be-
tween my musical sense and that of the great (gros)
Paris public. A host of people must have looked upon
me as a madman, since I looked upon them as children
and simpletons. All music that steps out of the narrow
path in which the makers of comic operas amble along
was necessarily mad music for these people for a quartei
of a century. Beethoven's masterpiece (the Ninth Sym-
phony) and his colossal piano-forte sonatas are still mad
music in their eyes.

"Then I had the professors of the Conservatoire
against me, stirred up by Cherubini and Fetis, whose
self-love had been severely ruffled and whose faith had
been revolted by my heterodoxy in matters of theory
in harmony and rhythm. I am a skeptic in music, or
rather I am of the religion of Beethoven, Weber, Gluck,
and Spontini, who believe, profess, and prove by their
works that everything is good or that everything is bad;
the effect alone that certain combinations produce being
able to condemn or absolve them.

**Now even those professors who are the most obsti-
nate in upholding the old rules, overstep them more or
less in their works.

*' Among my adversaries must also be counted the
partisans of the sensualistic Italian school, whose doc-
trines I have often attacked and whose gods I have
blasphemed.

"I am more prudent to-day. I still abhor, as I used
to abhor, those operas which the crowd proclaims to be
masterpieces of dramatic music, but which are in my
eyes infamous caricatures of sentiment and passion ;
only I have the strength not to speak of them any more.

** Nevertheless, my position as critic still makes me
many enemies. And the most ardent in their hatred
are not so much those whose works I have blamed, as

5 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

those whom I have either never mentioned, or else
praised ill.

'*I have, since a few years, some new enemies from
the superiority people have seen fit to allow me in the
art of conducting orchestras. The musicians have made
almost all the conductors of orchestras in Germany hos-
tile to me, by the exceptional talent they exhibit under
my direction, by their warm demonstrations and the
hints they occasionally let drop. The same thing has
been true for a long time in Paris. You will see in my
Mcmoircs the strange effects of the displeasure of Ha-
beneck and M. Girard. The same is true in London,
where M. Costa attacks me covertly wherever he has a
footing.

*' You will admit that I hav^e had a fine phalanx to
combat. Let us not forget the singers and players,
whom I call to order quite roughly enough whenever
they allow themselves to take irreverent liberties in in-
terpreting masterpieces ; nor envious persons, who are
always prompt to anger whenever anything presents it-
self with a certain degree of brilliancy.

"But this life of fighting has a certain charm when
the opposing party has been reduced to moderate pro-
portions, as it has to-day. I like to make a fence crack
now and then, breaking through instead of clearing it.
It is the natural effect of my passion for music, a passion
which is ever incandescent and is never satisfied but for
a moment. The love of money has never allied itself
in a single instance with this love of art ; I have always,
on the contrary, been ready to make all sorts of sacri-
fices to go in search of the beautiful, and insure myself
against contact with those paltry platitudes which are
crowned by popularity. You might offer me a hundred
thousand francs to indorse certain works which have
had an immense success, and I v/ould refuse them with
wrath. I am so constituted. You can easily imagine

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. y

the consequences of such an organization bcnig [)]acetl
in the midst of the musical world of Paris, such as it
was twenty years ago.

'*If I were now to draw the opposite side of the pict-
ure, I might once for all be wanting in modesty. The
sympathy I have met with in France, Germany, and
Russia has consoled me for many troubles. I could
even cite some very singular manifestations of enthusi-
asm. Need I call attention to Paganini's royal present
and the so cordially artist-like letter that accompanied
it? . . .

'*! will only mention a pretty speech of Lipinski, the
Coiizcrtincistcr at the theatre in Dresden. I was in that
capital of Saxony three years ago. After a splendid
concert, at which my legend of La Damnation de Faust
had been given, Lipinski introduced to me a musician
who, he said, wished to compliment me, but who did
not speak a word of P'rench. So, as I do not speak
German, Lipinski offered to act as interpreter, when the
artist steps forward, takes me by the hand, stammers
out a few words and bursts into sobs that he could no
longer restrain. Then Lipinski, turning to me and
pointing to his friend's tears, says: 'You understand ! '

"Still another, an antique speech. Several move-
ments of my choral symphony of Romeo et Juliette
were to be given lately in Brunswick. On the morn-
ing before the concert a stranger to me who sat next me
at the table d'Jwte told me that he had made a long
journey to hear this score in Brunswick.

*"You ought to write an opera on that theme,' said
he ; * by the way you have treated it as a symphony,
and the way you understand Shakspere, you would
do something unheard of — something marvelous.'

"*Alas, sir,' I answered, 'where are the artists to sing
and act the two leading parts ? They do not exist ; and
even if they did, thanks to the musical manners and

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

morals and the customs of our lyric theatres, if I were
to put such an opera in rehearsal, I should be sure to
die before the first performance.'

" In the evening my amateur goes to the concert, and,
talking between the parts with one of his neighbors,
repeats to him the answer I gave him in the morning
about an opera of Romeo et Juliette. His neighbor
says nothing for a moment, then strikes a great blow
upon the railing of his box, and cries out: 'Well, let
him die ! but let him do it !'

''I see that I have said nothing technical about my
manner of writing. •

"My style is in general very daring, but it has not the
slightest tendency to destroy any of the constructive
elements of art. On the contrary, I seek to increase
the number of those elements. I have never dreamed,
as has been foolishly imagined in PVance, of writing
music without melody. That school exists to-day in
Germany, and I have a horror of it. It is easy for any
one to convince himself that, without confining myself
to taking a very short melody for a theme, as the great-
est masters have often done, I have always taken care
to invest my compositions with a real wealth of melody.
The value of these melodies, their distinction, their nov-
elty and charm can be very well contested ; it is not for
me to appraise them ; but to deny their existence is either
bad faith or stupidity. Only as these melodies are often
of very large dimensions, infantile and short-sighted
minds do not clearly distinguish their form ; or else they
are wedded to other secondary melodies which veil their
outlines from those same infantile minds ; or, upon the
whole, these melodies are so dissimilar to the little wag-
geries that the musical plebs call melodies, that they
cannot make up their minds to give the sarne name to
both.

''The dominant qualities of my music are passionate

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. g

expression, internal fire, rhythmic animation and unex-
pected changes. When I say passionate expression, I
mean an expression that eagerly strives to reproduce
the most inward meaning of the subject, even when the
subject itself is foreign to passion, and sweet and tender
sentiments, or the most profound calm are to be ex-
pressed. It is the sort of expression that people have
thought to find in the Enfance du Christ, and especially
hi the scene in Heaven of the Damnation de Faust, and
in the Sanctus of the Requiem.

*' The mention of this last work suggests to me that
it would be well to notice a class of ideas which I am
almost the only modern composer to have entertained,
and the extent of which the ancients did not even sus-
pect. I am speaking of those enormous compositions
to which certain critics have given the name of archi-
tectural, or monumental, music, and which have led the
German poet Henri Heine to call me a colossal night-
ingale, a lark of eagle' s size, such as they tell ns existed
in the primeval world. ' Yes,' the poet goes on to say,
^Berlioz's music in general has in it something primeval,
if not antediliLvian, to my mind ; it makes me think of
gigantic species of extinct animals, of fabulous empires
full of fabulous sins, of heaped-up impossibilities ; his
magical accents call up to our minds Babylon, the hang-
ing gardens, the wonders of Nineveh, the daring edifices
of Mizraim, as we see them in the pictures of the En-
glisJiman, Martiii.'

"In the same paragraph of his book (Lutece), H.
Heine, still comparing me to the eccentric Englishman,
affirms that I have little melody, and that I have no
naivete at all. The first performance of the Enfance
du Christ took place three weeks after the publication
Q>i Lutece ; the next day I received a letter from Heine
in which he broke out into overwhelming expressions
of regret at having thus misjudged me. ^ I hear on all
I*

BIO GRA PHICA L SKE TCIT.

sides,' he wrote from his bed of suffering, ^ that yoti have
just plucked a nosegay of the sweetest melodious Jlozuers,
and that your oratorio is throughout a masterpiece of
naivete. I shall never forgive myself for having been so
iinjust to a friend' I went to see him, and he broke
out afresh into self- recriminations. 'But,' said I to him,
'why did you let yourself go, like a vulgar critic, and
express a dogmatic opinion of an artist whose whole
work you are far from being acquainted with ? You
keep thinking of the IVitches' Sabbath, the March to the
Scaffold, the Dies irce and LacJirymosa of my Requiem.
Yet I think that I have done, and can do things of a
wholly different character.' . . .

"Those musical problems which I have tried to solve,
and which gave rise to Heine's mistake, are exceptional
from the employment of extraordinary means. In my
Requiem, for instance, there are four orchestras of brass
instruments separated from, and answering one another
from a distance, grouped around the grand orchestra
and mass of voices. In the Te Deum it is the organ
that converses from one end of the church with the
orchestra and two choirs placed at the other end, and
with a very large chorus of voices in unison, rep-
resenting the assemblage of the people which takes
part from time to time in this vast religious concert.
But it is above all the breadth of style and the for-
midable prolongation of certain progressions of which
the final goal is not divined, that give these works
their strangely gigantic physiognomy and colossal as-
pect. It is also this immensity of form that cither
makes you comprehend nothing, or else crushes you
with a terrible emotion. How often at the perform-
ances of my Requiem has there not stood by the side
of a trembling listener, convulsed to the very depths
of his soul, another who opened his ears wide without
hearing anything. That man was in the position of the

BIO GRA Fine A L SKE TCH.

inquisitive people who go up into the statue of St.
Charles Borromeo at Como, and who are greatly sur-
prised on being told that the room in which they have
. just sat down is inside the head of the saint.

"Those of my works which critics have called archi-
tectural music are : my SyinpJwiiie funebre et triomphale
for two orchestras and chorus ; the Te Deinn, of which
the finale (Judex crederis) is beyond all doubt the
grandest thing I have produced ; my cantata for two
choruses, L Iinpcriale, performed at the concerts in the
palais de I'lndustrie in 1855, ^^d above all my Requiem.
As for those of my compositions which are conceived
within ordinary proportions, and in which I have had
recourse to no exceptional means, it is precisely their
internal fire, their expression and rhythmical originality
that have most injured them in the eyes of the world,
on account of the qualities of execution they demand.
To render them well the performers, and especially the
conductor, must/tr/ as I do. I must have extreme pre-
cision wedded to irresistible verve, a well-tempered en-
thusiasm, a dreamy sensibility, an almost morbid mel-
ancholy, without which the prime outlines of my figures
are changed, or completely wiped out. It is conse-
quently excessively painful for me to hear the greater
part of my compositions played under any direction
other than my own. I almost had a fit while listening
to my overture to King Lear in Prag, conducted by a
Kapellmeistcf whose talent is yet undoubted. It is con-
ceivable what I suffered from even the involuntary blun-
ders of Habeneck during the long assassination of my
opera Benvcuuto Cellini at rehearsals.

**If you ask me now which one of my compositions I
prefer, I will answer, I am of the same opinion as most
artists. I prefer the adagio (love scene) in Romeo ct
Juliette. One day in Hanover, at the close of this
movement, I felt myself pulled backwards, without know-

J 2 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

ing by whom; on turning round I saw that it was the
musicians near me kissing the skirts of my coat. But I
should take good care not to have i}i{\'^ adagio played in
certain halls and before certain audiences.

*'I could also quote, illustrating some French preju-
dices against me, the story of the chorus of shepherds
in the Enfaiice du Christ, which was performed at two
concerts under the name Pierre Ducre, an imaginary
chapel- master of the eighteenth century.^ What praises
Avere heaped upon that simple melody I How many
said: 'Berlioz is not the man to do a thing like that!'

''One ev^ening in a drawing-room a song was sung,
on the title-page of which was written the name of
Schubert. An amateur who was penetrated with a holy
horror of my music cried out: 'There! there is melody,
there is sentiment, clearness and good sense! No Berlioz
would have hit upon that!' It was Cellini's song in the
second act of the opera of that name.

"A dilettante complained at a party of having been
most improperly mystified, as follows:

"'One morning,' said he, 'I dropped in to hear one
of the rehearsals for the concert of the Sainte-Cecilc,
conducted by M. Seghers. I heard a brilliant move-
ment for orchestra, extremely spirited, but essentially
different in st}le and instrumentation from any sym-
phony I knew of I stepped up to M. Segherg and
asked :

"'What is that overture you have just been playing?
It quite carried me away.'

"'It is the overture to the Carnaval roniain by Ber-
lioz.'

"'You will agree . . .'

"'Oh yes!' said one of my friends, Interrupting him,
'we must agree that it is indecent to surprise the religion
of respectable people in such a way.*

1F/J6' page 345.

BIO GRA PIIICA L SKE TCH.

*'I am allowed, both in France and elsewhere, the
inacstria In the art of instrumentation, especially since
I have published a text-book on the subject. But I am
reproached with an excessive use of the Sax instru-
viciits (no doubt because I have often praised the talent
of that skillful maker). Now, up to the present time, I
have only used them in one scene of the Prise de Troie^
an opera of which no living soul as yet knows a single
page. I am reproached with an excess of noise, a pre-
dilection for the big-drum, which I have used only in a
small number of my compositions, where its use is per-
fectly natural, and I alone among all critics have for
twenty years obstinately protested against the revolting
abuse of noise, against the insensate use of the big-
drum, trombones, etc., in small theatres, in small orches-
tras, in small operas, in little songs, where they now
even use the snare-drum.

"Rossini was the real introducer of banging instru-
mentation into France, in the Siege de CorintJie, and
not a French critic has spoken of him in this matter, or
reproached Auber, Halevy, Adam and twenty others
with their odious exaggeration of his system, but they
reproach me, nay, much more, they reproach Weber
with it ! (see the Life of Weber in Michaut's Biog-
raphie tmiverselle) Weber, who only 7ised the big-
drum once in his orchestra, and who used all instru-
ments with incomparable reserve and talent !

"As far as it concerns myself, I fancy that this comical
mistake has arisen from the festivals at which I have
been seen conducting immense orchestras. Indeed,
Prince Metternich said to me one day in Vienna :

"'Are not you' the man, monsieur, who composes
music for five hundred performers?'

"To which I replied:

"'Not always, monseigneur; I sometimes write for
four hundred and fifty.'

14 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

"But what matters it ? . . . my scores are published
now ; the exactness of my assertions can be easily veri-
fied. And even if they are never verified, what matters
it still ! " . . .

Berlioz's passion for music began to develop at a very
early age. When quite a little boy he found an old
flageolet one day while rummaging among some chests
of drawers, and began to try to play Malbrook upon it,
much to the discomfort of his father's nerves. His
father at last taught him the mechanism of the instru-
ment in self-defense, and he was soon able to regale the
whole family with that "heroic" air. He afterwards
acquired quite a respectable proficiency on the flute and
guitar, and wrote two or three pieces of concerted music,
which he used to play together with some musical
friends. "You see," says he, "that I was a master of
these majestic and incomparable instruments, the flageo-
let, the flute and the guitar ! Who would dare not to
recognize in this judicious choice my natural impulse
toward the most immense orchestral effects and music
in the Michclagiwlo vein ! ! . . . The flute, the guitar,
and the flageolet !!!... I never had any other ex-
ecutive talent ; but these strike me as quite respectable
enough. No, I wrong myself, I also played the drnin''

He also evinced a taste for voyages and adventures,
and passed much of his time reading books of travel
and looking over maps. "He knows the names of all
the Sandwich Islands," his father used to say, "of the
Moluccas and Philippines; he knows the Straits of
Torres, Timor, Java, and Borneo, and could not tell you
the number of departments in France if you asked
him." He was brought up at home under his father's
tutorship. His favorite poets were La Fontaine and
Virgil, though his taste for the classic authors did not
show itself at first. He was also much impressed by
Florian's pastoral of Estclle ct Neviorin, which he used

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. j c

to read and reread in secret, having abstracted the book
from his father's hbrary.

At the age of twelve he fell violently in love with a
young lady of eighteen, niece of a Madame Gautier,
who had a villa in Meylan, near Grenoble and the Sa-
voy frontier. Her name was Estelle. "She who bore
it," he writes, "was eighteen years old; she was tall
and graceful of figure, had great, piercing eyes, though
gay and laughing withal, a head of hair worthy to
adorn the helmet of Achilles, and . . . pink boots ! . . .
I had never seen any before. . . . You laugh ! ! . . .
Well, I have forgotten the color of her hair (which,
however, I think was black), but I never can think of
her without seeing her great eyes and little pink boots
sparkling together."

Of this Estelle we shall hear more by and by. Suf-
fice it to say that his passion took entire possession of
him, as is not unusual with calf-love of that sort, and he
set many of the songs of his favorite pastoral to music
in his beloved's honor. The theme of one of these ap-
peared afterwards in the opening largo of his Fantastic
Symphony :

Vni. con sordini.

He was brought up, as he says, "in the Catholic,
Apostolic and Roman faith. This charming religion
(since it has left off burning people) made my happiness
for seven whole years ; and although we have long since
quarreled, I have always kept a very tender remem-
brance of it."

His father, who was a physician, wished him to fol-
low the same profession, but he had no inclination that
way. He was, however, persuaded to enter upon a

J 5 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

course of studies in osteology, by the bribe of a new
flute furnished with all the new keys; which his father
sent for to Lyons.

At the age of nineteen (1822) he w^as sent to Paris to
study medicine under Amussat. His disgust for the
science grew stronger day by day, in spite of his con-
scientious studies. The dissecting-room w^as his special
horror. He seems to have felt more interest in some
lectures on chemistry by Thenard and Gay-Lussac, and
especially in a course on literature by Andrieux. But
every moment he could snatch from his studies he spent
in the library of the Conservatoire, reading the scores
of Gluck's operas, music being irrepressibly his ruling
passion. At last he hears Madame Branchu and Deri-
vis at the Opera in Salieri's Daiia'idcs, to which Spontini
had added considerable ballet-music, also Mehul's Strat-
onice and a ballet called Nina, the music arranged by
Persuis, in which Mademoiselle Bigottini's dancing and
pantomime strike him as much to be admired. But in
spite of these distractions he keeps his promise to his
father, and w^orks away manfully at medicine. Yet
Gluck's scores gain more and more influence over him,
and one night, coming out from the Opera and his first
hearing of IpJiigcnic en Tauridc, he takes a vow that he
must and will be a musician in spite of father, mother,
uncles, aunts, grand-parents, and friends. The dissect-
ing-room never saw him more. He WTltes this, his in-
flexible determination, home to his father, conjuring him
to no longer thwart him in following his evident voca-
tion. His father answers affectionately but firmly, be-
ing indeed a man of much heart and high integrity of
character. *'Be either great and highest in the arts, or
leave them alone." That is the paternal dictum. "Noth-
ing is so loathsome as a bad artist !" And a bad phy-
sician ? thinks Hector ; but keeps this repartee to him-
self. Yet he will not take No for an answer, and writes

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Ij

back more and more urgently, at last even explosively,
but to no purpose. So he takes the bit in his teeth, and
applies to Lesueur for a place among his pupils. He
had met at the Conservatoire library a young man, Ge-
rono by name, who was then studying under Lesueur,
and who introduced him to his master. Berlioz had
found time during his flaming correspondence with his
father to write some music, and he presented himself
before Lesueur armed with a cantata for voices and or-
chestra on Millevoye's poem, Le CJicval arabe, and a
three-part canon. Lesueur examined the cantata and
said: ''There is much fire and dramatic movement in
the thing, but you do not yet know how to write, and
your harmony is so full of mistakes that it would be
useless to point them out. Gerono will have the kind-
ness to teach you our principles of harmony, and as
soon as you know them well enough to be able to un-
derstand me, I shall be happy to receive you among my
pupils." So Berlioz sets to work under Gerono's super-
vison, and is soon admitted as private pupil of Le-
sueur. He takes it into his head after a while to write
an opera, so, remembering the delight Andrieux's lect-
ures on literature had given him, he applies to him for
a libretto. By no means wanting in audacity is our
young man ! This is the answer he receives :

''Sir:

"Your letter has interested me deeply; the enthusi-
asm you show for the beautiful art you are cultivating
is a guaranty of your^ success; I wish you may win it
with all my heart, and that I could contribute my share
towards it. But the task you propose to me is one no
longer fitted to my age; my thoughts and studies are
turned in other directions; you would think me a barba-
rian were I to tell you how many years have passed by
since I have set foot inside the Opera or the Feydeau.

J 3 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

I am sixty-four, and It would 11
love verses; and as for music, I must hardly think of any,
save the Requiem-mdiSs. I regret that you did not come
thirty or forty years sooner, or I later.' We might have
worked together. Accept my excuses, which are only
too good, and my sincere and affectionate greeting.
'' Jicne ij, 182J. Andrieux."

Disappointed In this quarter, Berlioz turns to Gerono,
who seems to have had some supposed aptitude for
verse-making, and asks him to dramatize Florian's Es-
tclle for him. The two concoct a sort of musical drama
between them; most futile, rose-tinted bit of musical
gossamer that perhaps ever spotted music paper. Too
evidently worthless to be done anything with. He next
writes a scene for bass voice and orchestra, the text bor-
rowed from Saurin's Beverley oic le Joiieiir, a very
gloomy, blood-thirsty composition, which he had some
thoughts of offering to Derivis, but did not.

M. Masson, chapel-master at the church of Salnt-
Roch, proposed to him to write a mass, to be performed
in that church on Childermas Day. When the work was
completed it was put into the hands of the choir-boys
to copy the parts. Valentino, who was then conductor
of the Opera orchestra and had his eye upon the lead-
ership of that of the Royal Chapel, agreed to conduct
the performance, but when the day for rehearsal came
the promised "grand vocal and Instrumental masses"
were found to consist of only thirty-two singers, nine
violins, one viola, an oboe, a horn and a bassoon. The
parts were moreover so full of clerical errors that all
idea of performance had to be given up, Berlioz retiring
from the scene In an exceedingly volcanic condition.
Valentino comforted him to the best of his ability, prom-
ising to stand by him whenever the work should really
come to a performance. So he set to work to entirely

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. jg

rewrite the mass, having recognized many blemishes in
it, and spent three months in copying the parts himself,
being unable to pay professional copyists. But as he
had no money to organize a performance himself, he
applied to M. de Chateaubriand, by the advice of his
friend Humbert Ferrand, for a loan of twelve hundred
francs. This is the reply he received:

''Paris, December jt, 1824..

"You ask me, sir, for twelve hundred francs; I have
not got them; I would send them to you if I had. I
have no means of serving you with the ministers. I
take, sir, a deep interest in your troubles, I love the
arts and honor artists; but the trials to which talent is
subjected sometimes make it triumph at last, and the
hour of success amply repays for all sufferings.

"Accept, sir, all my regrets; they are very sincere.

"Chateaubriand."

So that bid did not come to much. At last a young
enthusiastic friend of his, A. de Pons by name, lends
him the twelve hundred francs, and the mass comes to
a performance at Saint-Roch, Valentino conducting.
This was the first public performance of a work by Ber-
lioz, date not given, but supposably in the early part of
1825. The work was repeated in the church of Saint-
Eustache in 1827 on the day of the great riot in the rue
Saint-Denis. Berlioz conducted in person for the first
time. After the performance, becoming convinced of
the worthlessness of the work, he burned it, together
with the scene from Beverley, the opera of Estelle and a
Latin oratorio, llie Passage through the Red Sea, which
he had just finished.

What success the mass had (at Saint-Roch in 1825)
brought about a temporary cessation of hostilities be-
tween Berlioz and his family, the stern father being

20 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

sensibly pleased In spite of himself; but the truce was
of short duration, and wholly ended on Berlioz's failing
to gain a prize, or even to be admitted, as a competitor,
at the Conservatoire. As matters seemed well-nigh
desperate, he bethought himself of returning to the
Cote-Saint- Andre, and trying to alter his father's deter-
mination. This succeeded to a certain extent, the father
allowing him to return to Paris and continue his musical
studies on condition that if he found out after a certain
time that he was not likely to succeed as a musician, he
should be content to resume his studies in medicine.
But his mother viewed the project in a different light.
She, good woman, being much inclined to look upon all
artists and poets as born children of the Evil One, and
thus predestined to eternal damnation, could not be
brought to consent to her son's enlisting, even for a
time, in the army of Satan, and finding the young man
impervious either to argument or entreaty, especially
after his father's consent, could find nothing better to
do than to give him her formal curse and throw him
off forever. With which he very sorrowfully, for he
loved his parents much, returned to Paris. His first
care was to pay off his debt to de Pons. He hired a
little room up five flights at the corner of the rue dc
Harley and the quai des Orfevres in the Cite. His
meals cost him from seven to eight sous per diem, and
consisted mostly of bread, raisins, prunes and dates.
These he ate usually while sitting at the foot of the great
bronze Henri IV on the pont Neuf He managed to
get some pupils on the guitar, the flute, and in solfeggio.
At this time he wrote an opera, Les Francs- Jitges, to a
libretto by Humbert Ferrand. But it was refused by
the committee of the Academie Royale de Musique,
and only the overture ever saw the light. This overture
was the first of his works that gained any lasting repu-
tation. By the severest thrift he had managed to pay

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 21

back six hundred francs to de Pons ; but he, being
much pressed for money and of a rather dissohite
turn, wrote secretly to BerUoz's father, telUng him
of the debt. The father immediately paid off the debt
and wrote to Hector definitely that if he did not
drop all connection with music at once his allowance
would be stopped, and that he would henceforth have
only himself to look to for support. Berlioz, having
just entered Reicha's class in counterpoint at the Con-
servatoire, could not make up his mind to give up his
chosen career, and his intercourse with his family was
entirely suspended for some time. His funds were at
a very low ebb, and he tried to get a position as first or
second flute in several orchestras, but in vain. At last
he appHed for the position of chorus-singer at the Thea-
tre des Nouveautes. Here is his account of his luck
with the examiners :

"The examination of candidates was to take place in
the Free Mason's Hall in the rue de Grenelle-Sainte-
Honore. I went there. Five or six poor devils like
myself were already awaiting their judges in anxious
silence. I found among them a weaver, a blacksmith,
an actor who had been turned away from a small thea-
tre on the boulevard, and a singer from the church of
Saint-Eustache. The examination was to be for basses;
my voice could only pass for a fair baritone ; but I
thought that our examiner might perhaps not be too
particular.

"It was the stage-manager himself He appeared,
followed by a musician of the name of Michel, who now^
plays in the orchestra of the Vaudeville. They had
neither piano-forte nor pianist. Michel's violin was to
accompany us.

"The trial begins. My rivals sing in turn after their

^ 1850.

BIO GR A PIJJCA L SKE TCH.

own fashion several airs which they had carefully stud-
ied. When my turn comes, our enormous stage-mana-
ger, whose name was, oddly enough, Saint- Leger, asks
me what I have brought

*'*!? Nothing.'

'"How nothing ? What will you sing then ?'

*'' Faith, what you like. Isn't there some score here,
some solfeggi, or a book of vocalises?' . . .

***We haven't got anything of the sort. Besides,'
continues the manager in sufficiently contemptuous tone,
'you don't sing at sight I suppose ?' . . .

"*I beg your pardon, I will sing at sight anything
you show me.'

*"Ah! that alters the case. But as we haven't any
music, don't you know some familiar piece by heart ?'

'"Yes, I know by heart Lcs Dana'ides, Stratonice,
La Vesfale, Cortez, CEdipc, both the IpJiigcnics, OrpJu'e,
Annide . . . '

'"Stop! stop! The devil! what a memory! Let
us see, since you are so learned, sing us the air from
Sacchini's Qidipc : Elle vi a prodigiic.'

"'Certainly.'

"'Can you accompany it, Michel?'

"'Of course I can; only I have forgotten what key
it is in.'

'"In E-flat. Shall I sing the recitative?'

'"Yes, let's have the recitative.'

"The accompanyist gives me the chord of E-flat, and
I begin :

" 'Antigone me reste, Antigone est ma fiUe,' etc.

"The other candidates looked piteously at each other
as I sang the noble melody, and saw well that compared
with me, who am yet neither a Pischek nor a Lablache,
they had sung, not like shepherds but like sheep. And
in fact, I saw by a little look of the manager that they

BIO GRA Fine A L SKE TCH.

were, in stage language, knocked into the third row un-
derground. Next day I received my official nomina-
tion ; I had beaten the weaver, the blacksmith, the actor,
and even the singer from Saint-Eustache. My service
began immediately, and I had fifty francs a month.

"So here you see me, while waiting for the time when
I can become an accursed dramatic composer, a chorus-
singer in a second-rate theatre, outcast and excommu-
nicated to the very marrow of my bones. How I ad-
mire the success of my parents' efforts to snatch me
from the abyss !"

From this point his fortunes seem to mend a little.
He gets some fresh pupils, and, above all, meets an .old
friend from his native town, one Antoine Charbonnel,
who had come to Paris to study pharmacy. The pair
of friends hire two little rooms in the rue de la Harpe,
Avhere they live for some time in comparative comfort,
Berlioz going to the length of buying a piano-forte.
**It cost me a hundred and ten francs. I could not
play upon it ; yet I always like to have one to strike
chords upon now and then. Besides, I am fond of the
companionship of musical instruments, and if I were
rich enough I should always have around me, while I
work, a grand piano, two or three Erard harps, some
Sax trumpets, and a collection of Stradivarius violins
and basses."

In spite of their modest way of living, the friends
still had their little vanities. Charbonnel would always
walk on the other side of the street when Berlioz was
carrying home provisions from market, and Berlioz, for
his part, never confessed to his chum what his business
was every evening at the theatre. In fact, what he used
to call his "dramatic career" remained a dead secret for
years, until it by some chance got into the newspapers.

When the time came round again for a competition
for prizes in composition at the Conservatoire, he passed

24 BIOGRAnnCAL SKETCH.

the preliminary examination and set himself to work on
a lyric scene with grand orchestra. The subject given
out by the board of examiners was OrpJicus torn to
Pieces by Baccliants. The piece was not wholly devoid
of merit, but the very second-rate pianist whose busi-
ness it was to sketch out the orchestral part on the
piano-forte found the BaccJianale too much for his
clumsy fingers, and the board of examiners, composed
of Cherubini, Paer, Lesueur, Berton, BoTeldieu and
Catel condemned the work as impossible to be played.
There were many similar nonsensicalities in the then
regulations of the Conservatoire. Berlioz had obtained
a leave of absence from the Theatre des Nouveautes to
finish this work. After this, his second failure, he set to
work again with redoubled vigor, but -his health failed
him, and he was at last forced to give up almost all
work, being kept to his room by a severe attack of
quinsy, of which he all but died. He saved himself by
one night operating upon his own throat with a pen-
knife. His family only heard of his danger when it was
over; but his father, touched by his industry and per-
severance, made friendly overtures and again made him
an allowance of money, which rendered a return to the
stage unnecessary.

From this time Berlioz's musical work went on with-
out interruption up to the year 1 830, when he went to
Rome. He worked at everything that came to his hand
with the enthusiasm that was such a notable part of his
character. "This enthusiasm was gradually worked up
almost to the pitch of delirium by the works of Weber
and Beethoven, which were at that time getting their
first hearings in France. It has been a matter of much
doubt how much real appreciation there was in Berlioz's
frantic admiration for Gluck, Weber and Beethoven.
Berlioz had certainly one of the clearest heads going;
his power of insight was sharp, if not deep. It can be

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

well doubted whether his was upon the whole a very
profound nature. A wholly true and veracious nature it
surely was, but his capacity for diving below the surface
of things was small. His aptitude for the intense is
perhaps unparalleled in the history of art, and it often
seems as if his highest ideal in art were a sort of delir-
ium tremens set to music, an aesthetic typhomania and
chaos regained. He was totally devoid of reticence,
the most loud-shrieking mortal alive. But we should
think twice before calling him merely theatrical. His
slightest joys and sorrows had to be shrieked over until
the whole world rang with them, there was not an in-
nermost recess of his heart that he did not lay bare for
public sympathy to peer into, he made tl)e universe his
confidant ; but though his shriekings and bowlings often
failed to reach the hearts of his hearers or to lay bare the
heart of the subject that affected him, as such violent,
inarticulate methods usually do fail, they yet came from
the very bottom of his own heart ; they might seem
theatrical to the rest of the world, but they were very
real to him. A man most grimly in earnest in all he
did, not of deep insight, but of clear, and withal of such
a frank and open generosity, ever wishful to sympathize
and admire, as he himself yearned for sympathy ; so
tenacious of the good repute of all he did admire !
Hear this that he says of Castilblaze and Lachnith who
took such notorious liberties with Mozart's and Weber's
scores :

"These corrections, meseems, do not come from above
downward; but from below upward, and vertically at
that!

"Let no one tell me that these arrangers, in working
over the masters, have sometimes made happy hits; for
such exceptional consequences cannot justify introduc-
ing this monstrous immorality into art.

"No, no, no, ten million times no, musicians, poets,
3

25 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH,

prose-writers, actors, pianists, orchestra conductors of
the third and second rank, and even of the first, you
have no right to lay hands upon -the Beethovens and
Shaksperes, to throw your science and your taste as
alms to them.

"No, no, no, a thousand million times no, no man,
whoever he may be, has the right to force another man,
whatsoever he may be, to change his own physiognomy
for another's, to express himself in a fashion that is not
his own, to assume a form he has not himself chosen, to
become a manikin set agoing by another's will while
alive, or to be galvanized when dead. If the man is
mediocre, let him lie burled in mediocrity! If on the
other hand he is one of God's own elect, let his equals,
or even his superiors, respect him, and his inferiors hum-
bly bow down before him.

** After Kreutzer, in the late sacred concerts at the
Opera, had made divers cuts in one of Beethoven's sym-
phonies, have we not seen Habeneck leave out certain
instruments from another by the same master? Do we
not hear in London parts for the big-drum, trombones
and ophicleide added by M. Costa to the scores of Don
Giovanni, Figaro and the Barber? ... And if or-
chestra conductors dare, according to their whim, to
strike out or introduce certain parts in works of this
sort, who will prevent the violins or horns, or the last
and least of the players, from doing as much? . . .
And then will not translators, editors, and even copyists,
engravers and printers have a good pretext for follow-
ing in their wake? . . .

"Is not this the ruin, the entire destruction, the final
end of art ? . . . And ought not we, we who are all filled
with the glory, and jealous of the indefeasible rights of
the human mind, to denounce the culprit, whenever we
see them wronged, and pursue him and cry out with the
whole strength of our wrath: 'Your crime is ridiculous;

BIO GRA Fine A L SKE TCII.

Despair!! Your stupidity is criminal; Z^/V// Be baf-
fled, be spit upon, be accursed! Despair and die! !"'

It was at this period of his life that, goaded to mad-
ness by the attacks which the Rossinist papers were
continually making upon Gluck and Spontini, he wrote
a flaming reply to the "rambling discourses of one of
those idiots" and offered it to M. Michaud, the editor of
the Quotidienne. He admits that the article was "very
disordered and badly written, and overstepped all
bounds of polemic writing," Michaud, scared at its
audacity, would not print it, saying: "All that is true,
but you break windows."

He afterwards wrote several admiring articles on
Gluck, Spontini and Beethoven, W'hich appeared in the
Revue europeeujie, but he did not take up critical writ-
ing as a fixed calling for several years. He says of his
wTiting: "My laziness has always been great in writing
prose. I have spent many nights in composing my
scores; even the rather fatiguing work of instrumenta-
tion keeps me sometimes eight consecutive hours at my
desk without moving, and I do not even feel a desire to
change my posture; but it is not without effort that I
can make up my mind to begin a page of prose, and I
get up after writing ten lines (with very rare exceptions)
and walk about my room; I look out of the window; I
open the first book I happen to lay hands on ; in a word,
I try all means to combat the ennui and fatigue that I
so soon begin to feel. I have to make eight or ten
bites of it before I can finish an article for the Journal
des Debats. It usually takes me two days to write one,
even when the subject I am writing on pleases me,
amuses me, or even greatly excites me. And what
erasures! w^iat blots! you should just see my first copy."

It was about this time also that his Shaksperean en-
thusiasm began. He writes :

*'I come here to the greatest drama of my life. I

28 BIOGRAPinCAL SKETCH.

shall not give all the painful catastrophes of it. I will
only say this : An English company came to Paris to
give some plays of Shakspere, at that time wholly un-
known to the French public. I went to the first per-
formance of Hamlet at the Odeon. I saw in the part
of Ophelia Henriette Smithson, who became my wife
five years afterwards. The effect of her prodigious
talent, or rather her dramatic genius, upon my heart and
imagination is only comparable to the complete over-
turning the poet, whose worthy interpreter she was,
caused in me.

"Shakspere, coming upon me thus suddenly, struck
me as with a thunder-bolt. His lightning opened the
heaven of art to me with a sublime crash, and lighted
up its furthest depths. I recognized true dramatic
grandeur, beauty, and truth. I measured at the same
time the boundless inanity of the notions of Shaks-
pere that had been spread abroad in France by Vol-
taire, . . .

" ' Ce singe de genie,
Chez rhomnie, en mission, par le diable envoye,' '

"(That ape of genius, an emissary from the devil to man),
and the pitiful poverty of our old poetry of pedagogues
and ragged-school teachers. I saw ... I understood . . .
I felt . . . that I was alive and must arise and walk.

"The next day Romeo and Juliet was advertised. . . .
I had my passes to the orchestra of the Odeon ; well,
fearing that the door-keeper of the theatre might have
orders not to let me pass as usual, I ran to the booking-
office as soon as I saw the redoubtable drama advertised,
so as to make assurance doubly sure. It was more than
enough to finish me.

"Exposing myself to the burning sun and balmy
nights of Italy, seeing this love, quick and sudden as

' Victor Hugo in the C hauls du Crepusculc,

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

thought, burning like lava, imperious, irresistible, bound-
less, and pure and beautiful as the smile of angels, those
furious scenes of vengeance, those distracted embraces,
those struggles between Love and Death, was too much,
after the melancholy, the gnawing anguish, the tearful
love, the cruel irony, the sombre meditations, the heart-
rackings, the madness, tears, mourning, the calamities
and dark chances of Hamlet, after the gray clouds and
icy wind of Denmark. After the third act, hardly
breathing, in pain as if a hand of iron were squeezing
at my heart, I said to myself, with the fullest convic-
tion: 'Ah! I am lost.' I must add that I did not at
that time know a single word of English, that I only
caught glimpses of Shakspere through the fog of Le-
tourneur's translation, and that I consequently could not
perceive the poetic web that surrounds his marvelous
creations like a net of gold. I have the misfortune to
be very nearly in the same ill case to-day. It is much
harder for a Frenchman to sound the depths of Shaks-
pere's style, than for an Englishman to feel the delicacy
and originality of La Fontaine or Moliere. Our two
poets are rich continents ; Shakspere is a world. But
the .play of the actors, above all of the actress, the suc-
cession of 'the scenes, the pantomime and the accent of
the voices meant more to me, and filled me a thousand
times more with Shakspercan ideas and passions, than
the text of my colorless and unfaithful translation. An
English critic said last winter in the Illustrated Londoi
News that, after seeing Miss Smithson in Juliet, I had
cried out : ' I will marry that woman, and write my
grandest symphony on this play ! ' I did both things,
but I never said anything of the sort."

Soon after this Berlioz gave a concert at the Con-
servatoire, the program being composed entirely of his
own works. The preparations for the concert led to
the following characteristic dialogue with Cherubini :

20 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

" ' You want to give a concert ? ' said Cherubini with
his accustomed politeness of manner.

*''Yes, sir.'

'"You must have the permission of the Superintend-
ent of Fine Arts to do that.'

*"I have already got it.'

"'And M. de Larochefoucault consents?'

'*'Yes, sir.'

"'But . . . but / don't consent; and . . . and . . . and
I don't want them to lend you the hall.'

"'But you have no reason for refusing it, sir, as the
Conservatoire is not using it at present, and It will be
vacant for a fortnight'

"'But I tell you that I don't wish you to give this
concert. Everybody is out of town, and you will not
make a sou.'

'"I don't count on making anything by it. My only
object In giving the concert is to make myself known.'

"'There is no need of people's knowing you ! Be-
sides you must have money to meet the expenses;
have you got any ?' . . .

'"Yes, sir.'

" A . . , a . . . ah ! . . . And what are you going to
have played at this concert?'

"'Two overtures, some selections from an opera, my
cantata. La Mart d' OrpJice . . .'

" ' That cantata for the competition ! I don't wish it to
be given ! It's bad, it . . . it . . . it's impossible to play.*

"'So you judged It, sir, but I should like very much
to judge it myself. ... If a poor pianist could not ac-
company it, that does not prove that a good orchestra
can't do so.'

"'Then you mean to ... to ... to insult the Acad-
emic ?'

'"I only wish to make a simple experiment, sir. If,
as Is probable, the Academie was right in declaring my

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. ^.l

score to be impossible, it stands to reason that it will
not be performed. If, on the other hand, the Academic
was wrong, people will say that I have profited by its
advice, and corrected my cantata since the competition.'

**'You can only give your concert on a Sunday !'

*^'I will give it on a Sunday then.'

"'But the people employed in the hall, the box-office-
keepers, the box-openers, who are all in the employ of
the Conservatoire, only have that day to rest on ; so you
want to work all those poor people to death, to . . .
to . . . kill them?' . . .

*^* You are joking, sir ; those poor people, who inspire
vou with such pity, are only too glad, on the contrary,
of a chance to make some money, and you would hurt
tJiem by taking it away.'

'^'I don't want it, I don't want you to give the con-
cert. I will write to the Superintendent to take back
his authorization.'

"'You are very kind, sir, but M. de Larochefou-
cault will not break his word. Besides, I will write to
him, too, and send him an exact report of the conversa-
tion that I have just had the honor of having with you.
He will then be able to appreciate both your reasons
and my own.'"

The concert was given. The Bacchanale of the can-
tata, just the movement that the Academic had pro-
nounced impossible (incxccutablc), was superbly played
at the rehearsal ; but Dupont, who was to sing the solo
part, had a sudden attack of hoarseness before the con-
cert, and the cantata had to be taken off from the pro-
gram after all. Some of the newspapers praised the
concert in warm terms.

In June, 1828, Berlioz at last got the second prize in
composition at the Conservatoire. This distinction con-
sists in wreaths publicly given to the laureate, a gold
medal of not much value, and free admission to all the

32 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

lyric theatres in Paris. It also gives a good chance of
getting the first prize at the next competition.

The first prize entails much more important privileges.
The lucky competitor is assured an annuity of three
thousand francs for five years, on the condition that he
passes the first two years at the Academic de France in
Rome, and travels in Germany for the third year. The
rest of the pension is paid him in Paris, where he is at
liberty to do what he can to make a mark in the world,
and to keep himself from starving in future.

The next year Berlioz tried again, with a cantata on
Cleopatra after the Battle of Actiiim, but failed to get
the prize. In the mean time he reads Goethe's Faust
with much enthusiasm, and writes a work entitled Eight
Scenes from Fanst, which he is foolish enough to have
engraved at his own cost, before hearing even the first
note of his score. The edition was destroyed some
years after, but Berlioz used some of its themes in his
Damnation de Fanst. After the "Eight Scenes" he
wrote his first great Symphony, the Symphonic fantas-
tiqne, and his Fantasy on Shakspere's Tempest. The
latter work was given at the Opera, but a torrent of
rain kept almost the whole audience at home. About
this time Berlioz's fiery nature led him into an intrigue
with a certain Mademoiselle M***, a beautiful young
woman with an aptitude for frailty, not yet wedded to
her Potiphar. This little episode had an odd termina-
tion, of which later.

At last on the 15th of July, 1830, he gets the first
prize for his cantata of Sardanapale. An orchestral
movement, describing the burning of the Babylonian
king's palace, which he added to the cantata after the
prize had been awarded, came to grief at the public
performance of the compositions which had obtained
prizes that year.

"Five hundred thousand curses," cries he, "on musi-

BIO GRA PHICA L SKE TCH.

cians who don't count their rests!!! A horn-part in
my score gave the cue to the drums, the drums gave
the cue to the cymbals, and they to the big-drum ; tlic
first stroke on the big-drum ushered in the final explo-
sion 1 My confounded horn does not play his note, tlic
drums, not hearing it, don't go off either, and the cym-
bals and big-drum are equally mute ; nothing goes off I
nothing !!!... only the violins and basses keep uj)
their impotent tremolo ; no explosion ! a conflagration
which goes out without having burst into flame, a ridic-
ulous effect instead of the much- expected crash ; ridic-
nlus nius!''

The cantata as well as the Fantastic Symphony were
both given, however, at the Conservatoire a few weeks
later. Liszt was present at the concert and was con-
spicuous by his vehement applauding. Cherubini, when
asked if he intended to go to the concert, said : "I don't
need to go to find out hozv things sJionld not be dojie."
A few days later he sent for Berlioz, and said :

''So you are going to Italy ?"

*'Yes, sir."

"Your name will be taken off the Conservatoire
books, your studies are over. But it seems to me tha . . .
tha . . . that you ought to call on me. Pe . . . pe . . .
people don't leave here as they leave a stable."

Berlioz did not reply : " Why not ? since we are
treated Hke horses!" but contented himself with think-
ing it.

Of Berlioz's stay in Italy little is to be said. His
own account of his musical experience there differs from
the accounts of Spohr, Mendelssohn and other musi-
cians, only by its greater explosiveness of style, and
greater pungency of satire. Only the insane spirit of
routine which at that time possessed the Paris Academy
of Fine Arts, and which subjected all its alumni, whether
painters, architects, sculptors, musicians, or engravers,
3*

0 . BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

to the same course of treatment, could ever have hit
upon the notion of a man's receiving valuable musical
impressions in Italy, where music had long been in a
wholly putrescent condition. One little episode in Ber-
lioz's Italian life is valuable to us as an indication of the
man's character, as giving us a brief but clear glimpse
at the violent and fantastic side of his nature. We will
give his own account of the whole affair :

"It took me some time to accustom myself to a life
so new to me (i.e., in Rome at the Academic de
France). But a lively anxiety, which took possession
of my mind the very day after my arrival, left me no
power to notice either my surroundings, or the social
circle into which I had been so suddenly thrust. I had
not found in Rome some letters from Paris that should
have arrived several days before me. I waited three
weeks with ev^er-growing anxiety; then, no longer able
to combat my desire to learn the cause of this mysteri-
ous silence, and in spite of the friendly remonstrances
of M, Horace Vernet, who tried to prevent any reck-
lessness on my part, assuring me that he should be
forced to strike my name off from the books of the
Academic if I left Italy, I obstinately persisted in going
back to France.

*'In passing through Florence a rather violent attack
of quinsy kept me in bed for a week. It was then that

1 made the acquaintance of the Danish architect, Schlick,
a good fellow and an artist whose talent was rated very
high by connoisseurs. During my week of illness I
employed myself with rescoring the Ball-scene in my
Fantastic Symphony and adding the Coda that now
ends the movement. I had not finished my work when,
the first day I could go out, I went to the post office to
ask for letters. The package I got contained an epistle
of such extraordinary impudence and so insulting withal
to a man of my age and disposition, that it gave me a

BIOGRAPHICAL SKE TCIL

frightful shock. Two tears of rage started from my
eyes, and my mind was made up on the spot. I meant
to fly to Paris, where I had two guilty women and one
innocent man to kill without mercy.^ As for killing
myself afterwards, you can well believe that that was
indispensable. The plan for the expedition was con-
ceived in a few minutes. They would fear my return
to Paris; I was known there. ... I resolved to present
myself there with great caution, and under a disguise.
I ran to see Schlick, who was not ignorant of the sub-
ject of the drama in which I played the leading part.
Seeing me so pale:

'"Good God! what's the matter?'

i^'Look there,' said I, holding out the letter; 'read!'

'"Oh! it's monstrous!' said he, after reading it.
*What are you going to do?'

"I determined not to tell him, so that I might act
freely.

'"What am I going to do? I still insist upon return-
ing to France, but I shall go to my father's house in-
stead of to Paris.'

'"Yes, my friend, you are right; go home; there you
can forget your troubles in good time, and get over the
fearful state of mind you are in now. Come, have
courage.'

"'I have courage enough; but I must go at once; I
can't answer for myself to-morrow.'

"'We can easily get you off this evening; I know lots
of people here connected with the police and the post-
oflice; you can have your passport in two hours, and
your place in the courier's carriage in five; I will see to
all that; go back to your hotel and pack, I will see you
again there.'

' The reader will easily guess that this refers to his "amiable consoler,"
Mademoiselle M***. iter worthy mother, who knew perfectly well
what cards she held in her hand, accused him of bringing troul)le into the
family bosom, and announced her daughter's marriage with a M. P*"*.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

"Instead of going back to my hotel, I walk on to-
wards the quay of the Arno, where a French modiste
lived. I go into her shop, and pulling out my watch, I
say:

"'Madam, it is now twelve o'clock; I shall leave the
city by this evening's courier; can you make me a com-
plete chamber-maid's toilet, dress, bonnet, green veil,
etc., in five hours? I will pay you what you please;
money is no consideration.'

"The modiste thinks it over a minute and assures me
that all will be ready before the hour named. I give
her some money as a security, and go back by the other
bank of the Arno to the Hotel of the Four Nations,
where I was stopping. I call the first waiter:

"'Antoine, I leave here for France at six; I shall not
be able to take my trunk with me, the courier has no
room for it; I leave it in your care. Send it to my fa-
ther the first safe chance you find; here is the address.'

"Then, taking the score of the Ball-scene, the coda
of which was not w^iolly instrumented, I write on it :
/ have not time to finisJi this ; if the Socicte des Con-
certs in Paris sJwuld ever take it into its head to per-
form this movement in the composer s ABSE^XE, / beg
Habeneck to donble tJie flnte part at the last return of t lie
theme, in the lozuer octave, ivith the clai'inets and horns,
and to write out the cJiords that follow for full orchestra ;
that will do to end with.

"Then I put the score of my Fantastic Symphony,
addressed to Habeneck, and some clothes into a carpet-
bag ; I had a pair of double-barreled pistols, so I load
them ; I examine and put in my pocket two vials of
refreshments, such as laudanum and strychnine ; and
having set my conscience at rest as to my arsenal, I go
out to await the hour of my departure, walking through
the streets with that sick, restless and disquieting look
that you see in mad dogs.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 3-7

*'At five I go back to my modiste s ; my costume is
tried on and fits very well. In paying the sum agreed
upon I give twenty francs too much ; a young seam-
stress who is sitting behind the counter notices it, and
tries to call my attention to the fact ; but the mistress
of the establishment, throwing my gold-pieces into the
till with a quick turn of the hand, pushes her aside with:

"'Come, you little fool, leave the gentleman alone!
do you suppose he has time to listen to your talk?'
Then, answering my ironical smile with a curious, but
withal graceful inclination: *A thousand thanks, sir;
I am sure of your success ; you will certainly look rav-
ishing in your theatricals.'

"At last it strikes six; after saying good-bye to the
virtuous Schlick, who saw in me a wounded stray lamb
returning to the fold, and carefully packing my feminine
attire in one of the pockets of the carriage, I bid fare-
well, with a look, to Benvenuto's Perseus, with its famous
inscription : Si qiiis tc lacscrit, ego tuns tcltor ero, and
we are off.

"Mile after mile goes by, and a profound silence is
maintained between myself and the courier. My throat
was glued together and my teeth set ; I ate nothing and
did not speak. We exchanged a few words only at
midnight about my pistols ; the prudent driver took off
the caps and hid them under the cushions of the car-
riage. He was afraid that we might be attacked, and
in such cases, he said, no one must ever show the slight-
est signs of standing on the defensive, unless he wishes
to be murdered outright.

"*Let your mind be easy on that head,' replied I,
'I should be very sorry to get us into trouble, and I
have no grudge against the banditti ! '

"Arriving at Genoa, without having swallowed any-
thing but the juice of an orange, to the huge astonish-
ment of my traveling companion, who could not quite
4

B I OCR A PIJICA L SKE TCH.

make out whether I belonged to this world or the other,
I became aware of a new mishap : my woman's dress
was lost. We had changed carriages at a village called
Pietra Santa, and I had forgotten all my attire on leav-
ing the one that brought us from Florence. * Fire and
damnation!' cried I, *it seems as if some accursed good
angel were trying to interfere wnth the execution of my
project ! We'll see about that !'

**I immediately call a valet de place speaking both
French and Genoese. He takes me to a modiste. It
was nearly noon ; the courier was to start at six. I ask
for a new dress ; they refuse to undertake to finish it in
so short a time. We go to another, to two others, to
three other modistes, and receive the same answer. At
last one says that she will get several seamstresses to-
gether, and try to fit me out before the time of de-
parture.

*'She is as good as her word, and I am again supplied
with a costume. But while I was running about among
the grisetteSy what should happen but that the Sardinian
police, after inspecting my passport, must take me for
an emissary of the Revolution of July, for a co-eai'bo-
naro, for a conspirator, for a liberator, and refuse to put
a visa to said passport for Turin, and tell me to go by
the way of Nice !

*'*Well, good God, put the visa for Nice, then, I
don't care. I'll go by the way of hell if you wish, so
that I only go ! ' . . .

** Which of us two w^as the most superbly idiotic?
The police, who saw a missionary of the revolution in
every Frenchman, or I, who thought it necessary to
disguise myself as a woman before setting foot on the
Paris pavement, as if everybody in recognizing me
must read on my forehead what purpose had brought
me there ; or as if, hiding in a hotel, I could not have
found fifty dress-makers, instead oi one, to dress me up
to my heart's content !

BIOGRAPIIICAL SKETCH. 3^

'•i^eople in love are really a charming spectacle ; they
imagine that the whole world is thinking about their
passion, whatever it may be, and they act on that notion
with the most edifying good faith.

*'So I took the road for Nice in undiminished wTath.
I even thought over with great care the little coiiicdy
I was to enact on arriving in Paris. I was to present
myself at the house of my friends at nine o'clock P.M.,
at the moment the family came together to take tea ; I
should be announced as the chamber-maid of the Count-
ess M***, charged with an important and pressing mes-
sage ; they would show me into the parlor, I would pre-
sent the letter and while they were engrossed in reading
it, drawing my two double-barreled pistols from my
bosom, I would blow out the brains of No. i, then of
No. 2, then take No. 3 by the hair, make known to her
who I was, and, in spite of her shrieks, address my third
compliment to her; after which, before this vocal and
instrumental concert had attracted the curiosity of in-
terlopers, I would let fly my fourth irresistible argument
at my own right temple, and if the pistol missed fire
(which has been knowni to happen), have recourse to
my little vials. Oh, what a pretty scene ! It is really
a pity that it was suppressed !

"Yet, in spite of my condensed rage, I said to myself
at times during the trip : 'Yes, it will be a most agree-
able moment ! But the necessity of killing myself aft^
erward is rather . . . troublesome. To thus say farewell
to the w^orld, to art ; to leave no name behind me but
that of a boor who did not know how to live ; not to
have finished my first symphony ; to have other . . .
greater . . . scores in my head . . . Ah ! ... it is . . .'
Then returning to my blood-thirsty scheme : *No, no, no,
no, no, they must all die, I must exterminate them, I
must smash their skulls ... it must be, and it shall be
done ! ' . . . And the horses trotted on, bringing me

40 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

nearer and nearer to France. Night came, we were
following the Cornici road, cut in the solid rock, over a
hundred fathoms above the sea that bathes the foot of
the Alps at that place. The love of life and the love
of art had been whispering sweet promises to me for an
hour, and I let them speak on; I found even a certain
charm in listening to them, when, all at once as the pos-
tilion stopped his horses to put the shoe under the wheel
of the carriage, an instant of silence let me hear the
dull death-rattle of the sea breaking furiously against
the rocks at the bottom of the precipice. This noise
awoke a terrible echo and made a fresh storm burst forth
in my breast. The rattle in my throat was like that of
the sea, and, resting my hands upon the seat, I gave a
convulsive start as if to rush forward, uttering a Ha !
so hoarse and wild that the unlucky conductor, jumping
aside, thought that his traveling companion was assur-
edly some demon constrained to carry a piece of the
true cross.

"Nevertheless, there had been an intermittance, I had
to admit it; there had been a tussle between life and
death. As soon as I was conscious of it I reasoned
thus, and, as it seems to me, not too foolishly: 'If I
should profit by the good moment (the good moment
was when life began to coquet with me; you see, I was
giving in), if I should profit by the good moment, and
grapple hold of something, get some purchase to resist
a return of the bad one, perhaps I should succeed in
taking a resolution in the direction of . . . life; let me
see.' We were then passing through a little Sardinian
village (Vintimiglia, I believe), on a beach level with the
sea, which did not roar too loudly. We stop to change
horses, and I beg the conductor to let me have time
enough to write a letter; I go in to a little cafc\ take a
scrap of paper and write to the director of the Academy
of Rome, M. Horace Vernet, to be kind enough to keep

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, ^j

my name on the Aeadcniy s books, if lie had not already
stinick it out ; that I had not yet broken the regulations,
and that I GAVE MY WORD OF HONOR not to cross the
Italian frontier until I received his ansiver in Nice,
zvhere I zvould azuait it.

** Bound thus by my word, and sure of being able to
return to my ferocious scheme at any time, if expelled
from the Academy, my pension taken away, I should
find myself without hearth, home, penny or rag, I got
into the carriage again more quietly; I found all of a
sudden that . . . I zuas hungry, having eaten nothing
since I left Florence. O good, commonplace Human
Nature! Decidedly, I was reclaimed!

"I arrived at that most happy town of Nice, still
growling a little. I waited some days; then came M.
Vernet's answer; a friendly, kind, fatherly answer, that
touched me deeply. That great artist, without knowing
the cause of my distress, gave me advice that fitted
the occasion exactly; he pointed out to me that work
and the love of art were the two best antidotes to men-
tal torments; he told me that my name still remained
on the books of the Academy, that the minister should
never learn of my escapade, and that I could come back
to Rome, where I should be received with open arms.

'"Come now, they are saved,' said I with a deep sigh.
'And supposing I were to live now quietly, happily,
musically? What a good joke! . . . Let us try.'

**And there I am, breathing in the balmy Nice air to
the full extent of my lungs; there are life and joy flying
toward me, music kissing me, and the future smiling
upon me; and I stop in Nice a whole month, wandering
through the orange-groves, diving in the sea, sleeping
on the mountain heaths of Villafranca, looking from
those radiant heights at the ships coming, passing by
and silently vanishing in the distance. I live wholly
alone, and write the overture to King Lear. I sing. I
believe in God. Convalescence has set in.

.2 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

**It is thus that I passed In Nice the twenty happiest
days of my Hfe, O Nizza !

**But the pohce of the king of Sardinia came again
to disturb my peaceful happiness and to force me to put
an end to it.

*'I had at last exchanged a few words with two offi-
cers of the Piedmontese garrison at the cafe ; I even
played a game of billiards with them one day; that was
enough to inspire the chief of police with grave suspi-
cions on my account

"'Evidently this young French musician has not
come to Nice to be present at the performances of Ma-
tilda di Sabran (the only work that was to be heard
there then), for he never goes to the theatre. He spends
whole days on the rocks of V^illafranca ... he is expect-
ing a signal from some revolutionary vessel ... he does
not dine, at least, not at the table d'hote ... so as to
avoid insidious conversations with secret agents. We
see him secretly leaguing himself with the heads of our
regiments . . . he is going to enter upon negotiations
with them in the name of Young Italy ; it is clear as
day, a most flagrant case of conspiracy!'

"O great man! profound politician! Go to, thou
art raving mad !

''I am summoned to the police office and put through
a formal investigation :

'"What are you doing here, sir?'

*"I am getting over the effects of a cruel illness; I
compose, dream, thank God for having made so beau-
tiful a sun, such a sightly sea, such green mountains.'

*"You are not a painter?'

'"No, sir.'

'"But you are to be seen everywhere with an album
in your hand, drawing a great deal ; perhaps you are
making plans ?'

"'Yes, I am making plans for an overture to King

BIOGRAnilCAL SKETCH. .^

Lear ; that is to say, I have ah'eady drawn the plan, for
the design and instrumentation are finished ; I even
think that the opening will be formidable.'

"'How the opening? Who is this King Lear?'

*''Alas, sir! He is a good old fellow who was king
of England.'

'''England!'

"'Who lived, according to Shakspere, some eighteen
hundred years ago, and was weak enough to divide his
kingdom between two rascally daughters, who turned
him out of doors when he had no more left to give
them. You see, there are few kings who . . .'

"'We are not talking of kings! . . . What do you
understand by the word instrumentation ?'

"'It's a musical term.'

"'Always the same pretext! I know very well, sir,
that people don't go about composing music so, without
a piano-forte, only with an album and a pencil, walking
up and down the beach ! So please to tell me where
you intend going, and your passport will be delivered
to you ; you must not stay in Nice any longer.'

"'Then I will go back to Rome, and continue com-
posing without a piano-forte, with your permission.'

"So it was done. I left Nice the next day, very
much against my will it is true, but with a light heart
and full of allcgria, thoroughly alive, and thoroughly
cured. And thus it happened that for one time more
the world has seen pistols loaded zvitJwiit going off.

"But I think that my little coniedy had a certain in-
terest all the same, and that it is really a pity that it
never came to a performance."

During his "exile" in Rome, Berlioz wrote an over-
ture to Rob Roy, which was played a year later in Paris,
and very badly received by the public ; ^ the Scene ifi

1 Berlioz burned the score immediately after the concert.

^A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

the Fields of his Fantastic Symphony ; the Song of
Happiness in Lelio, and his melody, La Captive.

The first thing he did on returning to Paris was to
call on Cherubini, whom he found very much aged
since he last saw him. He took a room in the house
No. I rue neuve Saint -Marc, the very room Miss
Smithson had formerly occupied. The actress herself
was then in Paris with an English company ; Berlioz
got up a concert at which his Fantastic Symphony and
the monodrama of Lelio were given entire ; M. Schut-
ter, one of the editors of GalignanV s Messenger, and a
friend of Berlioz, took Miss Smithson to the concert.
Her theatrical enterprise had turned out a complete and
disastrous failure, and she was then deeply in debt.
At the concert she saw Berlioz for the second time.
The first time was in 1829 when she was at the zenith
of her Parisian fame. Berlioz had written her several
letters "which rather frightened than touched her," and
she had told her chamber-maid to receive no more com-
munications from him. Their meeting was at the re-
hearsal of a performance at the Opera-Comique for the
benefit of Huet, the actor. Miss Smithson was to act
in two acts from Romeo and Juliet, and Berlioz was to
conduct an overture of his own. Berlioz came into the
theatre just as the English company were finishing their
rehearsal.

''Romeo was carrying Juliet away in his arms. My
glance fell involuntarily upon that Shaksperean group.
I gave a shriek and ran away wringing my hands. Ju-
liet had seen and heard me. ... I frightened her. She
pointed me out to the people on the stage, asking them
to look after that gentleman whose eyes boded no good''

But now, in 1832, Miss Smithson found herself neg-
lected by the fickle Paris public, and even on the verge
of bankruptcy. The story of Lelio is no other than the
story of BerHoz's own love. When Bocage, who recited

BIO GRA PIIICA L SKE TCII.

the part of LcliOy came to the passage : " Oh that I
could find her, the Juliet, the Ophelia that my heart
calls to. That I could drink in the intoxication of that
mingled joy and sad7iess that only true love knows I
Could I but rest in her arms 07te autumn evening, rocked
by the north wind on some wild heath, and sleep my last,
sad sleep/'' Miss Smithson began to suspect that she
herself was the heroine of the drama. Next day Berlioz
was introduced to her. Soon afterwards she met with a
sad accident. She slipped on the pavement in getting out
of her carriage, and broke a leg. The news of this ac-
cident was not believed in England, where it was thought
to be a ruse to soften the hearts of her creditors ; but
her fellow -artists in Paris showed much sympathy,
Mademoiselle Mars coming forward in the most gener-
ous way, and putting her purse at the invalid's disposal.
Berlioz took upon himself the management of a benefit
performance, which brought her a few hundred francs.
This sum was applied to paying her most pressing debts.
At last, in the summer of 1833, he married her, in spite
of the most violent opposition from her family and his
own.

"On the day of our wedding she had nothing in the
world but debts, and the fear of never again being able
to appear to advantage on the stage because of her ac-
cident ; I, for my part, had three hundred francs that
my friend Gounet had lent me, and had quarreled again
with my parents. . . .

''But she was mine, I bade defiance to everything."
But all hope was not quite lost. Berlioz still had a
year of his laureate's pension to look to ; besides, he
was beginning to find admirers in Paris. At a benefit
entertainment which he got up at the Theatre-Italien
(the program consisting of Dumas's play of Antony ^
acted by Firmin and Madame Dorval, the fourth act of
Hamlet with his wife as Ophelia, his own Fantastic
4*

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

SympJiony, Sardanapalc and overture to the Francs-
Jugcs, a chorus of Weber, and the Conzcrt-stiick play-
ed by Liszt), it was found that his wife, whose leg had
so far recovered that she could walk with ease, had yet
lost that absolute command over her movements which
is indispensable to acting. She never appeared on the
stage again. The entertainment was otherwise unfortu-
nate. According to the regulations of the Theatre-
Italien, the musicians in the orchestra were only re-
quired to stay until midnight. As the program was
very long, midnight struck before the Symphony could
begin, so the greater part of the orchestra, a bit of
private spite prompting, left Berlioz in the lurch, and
the concert had to end there. Berlioz's enemies were
not slow in turning the affair to ridicule, saying that his
music/;// musicians to fligJit !

But he soon organized another concert, paying the
orchestra from his own pocket, and getting Girard to
conduct, as his own inexperience as an orchestral con-
ductor, had caused some unlucky mistakes on the previ-
ous occasion. It was a complete success, the musicians
and public were equally delighted, and *'to cap the
climax of my happiness, a man, after the audience had
left the hall, a long-haired man with piercing eye and
passion-furrowed face, one possessed by genius, a colos
sus among giants whom I had never seen and whose
appearance moved me profoundly, was waiting for me,
and stopped me on my way out to take me by the
hand ; he overwhelmed me with burning praise that set
my head and heart on fire; it was Paganini / /''
(December 22, 1833.)

Some weeks later Paganini wrote to Berlioz, asking
him to compose a concerto lor viola, as he had a very
fine instrument which he was desirous of playing on,
but knew no viola music in that form. This request of
the great violinist led Berlioz to write his s}'mphony of

BIO GRA PHICA L SKE TCIL

Harold en Italic, in which there is a leading part for
viola obbligata. But even before the work was com-
pleted, Paganini found that it did not suit his purpose,
as the orchestra was not sufficiently subordinated to
the solo part, and he never played it. The symphony
was brought out, however, at the Conservatoire, under
the direction of Girard, November 23, 1834.

In 1836 M. de Gasparin, Minister of the Interior,
ordered a Requiem of Berlioz. After much trouble in
securing his pay from the ministry, Berlioz brought out
the Requiem in the Church of the Invalides at the
funeral ceremony in honor of General Danremont and
the French soldiers killed at the siege of Constantina.
Habeneck conducted, much against the composer's wish,
but he had conducted the orchestra at all great musical
solemnities in Paris, and Berlioz was prevailed upon to
cede the baton to him. The following narrow escape
from absolute musical anarchy was the result.

**My performers," says Berlioz, *Svere divided into
several groups, quite a distance apart, this being neces-
sary for the four groups of brass instruments which I
have employed in the Tnba niirnvi, the groups occupy-
ing the four corners of the great central body of voices
and instruments. At the moment of their entry at the
beginning of the Tuba miruni, which follows the Dies
irce without a pause, the tempo suddenly becomes twice as
slow as before ; all the brass instruments burst forth at
once in the new tempo, then call to and answer each
other from a distance, each successive call being a third
higher than the previous one. It is accordingly of the
highest importance that the four beats to a measure of
the slower tempo should be plainly indicated at the outset.
. . . From my habitual distrustfulness I had placed my-
self behind Habeneck, with my back to him, where I
could oversee the group of kettledrums, which he could
not see, as the time was approaching for them to take
part in the general melee. There are, perhaps, a thou-

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

sand measures In my Requiem. Exactly at the bar I
have mentioned, the bar where the tempo is changed,
where all the brass launches forth its terrible fanfare, at
the only bar, in a word, where the conductor's activity is
absolutely indispensable, Habeneck drops his baton, qui-
etly pulls out his snuff-box, and begins to take a pinch of
snuff. I had kept my eye on him ; I immediately turn
on my heel, rush in front of him, stretch out my arm,
and give the four slow beats of the new tempo. The
orchestras follow me, all goes on in order, I conduct the
movement to its close, and the effect I had dreamed of is
produced. When, at the last words of the chorus, Ha-
beneck saw the Tuba mirum saved : * What a cold sweat
came over me,' said he to me ; 'we should have been lost
but for you !' 'Yes, I know it,' said I, looking him fix-
edly in the eye. I did not add another word . . . Did
he do it on purpose ? . . . Can it be possible that the
man, in league with M. ***, who abhorred me, and the
friends of Cherubini, should have dared to imagine and
try to carry out such a piece of low rascality ? . . . I
don't wish to think it . . . But I don't doubt it. God
forgive me if I do him wrong."

After the performance Berlioz had renewed difficulty
in getting some arrears of pay from the Ministry of War
(the ceremony being a military one, it now came within
the province of that department). M. *** tried every
way to put him off, offering him the Cross of the Legion
of Honor, to which proposal he characteristically answer-
ed : "Your cross be d d!^ Give me my money!"

At last M. *** rushed out to find the Minister, Berlioz
shouting after him : "Tell him that I should be ashamed
to treat my boot-maker as he treats me, and that his
conduct to me will soon acquire a rare notoriety."
Upon which the Minister, not having a taste for scandal
when it took a personal shape, paid the money (3000

1 Je me f . . . de votrc cioix !

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. ^g

francs). Whereupon some of the newspapers that were
unfriendly to Berhoz made quite a noise about his be-
ing a favorite of power, a silk-worm Hving upon the
leaves of the budget, and, adding a gratuitous zero, in-
dulged in much righteous indignation at his receiving
thii'ty thousand francs for the Requiem.

Soon after this Berlioz tried to get the position of Pro-
fessor of Harmony at the Conservatoire. Cherubini op-
posed him with all his might, ostensibly on the ground
that "he could not play the piano-forte," and persuaded
him to withdraw his application. But one day M. Ar-
mand Bertin met Berlioz and assured him that he had
spoken to the Minister of the Interior, and that there
was no doubt of his getting the place, together with
forty-five hundred francs per annum. The next day
M. ****, head of the division of Fine Arts, met him be-
hind the scenes at the Opera, and gave him the same
assurance. Of this Berlioz writes (a phrase that con-
tinually recurs in his Autobiography) : "THIS PROMISE,
MADE SPONTANEOUSLY TO A MAN WHO HAD ASKED
FOR NOTHING, WAS NO BETTER KEPT THAN SO MANY
OTHERS, AND FROM THAT MOMENT I HEARD NO MORE
ABOUT IT." He soon, however, got the position of li-
brarian to the Conservatoire.

In 1836 his first opera, Benvenuto Cellini, was brought
out at the Opera, though without much success. It was
by no means well given. Paganini said, after hearing a
performance of it : "If I were manager of the Opera, I
would engage that young man to-day to write me three
more scores ; I would pay him in advance, and make a
golden bargain at that."

In 1838 Paganini was present at a concert given by
Berlioz at which both the Fantastic and Harold sym-
phonies were played. After the concert the gicat vir-
tuoso presented himself at the door of the orchestra
greenroom, gesticulating violently after the Italian fash-
ion. The affection of the larynx, which was fatal to him

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH,

a few years later, had already become so serious that he
could not speak above a scarcely audible whisper. His
little boy, Achille Paganini, was the only person able to
understand him in the noisy green-room ; so, wliisper-
ing in his ear, Paganini told the boy to tell Berlioz that
*'he had never experienced such an impression at a con-
cert : that the music had so overwhelmed him that he
could hardly refrain from thanking the composer on his
knees." Berlioz expressing some astonishment, Paga-
nini dragged him back upon the stage, fell upon his
knees in the midst of all the musicians and kissed his
hand. Berlioz, who was already suffering from a severe
attack of bronchitis, caught cold after the concert, and
was confined to his bed. The next day the little Achille
came into his sick-room and handed him a letter, say-
ing: "My father will be very sorry to hear that you are
ill ; if he were not very unwell himself, he would have
come to see you in person. Here is a note which he
gave me to give to you. There is no answer ; my fa-
ther said you were to read it when you were alone."
The boy then left the room. Supposing it to be a mere
letter of congratulation, Berlioz opened it and read :

^^ Mio caro aniico :

''Beethoven spento, no cera ehe Berlioz che potesse farlo
rivivere ; ed io ehe ho gust a to le vostre divine eoinpos-
izioni, degne d'lin genio qnal siete, credo mio dovere di
pregarvi a voler aecettare, in segno del mio oniaggio,
venti mila franc Jii, i quali vi saranno rintessi dal signor
bai'on dc Rothschild doppo che gli avrete presentato Tac-
clnsa. Credetenii sempre

*'il vostro affczionatissinio aniico,

"NicoLo Paganini.

'' Parigi, i8 dieenibre, iSjSJ''^ ~^

» '' My Dear Friend:

"Now that Beethoven is dead, Berlioz is the only man to bring him
to life again; and I, who have listened to your godlike compositions,

BIO GRA PIIICA L SKE TCH. ^ I

The inclosed note, addressed to Baron Rothschild,
ran :

'^Monsieur le bar on :

" Je vous prie de voiiloir bien rejnettre a M. Berlioz
les viitgt mille francs que j'ai deposes chez vous hier.
'' Recevez, etc.,

''Paganini."^

This sum more than sufficed to pay off his debts.
Finding himself in a position of comparative ease, Ber-
lioz gave up for the time his place as critic, and devoted
himself entirely to musical composition. The result of
seven months' labor was his great dramatic choral sym-
phony, Romeo et Juliette. He never saw Paganini
again, his ever-failing health keeping him in Nice, but
he sent him the score, and in one of the violinist's let-
ters about it we find the phrase: '' Noiv all is done, envy
has notJiing left but silence'' Berlioz was extremely care-
ful about this score (according to some authorities his
greatest), and it was only after several years that he
finally left it in the form in which it now stands.

In 1840 he wrote his great SympJionie funcbre et tri-
omphale, which was performed on the place de la Bas-
tille at the inaugural ceremonies of the Column of July.
He took good care that Habeneck, whom he calls "the
incomparable snuff-taker," should not have his finger in
the pie this time, but conducted in person. The cir-

worthy of a genius like yourself, think it my duty to beg you to accept,
as a mark of my homage, twenty thousand francs, which will be paid you
by M. le Baron de Rothschild, on presentation of the inclosed. Believe
me ever Your most loving friend,

''Paris, December 18, i8j8. Nicolo Paganini."

* ^^ Monsieicr le Baron :

" I beg you to be so kind as to pay to M. Berlioz the twenty thou-
sand francs which I deposited with you yesterday.

"Accept, etc., Paganini."

BIO GRA PIIICA L SKE TCH.

cumstance of the work being performed in the open air,
added to the noise of the National Guard" fiUng off from
the ground during the Apothcose, greatly marred the ef-
fect; but the work was heard in its full splendor at some
subsequent concerts in the Salle Vivienne, even Haben-

eck growling out: '' Dccidcnicnt ce b la a dc grandcs

idccs " (That — unprintable individual — certainly has
some great ideas). The symphony was originally writ-
ten for wind instruments, but Berlioz afterwards added
parts for chorus and string orchestra ad libitum.

The next year Berlioz set out on his first concert tour
through Germany, which we will not describe here, his
letters being sufficiently graphic. The trip was a nota-
ble success in every way. In 1846 he made a second,
no less successful, tour through Austria, Hungary, Bo-
hemia and Silesia, giving concerts in Vienna, Pesth,
Prag and Breslau. The night before leaving Vienna for
Pesth, he w^rote his famous version of the RdkSczy
March. The appearance of this piece on the pro-
gram of his first concert in Pesth gave rise to the fol-
lowing conversation between him and M. Horwath, the
editor of a Hungarian newspaper.

"I have seen your score of the Rdkoczy-indulS''

''Well?"

''Well! I am afraid."

"How so?"

"You have begun our theme piano, and we are ac-
customed to hear it played fortissimo.''

"Yes, by your Zingari. But is that all? Be re-as-
sured; you will have 2. forte, the like of which you have
never heard in your life. You did not read it carefully.
You must look to the cud in all things."

Of the effect of this piece at the concert he writes in
a letter to Humbert Ferrand:

"The day of the concert a certain anxiety brought
my heart up into my mouth, notwithstanding, as the

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, c^

time drew nigh for bringing out this devil of a piece.
After a fanfare of trumpets in the rhythm of the first
measures of the air, the theme appears, as you will re-
member, played //rt-z/f? by the flutes and clarinets, accom-
panied by a pizzicato on the strings. The audience re-
mained calm and silent at this unexpected opening; but
when, in a long crescendo, fugued fragments of the
theme kept re-appearing, interrupted by dull beats on
the big-drum, like distant cannon-shots, the hall began
to ferment with an indescribable noise; and when the
orchestra, let loose at last, launched forth its long- re-
strained/"^r/m/;;^^ midst a furious melee, shouts and un-
heard-of stampings shook the hall; the concentrated
fury of all those boiling souls exploded in accents that
caused a shudder of terror in me; I seemed to feel my
hair bristling on my head, and from that fatal measure
I had to bid farewell to the peroration of my piece, the
tempest in the orchestra not being able to vie with the
eruption of that volcano whose violence nothing could
check. You can imagine that we had to begin over
again; even the second time the audience was hard put
to it to contain itself for two or three seconds longer
than at first, to hear a few measures of the coda. M.
Horwath raved in his box like one possessed; I could
not help laughing as I threw him a glance, which meant:
*Well! are you afraid now? Are you satisfied with
yowx forte?' It was well that I had placed the Rdkoczy-
indulo (that is the title of the piece in the Hungarian
tongue) at the end of the program, for all that I
should have tried to make people listen to after it would
have been lost.

'T was violently agitated, as may be believed, after
such a thunder-storm, and was mopping my face with
my handkerchief in a little parlor behind the stage, when
I received a singular rebound from the emotion in the
hall. It was in this wise: I see a wretchedly dressed

^4 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

man, his face glowing with a strange fire, rush suddenly
into my retreat. Seeing me, he throws himself upon
me, kissing me furiously, his eyes brimming over with
tears, and sobs out, hardly able to speak:

'"Ah, sir! Me Hungarian . . . poor devil . . . not
speak French . . . lui poco V italiano . . . Pardon . . .
my ecstasy . . . Ah! understood your cannon . . . Yes,
yes . . . the great battle . . . Germans, dogs!' Then
striking great blows with his fist upon his breast: 'In
my heart I ... I carry you . . . Ah! Frenchman . . .
revolutionist . . . know how to write music for revolu-
tions.'

" I will not try to depict the terrible exaltation of the
man, his tears, and the way he gnashed his teeth; it was
almost terrific; it was sublime."

This trip among the impetuous Czechs and Magyars,
with their hot Tatar blood, was even more exciting to
Berlioz than his previous visit to North Germany. It
would take too long to describe it in detail; how the
artists and amateurs of Vienna gave him a superb sup-
per, at which he was presented with a conductor's baton,
brilliant with vermilion and gold laurel leaves; how the
music-lovers of Prag followed suit with a silver cup and
another supper, at which Liszt made an inimitable
speech and got so gloriously be-champagned that Bel-
loni (his business agent) and Berlioz had all they could
do in the street at two in the morning to prevent his com-
ing to pistols with a Bohemian who had had the inso-
lence to drink more than he, and then played at a con-
cert at twelve o'clock the next day "assuredly as he had
never played before."

During this trip Berlioz wrote his DamnatioJt de Faust,
which was brought out on his return to Paris.

In February, 1847, he set out for Russia, and made
the most lucrative tour of his life, giving concerts In St.
I'etersburg, Moscow, Riga, and, on his way home, in

BIOGRAnilCAL SKETCH. ce-

Berlin, where he produced his Faust among other things.
In Moscow the foUovving amusing incident happened as
he was trying to engage the hall for his concerts :

"Wishing to have the hall put at my disposal, I go to
the house of the Grand Marshal of the Palace of the
Assembly, a respectable octogenarian, and announce to
him the object of my visit.

"'What instrument do you play?' said he at once.

" 'I don't play on any instrument.'

"'Then how are you going to give a concert?'

"'I have my compositions played, and conduct the
orchestra.'

"'Ah ! hah ! that's a new idea; I never heard of that
sort of a concert. I shall be happy to lend you our
great hall ; but 5^ou, no doubt, know that every artist
whom we allow to use it, must let himself be heard after
his concert at one of the private parties of the nobility.'

"'I suppose then that the nobility have an orchestra
at their parties which they will put at my disposal ?'

"'Not a bit of it'

"'But how shall I make music for them ? They will,
doubtless, not ask me to spend three thousand francs to
pay the musicians necessary for a performance of one
of my symphonies at the private soiree of the assembly ?
That would be rather a heavy rent for the hall.'

"'Then I am very sorry, sir, to refuse you; I cannot
do otherwise.'

"So I am obliged to return with this strange answer.
... At a second visit, I get a second refusal ; the ex-
planations of a fellow-countryman of mine are futile ;
the Grand Marshal wags his white pate, and remains
inexorable. But, fearing that his French may not be
up to the mark, and that some terms of my proposal
may have escaped him, he calls in his wife. Madame
la marechale, whose age is nearly as venerable as her
husband's, but whose features express much less benevo-

BIO GR A PIIICA L SKE TCII.

lence, comes Into the room, looks at me, listens to me,
and cuts the discussion short by telling rrie in very flu-
ent, very clear, and very exact French, that :

"'We neither can, nor will do anything contrary to
the regulation. If we lend you the hall, you will play
an instrumental solo at our next party. If you don't
wish to play, you w^on't get the hall.'

"'Good Lord, madanie la marcchale, I once had quite
a pretty talent for the flageolet, the flute and the guitar ;
choose which of these three instruments I shall play
upon. But, as I have touched none of them for about
twenty-five years, I must forewarn you that I shall play
very badly. But look you, if you will graciously con-
tent yourself with a solo on the snare-drum, I shall
probably do better.'

"Luckily a superior officer had come into the room
during this scene ; he was soon informed of the diffi-
culty, and took me aside to say :

"'Do not persist, Monsieur Berlioz; the discussion
might become a little unpleasant for our worthy Marshal.
Just be good enough to send me your application in
writing to-m.orrow, and everything shall be arranged. I
Avill answer for it.'"

So the affair was carried through without any contin-
gent flute or drum playing.

On his return to France, Berlioz went to the Cote-
Saint-Andre to pass a fortnight w^ith his family, with
whom his success as a composer had had a reconciling
influence, and to present to them his son, Louis. His
relations with his wife had long been unhappy. God
knows whose the fault was ; perhaps of both. Perhaps
a man of his character could never have walked through
life smoothly with any one ; and it is easily conceivable
to what unsociable vinegar the strong wine of an art-
ist's nature like Henriette Smithson's may have turned,
when she found herself inexorably debarred from the

BIO GRA PHICA L SKE TCIL

SJ:

exercise of her art. Long before his first journey to
Germany she had tormented him with a jealousy for
which he had never given her cause. How long he re-
mained innocent we cannot tell ; in the preface to his
posthumous Autobiography he says :

"... Neither have I the least desire to present my-
self before God with my book in my hand, declaring that
I am the best of men, nor to write eonfessions. I shall
only tell what I please ; and if the reader refuses me ab-
solution, his severity will be most unorthodox, for I
shall only confess venial sins."

He made all his journeys accompanied by a "traveling
companion " (sex merely hinted at, presumably femi-
nine), and he himself admits that "by dint of being ac-
cused, tortured in a thousand ways, and always unjustly,
finding neither peace nor quiet at my own fireside,
chance assisting me, I at last decided to enjoy the priv-
ileges of a position, the burdens of which I had long
borne, and my life was completely altered. In fine, to
cut short the recital of this part of my life, and not to
enter upon very sad details, I will only say that from
that day forward, and after an anguish as terrible as it
was protracted, a friendly separation (separation a V ami-
able) took place between my wife and myself. I often
see her, my affection for her is in nowise changed, and
the sad state of her health only endears her to me the
more."

O Love ! Through what dark labyrinths wilt thou
not glide, what twistings out of shape and torturings
wilt thou not endure in French hearts, and yet painfully
struggle on to preserve thy identity, that the world may
still know thee by name !

Henriette Constance Berlioz-Smithson died at Mont-
martre on the 3d of March, 1854, after being paralyzed
for four years.

"I had left her for two hours; . . . one of the women
5*

B I OCR A nnCA L SKE TCH,

who waited on her runs to fetch me, and brings me
back. . . . All was over . . . her last sigh had died away.
She was already covered with the fatal cloth, which I
had to draw aside to kiss her pale brow for the last time.
Her portrait, which I had given her the year before,
that portrait, painted in the time of her glory, showed
her to me dazzling with beauty and genius, beside that
death-bed where she lay disfigured by disease.

"I will not try to give an idea of the agony I suffered
at having her thus torn from my heart. It w^as com-
bined with a feeling which, although it had never before
attained such a pitch of violence, has always been the
most difficult for me to bear — the feeling of pity J'
And was it only pity. Hector? "In the midst of my
sorrow over this extinguished love, I felt like to melt
away in the immense, horrible, incommensurable, infi-
nite pity with which the remembrance of my poor Hen-
riette's misfortunes overwhelmed me ; her ruin before
our marriage ; her accident ; the deception brought
about by her last dramatic attempt in Paris ; her volun-
tary, but always regretted, renouncement of an art she
warmly loved ; her eclipsed glory ; the poor imitators,
whose fortune and fame she had seen increase ; our
quarrels ; her unquenchable jealousy, at last too well
founded ; our separation ; the death of all her relations ;
the forced separation from her son ; my frequent long
journeys ; her proud grief at being dependent upon me,
and at being the cause of expenses on my part under
which she well knew I almost succumbed ; the mistaken
notion she had that her love for France had alienated
her from the affection of the English public ; her broken
heart ; her vanished beauty ; her ruined health ; her
ever growing physical sufferings ; the loss of motion
and speech ; the impossibility of making herself under-
stood in any way ; the distant prospect of death and
oblivion. . . .

niOCRAnilCAL SKETCH. 5C)

''Destruction, hell-fire and all the cataclysms of nat-
ture, blood and tears, my brain congeals in my skull at
the thought of these horrors ! . . .

''Shakspere! Shakspere ! Where is he? Where art
thou ? It seems to me that he alone among intelli-
gent beings can understand me, and must have under-
stood us both ; he alone can have pity upon us, poor
artists, loving and lacerating one another. Shaks-
pere ! Shakspere ! If thou dost still exist, it must
be that thou dost bid all the wretched welcome ! Thou
art our father, thou who art in heaven, if there be a
heaven.

"God is stupid and cruel in his infinite indifTerence ;
thou alone art the God who is kind to artist's souls ;
fold us to thy bosom, father, kiss us ! De profiindis ad
te claino. Death, annihilation — what is that? The
immortality of genius! . . . What? . . . O fool ! fool I
fool /...'.

"I had to take the sorrowful duties all on myself. . . .
The Protestant clergyman necessary for the ceremony,
and whose parish comprised the banlieiie of Paris, lived
at the opposite end of the town in the rue de M. le
Prince. I went to notify him at eight in the evening.
One of the streets being blocked up by the paviors, the
cabriolet that took me there had to go by a roundabout
way, and pass in front of the Odeon. It was lighted
up, a piece in vogue was playing there. It was there
that I first saw Hamlet twenty-six years ago ; it was
there that the poor departed suddenly burst forth in her
glory, one evening, like a shining meteor ; it was there
that I saw the crowd weep with anguish at the sight of
Ophelia s grief, her poetic and heart-rending madness ;
there she was recalled after the last act of Hamlet by a
chosen public, and all the kings of thought then reign-
ing in P>ance ; there I saw Henriette Smithson come

5o BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

before the curtain, almost terrified at the immensity of
her success, and bow down all trembling before her ad-
mirers. There I saw Juliet for the first and last time.
How often have I tried to walk off my feverish anxiety
under those arcades on winter nights ! Here is the
door by which I once saw her go in to a rehearsal of
Othello. She did not know of my existence then ; and
if they had then pointed out to her that pale and
haggard young stranger, who, leaning against one of the
pillars of the Odeon, followed her with his wild gaze,
and had said to her: 'There is your future husband,'
she would have assuredly called that prophet of ill luck
an insolent idiot.

"And yet ... it is he who now makes ready thy last
journey, poor OpJielia ! It is he who, like Laertes, will
say to a priest, * What eere7nonies else .?'... he who has
so tortured thee ; he who has endured so much from
thee, after enduring so much for thee ; he who, despite
his wrongs, can say like Hamlet :

" ' Forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love
Make up my sum.'

"Shakspere! Shakspere ! I feel the deluge return-
ing, I am wrecked in sorrow, and I seek thee still. . . .

''Father I father I where are yoit ? "

Ah Berlioz ! If the story of thy life is, as some one
has said, a ''tragedy, written in tears of blood," was the
blood entirely thine own ?

Berlioz married again— whom, he does not tell us —
and lived most unhappily with his second wife for eight
years, when she died suddenly of heart-disease. She
w^as buried in the great cemetery of Montmartre in a
small lot, the best Berlioz could afford. Some time
after the burial, Edouard Alexandre, the noted organ-
builder, bought the freehold of a large lot, which he pre-

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. gj

sented to Berlioz, and the remains of his wife were
transferred to this new tomb. Berlioz was officially no-
tified a little later of the intended demolition of the little
cemetery of Montmartre, where his first wife was bur-
ied, so that her remains also had to be exhumed and
carried to the tomb in the larger cemetery.

"I gave the necessary orders at both cemeteries, and
one dull, cloudy morning I walked alone to the fune-
real spot. A municipal officer who had to be present at
the disinterment awaited me there. A workman had
already opened the grave. As I came up he leaped
into it. The coffin, buried for ten years, was still whole,
only the cover was damaged by moisture. Then the
workman, instead of lifting it out of the earth, tore away
the rotten planks, which cracked with a hideous noise,
showing the contents of the coffin. The grave-digger
bent down, took in both his hands the head, already
separated from the trunk, the head all uncrowned, hair-
less and, alas! fleshless, of the poor OpJiclia, and placed
it in a new coffin, which stood beside the grave, pre-
pared ad hoc. Then, bending down a second time, he
with great difficulty lifted up the trunk without arms
or limbs, holding it in his arms; it was but a blackened
mass to which the shroud clung tightly, more like a
block of pitch enclosed in a wet bag than a human body
. . . with a dull sound . . . and a smell. . . . The mu-
nicipal officer looked on at this gloomy picture a few
steps off. . . . Seeing me leaning against the trunk of
a cypress tree, he cried out: 'Don't stay there, Monsieur
Berlioz; come here, come here.' And, as if the gro-
tesque must also have its share in this horrible scene,
he added, getting a word wrong: *Ah! poor inJiunian-
ity!' ... A few minutes later, following the car that
bore the sad remains, we came down the hill and ar-
rived at the great Montmartre cemetery where the new
tomb already gaped to receive our burden. The re-
6

52 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

mains of Henriette were placed in it. The two departed
rest there in peace to this hour, awaiting the time when
I shall bring my own portion of rottenness to that char-
nel-house.

■" ^I am now in my sixty-first year; I have neither
hopes nor illusions nor great thoughts; my son is almost
always away; I am alone; my contempt for the imbe-
cility and improbity of men, my hatred of their cruel
ferocity are at their height; at all times I cry to death :
*When thou wilt!' Why does he delay?"

O Berlioz, Berh'oz ! Meseems thy loudly shrieking
soul has at last found wherewith to glut its greed of
anguish. If paroxysmal grief and aesthetic typhomania
do verily exhaust the capacity for sorrow God has im-
planted in the human breast, then hast thou indeed
sounded all the depths of woe. Or is there still a
deeper deep, the entrance whereunto was denied thy
sorrow-seeking heart ? A very poignant, bitter grief,
not to be loudly shrieked over, that the horror-struck
world may expend its superfluous sympathy upon it,
but to be very sacredly kept in the innermost sanctuary
of thine own heart, and most jealously guarded against
the peering eyes of mankind ; a holy, chastening sor-
row, which, when kind Time has at last dulled its keen
edge, still abides with thee as a very tender memory,
more dear to thy heart than all loud-trumpeting, world-
astonishing joys whatever; a sorrow thou canst really
call tJiiiie ozun. Such a sorrow, it would seem, thou
couldst in no wise taste ; but of shriek-compelling tor-
ments thou hast surely had thy fill, and hast made the
eternal welkin ring with the most heart-rending echoes.

Berlioz's old age was indeed of the saddest Despite
his upright love and veneration for art for its own sake,
he of all mortals most depended upon the sympathy of
his fellow- men. The intense and almost frantic ad-
miration of his friends could not compensate him for

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

the cold misappreciation or active hatred oi his by far
more numerous enemies. He could not live without
violent emotions,! and absolute triumph being refused
him, he often preferred despair to stoical indifference.
The popular failure of his great opera, Lcs Troy ens a
Carthage, made a wound in his sensitive heart which the
worthy appreciation of the select few could not heal.
Jiis physical sufferings were frightful. He had long
been a martyr to acute neuralgia, and toward the end
of his hfe a local disease in the abdomen tortured him
almost without intermission. His fiery spirit was broken.
The cynical invulnerability he tried hard to assume
could deceive no one but himself, and the sharp bursts
of sarcasm and ironical fire that his surroundings occa-
sionally drew from him, only served to make the mel-
ancholy gloom in his soul more visible. His Auto-
biography ends thus :

"I have done. ... I thank from the bottom of my
neart holy Germany, where the Religion of Art is kept
unsullied ; and thee, generous England, and thee, Rus-
sia, who saved me ; and you, my good friends in France ;
and you, noble hearts and spirits of all countries whom
I have known. To know you has been my joy ; I will
keep faithfully the dear remembrance of our friendship.
As for you, maniacs, stupid bull-dogs and bulls, as for
you, my Gtiildensterns, my Rosencranzes, my lagos, my
little Osries, serpents and insects of all kinds, farewell
my . . . friends ; I despise you, and hope not to die be-
fore forgetting you."

The most marked circumstance of his old age was
the return of his love for Estelle — the Stella inontis of
his boyhood — the girl with the black eyes and pink
boots. The revival of this old, dead love was the one
bright point in the long, gloomy years before his death.
He had never seen Estelle since he first left the Cote-
Saint- Andre to go to Paris and begin his studies. In

BIO GRA PIIICA L SKE TCIf.

1848 he had visited Meylan, and found out that she was
married to a M. F***. In 1864 he went to Meylan
again, and found that she was hving in Lyons. He
writes :

" I arrived in Lyons that very evening. It was a
singular night I passed without sleep, thinking of the
visit I was to make on the morrow. I was to go and
see Madame F***. I determined to call upon her at
noon. While waiting for the hour to come, and think-
ing it highly possible she would not receive me at first,
I wrote the following letter, that she might read it be-
fore knowing the name of her visitor :

*'' Madam :

*"I have come again from Meylan. This second
pilgrimage to the spot inhabited by the dreams of my
childhood has been more painful than the former one,
which I made sixteen years ago, and after which I had
the hardihood to WTite to you in Vif, where you then
lived. I dare more to-day, I ask you to receive me. I
shall be able to restrain myself; do not fear the un-
governed impulses of a heart restrained against its will
by a pitiless reality. Grant me a few moments, let me
see you again, I conjure you.

'''Hector Berlioz.

'''September 2j^ iS6^j.'

** I could not wait until noon. At half-past eleven I
rang at her door, and gave her chamber-maid the letter
with my card. She was at home. I ought to have
merely delivered the letter, but I did not know what I
was doing. Nevertheless, seeing my name, Madame
F*** gave immediate orders to have me shown in, and
rose to meet me at the threshold. I recognized her
walk, and her goddess-like carriage . . . God ! how
changed her face was ! her color was a little bronzed and

B/OCRAPHICAL SKETCH.

her hair tinged with gray. Yet, on seeing her, my heart
had not a moment's indecision, and my whole soul flew
to meet its idol, as if she had been still dazzling in her
beauty. She led me into the parlor, holding my letter
in her hand. My breath stopped ; I could not speak.
She, with a sweet dignity of manner, said :

"'We are quite old acquaintances, Monsieur Berlioz !'
. . . (Silence.) *We were both children !' . . . (Silence.)

"The dying man finds a little voice.

"'Be good enough to read my note, madam, it will
. . . explain my visit.'

" She opens it, reads it and then lays it down on the
mantel-piece.

"'You have just come from Meylan ! But you
doubtless went there on business ? You did not make
the journey purposely to see me ?'

"'Oh ! madam, can you think so ? Did I need busi-
ness to call me to ... ? No, no, I have for a long time
wished to return there.' (Silence.)

"'You have led a very troubled life, Monsieur Ber-
hoz.'

"'How do you know it, madam ?'

"'I have read your biography.'

"'Which one?'

'"A volume by Mery, I think. I bought it some
years ago.'

" ' Oh ! Do not attribute to Mery, who is my friend,
and a man of sense, that compilation, that hodge-podge
of fables and absurdities, the author of which I can now
guess. I shall one day have a true biography, which I
have written myself.'

"' Oh, no doubt, you write so well'

"'I do not mean the worth of my style, but the ex-
actness and sincerity of my recital. As for my senti-
ments towards yourself, I have told all without restric-
tion, but without giving your name.' (Silence.)

,55 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

" *I have also heard much about you from a friend of
yours, who married a niece of my husband's.'

**'I indeed begged him to find out the fate of the
letter I took the liberty of writing to you sixteen years
ago. I wished to know at least whether you got it or
not. But I never saw him again, he is dead now, and
I learned nothing.' (Silence.)

*' Madame F***. — 'As for my own life, it has been
very simple and sad ; I have lost several of my chil-
dren, I have brought up others, my husband died when
they were quite young ... I have done my best to per-
form my duty as a mother.' (Silence.) 'I am much
touched, and very grateful. Monsieur Berlioz, for the
feelings toward myself you have kept alive so long.'

''At these kind words I began to tremble more vio-
lently. I looked at her with greedy eyes, reconstruct-
ing in my imagination her beauty and her eclipsed
youth ; at last I said to her :

"'Give me your hand, madam.'

"She held it out to me. I raised it to my lips and
seemed to feel my heart melt away, and all my bones
shudder, . . .

'"May I hope,' added I, after a fresh silence, 'that you
w^ill permit me to write to you sometimes, and to pay
you a visit from time to time?'

"'Oh, certainly; but I am to stop only for a short
time in Lyons. One of my sons is to be married short-
ly, and soon after his wedding I shall go to live in Ge-
neva with him.'

"Not daring to prolong my visit further, I rose. She
accompanied me to the door, where she said to me
again:

"'Good-bye, Monsieur Berlioz, good-bye. I am pro-
foundly grateful for the sentiments you have preserved
for me.'^'

But the poor man cannot make up his mind to leave

lUCCRAPUlCAL SKETCH.

her so After leaving her house he chances to meet M.
Strakosch, Adelina Patti's brother-in-law, who offers
him a box at the theatre to hear the diva in the Barba'
on the following evening. Struck by a happy thought,
Berlioz accepts the box, and runs back to Madame
F***'s house on the avenue de Noailles. He finds
her out, but tells the chamber-maid to ask her from him
to accept a box at the opera for the next evening. But
before long his lover's feet bring him mechanically back
to her door. Going up the staircase he meets her with
two German ladies.

*'*Good heavens, Monsieur Berlioz, you have come for
your answer?'

'''Yes, madam.*

*"I had written to you, and I was just going with
these ladies to take the letter to the Grand Hotel. I
cannot, unfortunately, accept your kind invitation for
to-morrow. I am expected in the country rather far
from here, and I leave town at noon. A thousand par-
dons for letting you know so late, but I came home and
heard of your offer only a few minutes ago.'

"As she made a motion to put the letter in her
pocket:

"'Please g^ive it to me,' cried I.

"'Oh! it is not worth while . . .'

"'I beg you; you intended it for me.'

'"Well, take it.'

"She gave me the letter, and I saw her handwriting
for the first time.

"'So I shall not see you again,' I said, in the street.

"'You leave Lyons this evening?'

"'Yes, madam; good-bye.'

"'Good-bye; I wish you a pleasant journey.'

"I press her hand, and see her turn the corner with
the two German ladles. Then, can it be believed, I be-
came almost joyful; I had seen her a second time; I

68 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

had spoken to her again ; I had pressed her hand once
more; I had a letter from her, a letter which ends with
assuring me of her affectionate sentiments. It was an
unhoped-for treasure; and I walked back to the Grand
Hotel, hoping to dine almost quietly with Mademoiselle
Patti."

How much reality there was in this newly-revived
love of Berlioz may, perhaps, be questioned ; but that
it was very real and inspiring to him is unquestionable.

That the world must know of it was a matter of
course, and in the "Postface" to his posthumous Auto-
biography he prints the correspondence that ensued be-
tween himself and Estelle (did he keep press-copies of
his own letters, then?). His letters are full of violent
love, tempered by a deep respect for the unavoidably
distant relations that must exist between them, ever
trying to outargue common sense on that head, but
humbly and lovingly submitting to her every wish.
Her answers are full of gentle, womanly dignity and
kind feeling, always hesitating to impose an irksome re-
straint upon her lover, but still quietly insisting upon
the impossibility of anything more than ordinary friend-
ship existing between persons of their age, whose lives
had been so widely apart, and all w^hose associations had
been so unlike. She appears eminently a superior
woman, of large sympathies and a warm heart; a wom-
an of sterling character. If they had but met earlier in
life, how different might the story of both have been!
Berlioz might have found the true complement to his
own wild, passionate nature, and, walking through life
by the side of such a helpmate, might have become a
very different and more complete man. But it was not
to be. Even their limited intercourse in old age had a
refining, chastening influence upon Berlioz; she always
succeeded in calling the better, purer, really exalted part
of his nature to the surface, and it is pleasant to notice

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

how much deeper was the love expressed hi his calm,
uncomplaining resignation to the inevitable, than the
more frantic, loudly-vocal passions of his younger days.
As one of his letters throws some light upon his do-
ings at that period of his life, I will copy it. It is also
a fair example of the spirit in which all of them are
written :

*' Paris, Monday, December ig, iS6^,
''Madam:

"In passing through Grenoble last September, I went
to pay a visit to one of my cousins who was then at
Saint- Georges, a hamlet almost lost amid the craggy
mountains on the left bank of the Drac, inhabited by a
most wretched population. My cousin's sister-in-law
has devoted herself to alleviating so much distress, she
is the gracious providence of the country. On the day
of my arrival in Saint- Georges, she heard that a little
hut at some distance from her house had been without
bread for three weeks. She immediately went there,
and, addressing the mother of the family, said :

***How is this, Jeanne? you are in want and don't
send for me. You must know that we have the good-
will to help you to the best of our means.'

**'0h, mademoiselle, we are not in want. We still
have some potatoes and a few cabbages. It is the chil-
dren who are not satisfied. They cry and howl and ask
for bread. You know children are unreasonable.'

**Well, madam! Dear madam, you also have done
a good deed in writing to me. I had imposed the most
absolute reserve upon myself, not to annoy you with
my letters, and kept waiting for your daughter-in-law's
return to hear some news of you. She did not come,
and I was stifling like a man whose head is under water,
and who is yet unwilling to draw it out. . . . You know,
beings like myself ^r^ unreasonable.
6*

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH,

"And yet, I know the truth only too well; believe me,
I reason only too much, and I had no need of the les-
sons that have just been tau^^ht me with sharp knife-
strokes into my heart. . . . No, I wish above all things
not to trouble you, not to give you the slightest annoy-
ance ; I will write as seldom as possible ; you will an-
swer me, or you will not. I shall come to see you once
a year, but only as one comes to pay an agreeable visit.
You are not ignorant of what I feel, and you will thank
me for all that I shall be able to conceal from you. . . .

•*It seems to me that you are sad, and this causes a
redoubled . . .

**But I will to-day begin by forbidding myself a cer-
tain language. I will talk of indifferent matters.

*'You perhaps know that the performance of an act
of my Troyens at the Conservatoire did not take place.
The committee, by plaguing me in various ways, asking,
first that one number, and then that another should be
cut out, drove me nearly mad, as well as the singers,
whose chance of shining was thus diminished, and I
withdrew the whole.

*T thank you very much for your kindness in being
with me in thought in the concert-hall at half-past two
o'clock, and for your good wishes to the Troycvs}

**At the very moment I was being thus tormented in
Paris, my birthday (December ii) was celebrating in
Vienna, where a portion of my work. La Danuiatioii de
Faust was given ; and two hours afterwards the Kapell-
meister sent me the following telegram : A tJioiisand
good zvishes for your birthday. Chorus of soldiers and
students given at the concert of the Mdnnergesangverein.
Immense applause. Repeated.

"The cordiality of those German artists touched me
much more than the success of the thing. And I am

* This refers to a previous letter, in which he asks her to think of him
at that hour.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

sure you will comprehend this. Kindness is a cardinal
virtue !

"Two days later, a perfect stranger to me in Paris
wrote me a very beautiful letter about my score of the
Troyens, which he spoke of in a way I dare not repeat
to you.

"My son has just arrived in Saint-Nazaire after a
troublesome voyage to Brazil, on which he had a chance
of distinguishing himself He is now first mate on
board the great ship La Loiiisiane. He tells me that he
is soon to sail again, which will make it impossible for
him to come to Paris. So I shall go to kiss him in
Saint-Nazaire. He is a good boy, and has the mis-
fortune to resemble me in all points ; he cannot make
up his mind to take his share of the platitudes and
horrors of this world. We love each other like twins.

"This is all the present news of my exterior. My
old mother-in-law (whom I have promised never to
abandon) ^ takes the very best care of me, and never
questions me about the cause of my fits of melancholy.
1 read, or rather, reread Shakspere, Virgil, Homer, Paul
ajtd Virginia^ books of travel ; I am much bored, I
suffer horrible tortures from neuralgia, which has held
me in its grip for nine years, and in fighting against
which all the doctors have come out at the small end of
the horn. In the evening, when the distress of heart,
body and mind is unbearable, I take three drops of
laudanum and fall asleep as well as may be. If I am
not so ill, and the society of a few friends is all I need,
I make a call at a household in the neighborhood, that
of M. Damcke, a German composer of unusual merit, a
learned professor, whose wife is good as an angel ; two
hearts of gold. According to the humor they see me

' A friend of Berlioz's once said: "The poor man was riddled with
mothers-ia-law (cribie dc belle-7/ien's)" mostly, we fear, of the left-handed
sort.

'J2 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

in, we have some music, or talk ; or else they roll a
big sofa up to the fire, and I spend the whole evening
lying on it, thinking my own bitter thoughts in si-
lence. . . . That is all, madam. I no longer write, as
I believe I have told you, and no longer compose. The
musical world of Paris has far other haunts, the manner
in which the arts are cultivated, artists are patronized,
masterpieces are honored, makes me either sick or wild
with fury. This would seem to prove that I am not yet
dead. . . .

"I hope day after to-morrow to have the honor of
taking Madame Charles F*** (charming as she is . . . in
spite of her knife-strokes) and a Russian lady of her ac-
quaintance to the Theatre-Italien. We are to hear,
to the end, if possible, the second performance of Don-
izetti's Poliiito. Madame Charton (Paolina), is to let
me have a box.

"Good-bye, madam; may you only have sweet
thoughts, repose of mind, and enjoy the happiness that
the certainty of being loved by your sons must give
you. But also think sometimes of the poor itnrcasoji-
able cJiildrcn.

"Your devoted,

"Hpxtor Berlioz.

"P.S. It was very generous of you to ask the newly-
married couple to come and see me. I was struck with
the likeness of Monsieur Charles F*** to Mademoiselle
Estelle, and forgot myself so far as to tell him so,
though it is hardly within the bounds of propriety to
pay such compliments to a man."

Madame F***'s answer to this letter contains the fol-
lowing passage :

" Believe me, I am not devoid of pity for ^inrcasonahle
children. I have always found that the best way to
bring them back to quiet and reason was to amuse

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

them, and show them pictures. I take the liberty of
sending you one, which will remind you of the reality
in the present, and dispel the illusions of the past."

She had inclosed her portrait.

The ''Postface" to the Autobiography ends thus:

*'I stop here. I believe that I can now live on more
calmly. I shall write to her sometimes ; she will an-
swer me ; I shall go to see her ; I know where she is ;
I shall never be left in ignorance of any changes that
may occur in her life ; her son has given me his word
and agreed to inform me of them. Little by little, in
spite of her dread of new friendships, she will, perhaps,
find her sentiments of affection for me increasing. I
can already realize the improvement in my existence.
My heaven is no longer empty. I gaze with loving
eyes upon my star, which seems to smile sweetly upon
me. She does not love me, it is true, but she might
never have known me, and she now knows that I wor-
ship her.

''I must be consoled for having been known by her
too late, as I am consoled for not having known Virgil,
whom I should have loved so well, or Gluck, or Beetho-
ven ... or Shakspere . . . who, perhaps, might have
loved me. (It is true that I am not consoled).

"Which of the two powers can raise man to the most
sublime heights; Love or Music?. . . It is a great
problem. Yet, meseems, we should say this : Love can
give no idea of Music ; Music can give an idea of Love.
. . . Why separate the two ? They are the two wings
of the soul.

*' In seeing the way certain persons understand Love,
and what they look for in the creations of Art, I al-
ways involuntarily think of the swine, who grub up the
ground, with their ignoble snouts, amidst the fairest
flowers, and at the foot of mighty oaks, in hopes of find-
ing the truffles they delight in.
7

^4 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

''But let US try to think no more of Art. . . . Stella!
Stella ! I can now die without bitterness, and without
anger.

"January I, 1865."

The few years of Berlioz's life succeeding this date
were uneventful in their sadness. One more great sor-
row (perhaps the most frightful shock of his life) he was
still to undergo. As he was leaving his house one
evening to go to a musical party, given by M. le mar-
quis Arconati-Visconti, a great admirer of his, the news
was brought him of the sudden death of his beloved son,
Louis. The result of this shock was an almost leth-
argic state of melancholy, out of which only the greatest
excitement could at times arouse him, and which lasted
until his death. He went once more to St. Petersburg,
on the urgent invitation of the Grand Duchess Helene,
but even that most brilliant artistic success of his life,
and all the flattering adoration of the Russian Court,
made but little impression upon the broken-hearted old
man, and he returned to Paris sad as he had left it.
His shattered remnant of health was fast declining, and
at times his mental forces seemicd wholly torpid, not
even to be aroused by the hearing of his most adored
compositions ; the very names of Beethoven, Gluck or
Shakspere — those gods of his artistic religion — failed
at such periods to awaken any responsive echo in his
trouble-worn soul. He went to Monaco to bathe his
wearied spirit in the pleasant sunlight, and gaze upon
the bright Mediterranean (the sea always came back to
him like an old friend), but, one day, while standing on
the rocks enjoying the entrancing sea-view with what
feeble power of enjoyment was still left him, he was
seized with giddiness and had a severe fall. He was
shortly afterwards taken to Nice, where he had a second,
severer attack of vertigo, brought on by a sudden de-
termination of blood to the brain, and was found by two

BIO GRA PIIICA L SKE TCH.

young men, lying senseless among the boulders on the
beach. They carried him back to his hotel, where he
was with difficulty restored to consciousness. Some
time later, although he only partially recovered from
the accident, he returned to Paris. In August, 1868,
he was invited to attend a musical solemnity at Greno-
ble, which he looked upon almost as his native place,
and was made honorary president of the occasion. But
it was too late for this mark of esteem to affect him.
His habitual lethargy increased month by month until
on the 8th of March, 1869, he breathed his last, quietly
and without pain, at his rooms, No. 4 rue de Calais, in
the presence of his friend, Ernest Reyer, the composer,
and an old servant who had lovingly tended him during
his long last illness. He was in his sixty-sixth year.

What intercourse he had with Madame F*** during
the last four years of his life I do not know, but we will
hope that this one consolation was not denied him. Of
the two great loves of his life, this was indubitably the
deeper, and built upon the more durable foundation.

I copy from the Journal dcs Dcbats of March 12,
1869, the following account of his funeral:

**The obsequies of Berlioz were celebrated to-day^ at
eleven o'clock, at the church of the Trinity, where the
many friends and admirers of the great composer met
together.

"The pall-bearers from the house of the deceased to
the church were MM. Guillaume, President of the Acad-
emy of Fine Arts; Camille Doucet, member of the
French Academy; le baron Taylor; Emile Perrin, di-
rector of the Opera.

''From the church to the cemetery of Montmartre,
MM. Gounod, Ambroise Thomas, members of the Acad-
emy of Fine Arts, Nogent Saint- Laurens, member of
the Legislative Body, and Perrin.

1 March II.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

"The Institute sent a deputation composed of MM.
Ambroise Thomas, Dumont, Pils, Martinet, Guillaume,
Beule.

'*It would be impossible to give the names of all the
notable persons who crowded the church of the Trinity.
We noticed MM. Auber, Vieuxtemps, Bazin, Felicien
David, Victor Masse, Reyer, Gevaert, Stephen Heller,
Carvalho, Th. Ritter, Elwart, Litolff, Vivier, Baroilhet,
Tamburini, Pasdeloup, Arban, Leonard, Jacquard,
Massenet, Georges Bizet, Duvivier, Mocker, Battaille,
etc.; Madame Charton-Demeur, who played the part
of Dido in Berlioz's Les Troy ens ; MM. Choudens,
Brandus and Richault, publishers of Berlioz's works.
MM. Legouve, Cuvillier-Fleury, members of the French
Academy; Paul de Saint- Victor, Louis Ratisbonne,
Edmond Villetard, Xavier Raymond, Louis Ulbach,
Emmanuel Gonzales, Oscar Commettant, M. Domergue,
counsellor of the Prefecture of the Seine; MM. Damcke
and Edouard Alexandre, the executors of the will.

"During the funeral services several pieces were per-
formed by the orchestra and chorus of the Opera, con-
ducted by M. Georges Hainl, and the children of the
order of the Trinity, under the direction of M. Grisi.
M. Chauvet was at the organ.

"Here is the list of pieces:

"The hitroit from Cherubini's Requiem; Mozart's
Lackrymosa, the Hostias and Preces from Berlioz's Re-
quiem, sung by a double quartet of artists from the
Opera; the March from QXncV'^ Alceste ; Litolff's funer-
al march with Sax instruments.

"The ceremony closed with the march from Berli-
oz's Harold, played on the organ by M. Chauvet.

"The procession then went to the cemetery of Mont-
martre, accompanied by a considerable crowd. A band
of the National Guard played funeral music during the
march.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. yy

"The body of Berlioz was placed in the family vault.

"MM. Guillaume, in the name of the Academy of Fine
Arts ; FreUeric Thomas, in the name of the Society of
Men of Letters; Elevart and Gounod pronounced dis-
courses at the grave."

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY

1841-1842

TEN LETTERS

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

1841-1842.

TO MONSIEUR A. MOREL.

FIRST LETTER.

BRUSSELS, MAYENCE, FRANKFORT.

YES, my dear Morel, here I am again, back from my
long trip through Germany, during which I have
given fifteen concerts, and superintended about fifty re-
hearsals. You can imagine how much I must need
leisure and rest after such fatigues, and you are right
there ; but you can hardly imagine how strange this
leisure and rest seem to me ! Often in the morning I
spring up half awake, dress in a hurry, under the im-
pression that I am behind time and keeping the orches-
tra waiting; , . . then, after a moment's reflection, coming
to a sense of my real situation, I say to myself: What
orchestra? I am in Paris where the orchestra on the
contrary usually keeps you waiting ! Besides, I am not
giving a concert, I have no choruses to drill, no sym-
phony to conduct ; I am to see this morning neither
Meyerbeer, nor Mendelssohn, nor Lipinski, nor Marsch^
7* 81

g2 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

ner, nor A. Bohrer, nor Schlosser, nor Mangold, nor
the brothers Miiller, nor any of those excellent German
artists who gave me such a gracious reception, and
showed me such marks of deference and devotion ! . . .
We do not hear much music in France at present, and
you, my friends, whom I am rejoiced to see again, have
one and all such a downcast, discouraged air, when I
ask you what has been done in Paris during my absence,
that I feel a chill at my heart and a strong desire to go
back to Germany, where there is still left some enthusi-
asm. And yet what immense resources we have here
in this vortex of Paris, after which all the ambition of
Europe is restlessly grasping ! What fine results might
be obtained by uniting all the means at the disposal of
the Conservatoire, the Gymnase musical, our three lyric
theatres, the churches and the singing-schools ! With
intelligent winnowing of these dispersed elements there
might be formed, if not an irreproachable chorus (the
voices are not drilled enough), at least a matchless or-
chestra ! Only two things are wanting to let Parisians
hear such a superb union of eight or nine hundred mu-
sicians : a place to put them in, and a little love of art to
collect them there. We have not a single large concert-
room ! The Grand Opera might take the place of one,
if the daily working of the machinery and scenes and
all the business necessitated by the requirements of the
repertoire did not make the necessary preparations for
such a solemnity well nigh impossible, by taking up the
stage almost every day.

Then, could we find the collective sympathies, the
unity of feeling and action, the devotion and patience
without which nothing grand nor beautiful of this sort
can ever be done ? We must hope so, but we can only
hope it. The exceptional order established at the re-
hearsals of the Societe du Conservatoire, the enthusiasm
of the members of that famous society are universally

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. $3

admired. But we only esteem great rarities ; . . . almost
everywhere in Germany, on the contrafy, I found order
and attention together with true respect for the master
or masters.

For there arc several in fact ; first the composer, who
almost always conducts the rehearsals and performance
of his work himself, at which the self-love of the regular
conductor is never in the least hurt ; the Kapellmeister^
who is generally a clever composer and conducts the
operas of the grand repertoire, and all musical produc-
tions of which the authors are either dead or absent ;
then the Conzertrneister who, besides conducting smaller
operas and ballets, plays the first violin part when he is
not conducting, in which case he conveys the Kapell-
meister''s orders and remarks to the extreme points of
the orchestra, superintends the technical details and
exercises, sees that nothing is amiss in the instruments
or music, and sometimes indicates the bowing and
phrasing of melodies and phrases, an impossible task for
the Kapellmeister, for he always conducts with a baton.

There must undoubtedly exist in all these agglomer-
ations of musicians of unequal merit in Germany many
obscure vanities, unsubjected and ill restrained; but
(with a single exception) I do not remember seeing
them appear on the surface in open speech ; perhaps
because I do not understand German.

As for the conductors of choruses, I have found very
few skillful ones; they are for the most part poor pianists;
1 have even met with one who did not play the piano-
forte at all, and who gave the pitch by striking the keys
with only two fingers of the right hand. Besides, they
have kept up the custom in Germany, as with us, of
bringing together all the parts of a chorus in the same
room and under the same conductor, instead of having
three rooms for practice and three leaders for prelimi-
nary rehearsals, and separating for some days the so-

gj_ FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

praiii and contralti, the basses and tenors ; a proceeding
which economizes time and brings about excellent re-
sults in teaching the various parts of a chorus. Ger-
man chorus singers in general, especially the tenors,
have fresher voices, and of a more distinguished quality
than those which we hear at our theatres; but I should
hesitate in allowing them to be superior to ours, and
you will soon see, if you will follow me to the different
cities I have visited, that all the theatre choruses, with
the possible exception of those at Berlin, Frankfort, and
Dresden, are bad or of very mediocre excellence. The
singing academies, on the contrary, must be regarded
as one of the musical glories of Germany; we will try
further on to find out the reason of this difference.

My journey began under annoying auspices; mishaps
and mischances of every sort succeeded each other in a
perplexing manner, and I assure you, my dear friend,
that it required an almost insane perseverance to pursue
it and bring it to a happy end. I had left Paris think-
ing that three concerts were assured to me at the out-
set: the first was to have been given in Brussels, where
I was engaged by the Societe de la Grande Harmonic;
the other two were already announced in Frankfort by
the director of the theatre, who seemed to attach much
importance to the matter, and to be extremely zealous
in insuring its being put into execution. And what
was the result of all these fine promises, of all this ar-
dor ? Absolutely nothing! It happened in this wise:
Madame Nathan-Treillet had had the kindness to prom-
ise to come from Paris expressly to sing at the Brussels
concert. At the moment of beginning the rehearsals,
and after the pompous announcements of this soirce-
Diusicale, we learn that the cantatrice has just fallen
quite seriously ill, and that her leaving Paris is conse-
c^uently impossible. Madame Nathan-Treillet had left
behind her in Brussels such recollections of the time

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. gq

when she was prinia-donna at the theatre there, that it
may be said without exaggeration that she is wor-
shiped; she is fanatically adored, and all the sym-
phonies in the world would not counterbalance in the
eyes of the Belgians a song of Loisa Puget sung by
Madame Treillet. At the announcement of this catas-
trophe the entire Grande Harmonic fell into syncope,
the tap-room connected with the concert-hall was de-
serted, all the pipes went out as if their supply of air
had been suddenly cut off, the Grand Harmonists dis-
persed amid groans. It was of no use my telling them
as a consolation: "But the concert will not take place;
be calm, you will not have the vexation of hearing my
music; that is a sufficient compensation for such a mis-
fortune, it seems to me! " Nothing would do.

Their eyes distilled tears of beer, ct nolebant consolari^
because Madame Treillet was not coming. So there
is the concert gone to all the devils; the conductor of
the orchestra of this so grandly harmonic society, a man
of true merit, full of devotion to art in his quality of
eminent artist, although little disposed to become a prey
to despair, even when Mademoiselle Puget's songs failed
him, Snel, who had invited me to come to Brussels,
ashamed and confused,

"Jurait, mais un peu tard, qu'on ne I'y prendrait plus."i

What was to be done? Apply to the rival society,
La Philharmonic, conducted by Bender, the leader of the
admirable band of the Guides; make up a brilliant or-
chestra, by joining that of the theatre to the pupils of
the Conservatoire? The thing would have been easy,
thanks to the good will of MM. Henssens, Mertz, Wery,
who had all hastened to exert in my favor their influence
with their pupils and friends on a previous occasion I

^ Swore, but a little late, that he would not be caught again.

36 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY,

But I should have had to begin all over again, with fresh
expenses, and I was pressed for time, supposing myself
to be expected in Frankfort for the two concerts I have
mentioned. There was nothing for it but to go, to go
full of anxiety about the results that the frightful disap-
pointment of the Belgian dilettanti might have, reproach-
ing myself with being the innocent and humiliated
cause. Luckily that remorse is not of the kind that is
liable to last, any more than a cloud of steam, and I had
hardly been an hour on the Rhine boat, when I thought
no more of it. The Rhine! ah! it is beautiful! it is
very beautiful! You think, perhaps, my dear Morel,
that I am going to seize the opportunity to make some
poetic amplifications on that head-^ God preserve me
from it! I know too well that my amplifications would
only be prosaic diminutions, and besides, I hope for
your honor that you have read and reread Victor
Hugo's delightful book.

As soon as I arrived at Mayence I inquired about the
Austrian military band which was stationed there the
year before, and which, Strauss said (the Paris Strauss),
had performed several of my overtures with prodigious
verve, power and effect. The regiment was gone ; no
possibility of any music for wind instruments (this would
have been really a Grand Harmony^), or any concert
whatever ! (I had thought it possible to play this prac-
tical joke upon the inhabitants of Mayence in passing
through). The thing must be tried however ! I go and
see Schott, the patriarch of music publishers. This
worthy man has the appearance of having been asleep
for a hundred years, like the Sleeping Beauty in the
wood, and he answers all my questions slowly, interlard-
ing his words with long rests: *T do not think . . . you
can not . . . give a concert . . . here . . . there is no . . .

1 The pun is untranslatable. Harinonie means in French both Har-
mony, and Music for wind instruments. — Trans.

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY, 2>7

orchestra . . . there is no . . . pubhc ... we have no
money ! . . ."

As I have no enormous amount of . . . patience, I
rush as quickly as may be to the railway and start for
Frankfort. Just as if anything were wanting to com-
plete my irritation ! . . . This railway, it too, is aA
asleep ; it bestirs itself slowly, it does not go ahead, it
loafs, and, that day especially, it made interminable
holds at every station. But every adagio must have an
end at last, and I arrived at Frankfort before night- fall.
There is a charming and wide-awake city ! Everything
has the appearance of activity and opulence ; the city is
also well built, white and glistening like a new five-franc
piece, and the boulevards, planted with shrubbery and
flowers in the English garden style, form a green and
fragrant girdle around it. Although it was in the month
of December, and the green leaves and flowers had long
since disappeared, the sun played in pretty good humor
between the arms of the saddened vegetation ; and,
either from the contrast between these avenues so full
of air and light with the dark Mayence streets, or from
the hope I had of at last beginning my concerts in
Frankfort, or from some other cause which analysis
cannot reach, all the voices of joy and happiness chanted
in chorus within me, and I took a walk for two delicious
hours. Let business wait for to-morrow ! I said to
myself as I went to my hotel.

The next day I accordingly w^ent in good spirits to
the theatre, thinking to find everything ready for my
rehearsals. While crossing the square on which it is
built, seeing some young men carrying wind instru-
ments, I begged them, since they no doubt belonged to
the orchestra, to give my card to the Kapellmeister and
director, Guhr. After reading my name these good
artists changed at once from indifference to a respectful
attention that pleased me very much. One of them,
who spoke French, was spokesman for the rest.

88 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMAXY.

"We are very happy to see you at last. M. Guhr has
for some time told us of your expected arrival. We
have played your overture to Kiiig Lear twice. You
will not find your orchestra of the Conservatoire here ;
but you will perhaps not be dissatisfied, nevertheless!"

Then comes Guhr. He is a little man with a rather
malicious face and bright, piercing eyes; his gestures
are rapid, his speech curt and incisive ; one sees that he
does not sin on the side of over-indulgence when at the
head of his orchestra ; everything about him bespeaks
musical intelligence and good will ; he is a leader. He
speaks French, but not rapidly enough to keep pace
with his impatience, and he mixes up every sentence
with great oaths, pronounced with a German accent,
with the drollest effect. I will only indicate them by
initials. On seeing me :

"Oh ! S. N. T. T.^ . . . is it you, my dear sir? You
did not get my letter then ?"

"What letter?"

"I wrote to you in Brussels to tell you . . . S. N. T.
T. . . . wait a bit ... I can't speak well ... a misfortune
... it is a great misfortune ! . . . Ah ! here is our man-
ager to interpret for me."

And still speaking in French :

"Tell M. Berlioz how much I am vexed ; that I wrote
him not to come yet; that the little MilanoUo sisters
fill the theatre every evening ; that we have never seen
such a furore in the public, S. N. T. T., and that we
must take some other time for great music and grand
concerts."

The Manager. — "M. Guhr wishes me to say, sir,
that . . ."

I. — "Don't take the trouble to repeat it ; I under-
stood it very well, only too well, as he did not say it in
German."

1 The Teutonic pronunciation of S — n— d — D — ! — Trans.

F/J^ST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. go

Guhr.— ''Ah! ah! ah! I spoke French, S. N. T. T.,
without knowing it ! "

I. — "You know very well, and I know too, that I
must either go back again, or else pursue my journey
in all recklessness at the risk of finding elsewhere some
other infant prodigies to checkmate me again."

Guhr. — "What is to be done, my dear sir? the chil-
dren make money, S. N. T. T., French songs make
money, French vaudevilles draw the crowd ; ask your-
self, S. N. T. T., I am director, I can't refuse money;
but stop at least till to-morrow and I will take you to
hear Fidclio with Pischek and Mademoiselle Capitaine,
and, S. N. T. T., you shall give me your opinion of our
artists."

I. — "I believe them to be excellent, especially under
your leadership ; but, my dear Guhr, what is the use of
swearing so much, do you think it consoles me?"

"Ah! ah! S. N. T. T., that's allowed en famille''
(meaning familiarly).

Thereupon I fall into an insane fit of laughing, my
ill humor vanishes, and taking him by the hand :

"Come on then, since we are en famille, come and
drink some Rhine wine. I forgive your little MilanoUos,
and will stop to hear Fidelio and Mademoiselle Capi-
taine, whose lieutenant you have every appearance of
wishing to be."

We agreed that I should set out for Stuttgard in two
days, to try my luck with Lindpaintner and the King of
Wiirtemberg, although I was not expected there. It was
also well to give the Frankforters time to regain their
coolness and to forget the delirious emotions caused by
the violin of the two charming sisters, whom I had been
the first to applaud in Paris, but who were just then
strangely in my way in Frankfort.

I heard Fidelio the next day. This performance was
one of the finest that I heard in Germany; Guhr was

go FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

right in proposing it as a compensation for my disap-
pointment; I have rarely had a more complete musical
enjoyment.

Mademoiselle Capitaine, in the part of Fidelio (Lco-
nore) seemed to me to possess all the musical and dra-
matic ability required by Beethoven's beautiful creation.
Her quality of voice is of a peculiar character which
makes it wholly fit to express sentiments, which, al-
though deep and contained, are always on the verge of
an explosion, like those which fill the heart of Flores-
tans heroic wife. She sings simply, very true, and her
acting never lacks naturalness. In the famous pistol
scene she does not move the audience violently, as
Madame Schroeder-Devrient used to with her convul-
sive, nervous laugh, when we saw her in Paris seventeen
years ago; she fetters the attention, and knows how to
move by other means. Mademoiselle Capitaine is not
a great singer in the brilliant sense of the term ; but of
all the women I have heard in Germany, she is certain-
ly the one I prefer in genre opera; and I had never
heard of her before. I had heard some others men-
tioned beforehand as superior talents, but I found them
thoroughly detestable.

I do not remember, unfortunately, the name of the
tenor who filled the part of Flore stan. He has certain-
ly great excellences, although his voice is by no means
very remarkable. He sang the difficult air in the pris-
on, not, indeed, so as to make one forget Haitzinger,
who soars to a prodigious height in it, but well enough
to merit the applause of a public less cold than that of
Frankfort. As for Pischek, whom I could better appre-
ciate some months afterward in Spohr's Faust, he really
showed me the full importance of the part of the Govern-
or, which we never could understand in Paris; I owe
him genuine gratitude for that alone. Pischek is an art-
ist; he has no doubt studied hard, but nature has fa-

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. g^

vored him much. He has a magnificent baritone voice,
incisive, supple, true, and of sufficient range; his face
is noble, his stature tall, he is young and full of fire !
What a pity that he only speaks German ! The chorus
singers of the Frankfort theatre seemed good, their exe-
cution is careful, their voices fresh, they rarely sing
false; I only wish there were a few more of them.
There is always a certain tartness in these choruses of
forty voices, that is not found in large choral masses.
Not having seen them studying a new work, I cannot
say whether the Frankfort chorus singers are good
readers and musicians or not ; but I must acknowledge
that they rendered very satisfactorily the first prisoners'
chorus, a piece which must be absolutely siutg, and even
better the great finale where enthusiasm and energy
gain the upper hand. As for the orchestra, I declare it
to be excellent ; considering it as a simple theatre or-
chestra, admirable at every point; no bit of delicate
shading escapes it, the various qualities of tone blend in
a harmonious whole entirely free from all harshness; it
never wavers, every note strikes with certainty; it
sounds like a single instrument. Guhr's great skill as a
conductor and his seventy at rehearsals contribute
much, no doubt, to this precious result. Here is its
composition: 8 first violins — 8 second — 4 violas — 5
violoncelli — 4 basses — 2 flutes — 2 oboes — 2 clarinets —
2 bassoons — 4 horns — 2 trumpets — 3 trombones — i
drummer. This force of forty-seven musicians is to be
found, with some very slight variations, in almost every
German city of the second rank; the same is true of its
arrangement, which is this: The violins, violas and
celli occupy the right side of the orchestra; the basses
are placed in a straight line in the middle close to the
rail; the flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and
trumpets are drawn up on the left side; this group faces
the strings; the drums and trombones are placed alone

Q2 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

at the extreme right. As I had no opportunity of put-
ting this orchestra to the severe test of symphonic
studies, I can say nothing of their rapidity of concep-
tion, their aptitude in the capricious or humoristic style,
their rhythmic security, etc., etc., but Guhr assured me
that they were equally good in the concert-room and
the theatre. I must believe him, Guhr not being one
of those fathers who are too prone to admire their own
children. The violins belong to an excellent school;
the basses have a great deal of tone; I don't know how
good the violas are, their part being very unprominent
in the operas I heard performed in Frankfort. The
wind instruments are exquisite in their ensemble ; I
would only mention a fault the horns have of often giv-
ing out a too brassy tone, especially in forcing the high
notes, a fault very common in Germany. This mode of
producing the tone disfigures the quality of the horn;
it may, to be sure, have a good effect at certain times,
but it ought not to be admitted into the school of the
instrument, to my thinking.

At the close of this excellent performance of Fidelio
ten or twelve of the audience condescended to applaud
a little in going away . . . and that was all. I was in-
dignant at such coldness, and as some one was trying
to persuade me that, if the audience did not applaud,
they none the less admired and felt the beauties of the
work :

'*No," said Guhr, ** they understand nothing; nothing
whatever, S. N. T. T." He was right; it is a public of
bourgeois!

I had seen in a box that evening my old friend
Ferdinand Hiller, who lived for a long time in Paris,
where connoisseurs still often mention his high musical
capacity. We quickly renewed our acquaintance and
took up our old tone of good-fellowship. Hiller is at
work on an opera for the Frankfort theatre. He wrote

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. C)7,

an oratorio two years ago, The Fall of Jerusalem, which
was given several times with great success. He fre-
quently gives concerts at which are performed, besides
fragments of this noteworthy work, various instrumental
compositions which he has written lately, and which are
very highly spoken of Unfortunately, whenever I have
been in Frankfort, it has invariably happened that Kil-
ler's concerts came the day after I had to go, so that I
can only quote the opinions of other people about him,
which will wholly clear me of the charge of too enthusi-
astic friendship. At his last concert he gave as novel-
ties an overture, which was warmly received, and several
pieces for four male voices and one soprano, the effect
of which is said to be sparklingly original.

Frankfort has one musical institution which has been
frequently spoken of to me in terms of the highest
praise ; it is the Singing Academy of St Cecilia. It
passes for being as well composed as it is large ; never-
theless, as I was not admitted to examine it, I must
maintain an absolute reserve on the subject.

Although the bourgeois element is predominant among
the mass of the public in Frankfort, yet it seems to
me impossible, considering the large number of per-
sons of the higher classes who attend seriously to music,
that an intelligent audience, capable of appreciating
great works of art cannot be brought together. At
any rate, I did not have the time to make the experi-
ment.

I must now, my dear Morel, scrape together my rec-
ollections of Lindpaintner and the Stuttgard orchestra.
I shall find in them a subject for a second letter, but it
will not be addressed to you ; ought not I to answer also
those of our friends who have shown themselves so
eager to know the details of my German exploration ?

Good-bye.

P.S. Have you published any new songs ? I hear
3*

Q4 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

nothing talked about but the success of your last melo-
dies. I heard yesterday the parlaiido rondeau, Page et
mart, which you wrote to words by the son of Alexan-
dre Dumas. I declare that it is fine, coquettish, piquant
and charming. You have never written anything so
good in this style. This rondeaiL will have an unbeara-
ble popularity, you will be put into the pillory of all the
hand-organs, and will have richly deserved it

TO M. GIRARD

SECOND LETTER.

STUTTGARD, HECHINGEN.

THE first thing I did before quitting Frankfort to
seek adventures in the kingdom of Wiirtemberg
was to get information about the means of execution to
be found in Stuttgard, to draw up a program in accord-
ance with them, and to take with me only such music
as was absolutely indispensable to carry it out. You
must know, my dear Girard, that one of the greatest
difficulties of my journey through Germany, and one
which was the least easy to foresee, was the enormous
expense of carrying about my music. You will easily
understand it, when I tell you that this mass of orches-
tral and choral parts, either in manuscript or lithograph-
ed or engraved, was enormously heavy, and that I was
forced to have it follow me almost everywhere in the
post- vans. ^ Only this time, uncertain whether to go to
Munich after my visit to Stuttgard, or to come back to
Frankfort, and go thence northward, I took with me two
symphonies, an overture and some vocal pieces, leaving
all the rest with the unhappy Guhr, who, it seems, was
fated to be troubled with my music in one way or an-
other.

1 The multitude of railways which furrow up Germany in every direc-
tion nowadays, did not exist then.

q5 first journey to GERMANY.

The road from Frankfort to Stuttgard offers no point
of interest, neither did the trip leave any impression
upon me worth telHng you ; not a single romantic site
to describe, not a dark forest, not a convent, not a soli-
tary chapel, not a water-fall, no great nocturnal noise,
not even that of Don Quixote's wind-mills ; neither
hunters, nor milk-maids, nor weeping young maiden,
nor lost heifer, nor abandoned child, nor distracted
mother, nor shepherd, nor thief, nor beggar, nor brig-
and ; upon the whole, only moonlight, the noise of the
horses and the snoring of our conductor fast asleep.
Now and then some ugly peasants, with wide, three-cor-
nered hats, and dressed in immense frocks of ex-white
cloth, of which the skirts, of inordinate length, kept
getting entangled between their muddy legs ; a costume
which made them look like village ciu^es in intense ficg-
lige. That was all ! The first person I had to see on
arriving in Stuttgard, the only one, indeed, whom dis-
tant business relations, carried on through the mediation
of a common friend, gave me any reason to suppose
well disposed toward me, was Dr. Schilling, author of a
great number of theoretical and critical works on the
art of music. This title of Doctor, which almost every-
body bears in Germany, had led me to augur not par-
ticularly well of him. I had imagined some old pedant,
with spectacles and a red wig, an immense snuff-box,
always astride of his hobby of fugue and counterpoint,
speaking of nobody but Bach and Marpurg, externally
polite perhaps, but at bottom full of hatred of modern
music in general, and horror of mine in particular ; a
sort of musical skinflint in fact. But see how we can
mistake ; M. Schilling is not old, he does not wear spec-
tacles, he has very handsome black hair, he is full of
vivacity, speaks quickly and loud, like pistol-shots ; he
smokes and does not take snuff; he received me very
well, showed me, to start with, what I must do to give a

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

concert, never spoke a word about fugue or canon,
manifested no contempt either for Les Huguenots or
Guillainne Tell, and did not show any aversion to my
music before hearing it.

Moreover, our conversation was anything but easy
when we had no interpreter, M. SchiUing speaking
French about as well as I speak German. Impatient at
not making himself understood :

"Do you speak English ?" he asked me one day.

*'I know a few words ; and you ? "

"I ... no ! But Italian, do you speak Italian ?"

'^ Si, tin poco. Come si cJiiauia il direttore del tea-
trof'

"Ah ! the devil ! me no speak Italian either! . . ."

I believe, God forgive me, that if I had declared that
I understood neither English nor Italian, the ebullient
doctor had an idea of playing with me In those lan-
guages the scene in the Medecin malgre lui : Areit/iu-
ram, catalamus, nominativo, singulariter ; est ne oratio
latin as ?

We got to trying Latin, in which we understood each
other quite decently, not without some arcithuram, eat-
alanius. But It Is conceivable that our conversation
was rather lame and did not run precisely on Herder's
Ideas nor Kant's Critique of Piwe Reason. At last M.
Schilling made out to tell me that I could give my con-
cert either in the theatre or In a hall intended for mu-
sical solemnities of that nature, called the hall of the
Redoute. In the former case, beside the advantage of
the presence of the king and court, which he thought I
would surely obtain, an enormous advantage In a city
like Stuttgard, I should get my executants gratis, with-
out the trouble of attending to tickets, advertisements,
or any other material details of the evening. In the lat-
ter I should have to pay my orchestra, take all the burden
upon my own shoulders, and the king would not come ;
9

qS first JOURXEY to GERMANY.

he never went to the concert- room. I followed, accord-
ingly, the doctor's advice, and rushed to present my
petition to M. le baron Topenheim, grand marshal of
the court and inteiidant of the theatre. He received
me with charming politeness, assuring me that he would
speak to the king that very evening about my petition,
and that he thought it would be granted.

*'But I beg you to observe that the hall of the Re-
doute is the only good one, and the only one well
adapted for concerts ; that the theatre, on the contrary,
has such bad acoustic properties, that the idea of giving
any instrumental composition of importance there has
been given up long ago."

I hardly knew what to answer, nor what to decide
upon. Let us go and see Lindpaintner, I said to my-
self; he is, and ought to be, the sovereign judge. I can
hardly tell you, my dear Girard, how much good my
first interview with that excellent artist did me. After
ten minutes we seemed to have been friends for ten
years. Lindpaintner soon explained my position to me.

**To begin with," said he, "you must undeceive your-
self as to the musical importance of our city ; it is a
royal residence, to be sure, but has neither money nor
a musical public." (Wa ! Wa ! I thought of Mayence
and father Schott). "Nevertheless, since you are here,
it shall not be said that we have let you go without per-
forming some of your compositions, which we are very
curious to become acquainted with. Here is what is to
be done. The theatre is worthless, absolutely worthless
for musical purposes. The question of the king's pres-
ence is of no importance ; as he never goes to a concert,
he will not come to yours wherever you give it. There-
fore take the hall of the Redoute, of which the acoustics
are excellent, and where the orchestra can have its full
effect. As for the musicians, you will only have to pay
the small sum of 8o francs to their pension fund, and

FIR ST JO URNE Y TO GERM A N V. gg

they all will consider it a duty and an honor, not only
to perform, but to rehearse your works several times
under your direction. Come this evening and hear the
Frcyschiit:^ ; I will present you to the orchestra in one
of the entractcs, and you will see whether I am wrong
in answering for their good will."

I took good care not to miss the appointment. Lind-
paintner presented me to the artists, and after he had
translated a little speech I thought myself called upon
to make them, my doubts and anxieties disappeared; I
had an orchestra.

I had an orchestra composed very much like that in
Frankfort, young and full of fire and vigor. I saw this
by the way in which all the instrumental part of We-
ber's masterpiece was executed. The chorus seemed
to me ordinary enough, neither numerous nor very
careful in rendering the well-known effects of light and
shade in that admirable score. They sang always
mezzo-forte and seemed quite sufficiently bored by their
task. The actors were all of decent mediocrity. I do
not remember the names of any of them. The prinia-
doiuia [Agathe) has a sonorous voice, but hard and
wanting flexibility : the seconda i^Acnnchcii) vocalizes
more easily, but often sings false ; the baritone (^Caspar)
is, to my thinking, the Stuttgard theatre's best card. I
afterward heard this troupe sing La Muctte de Portici
without changing my opinion of them.

Lindpaintner astonished me in conducting these two
operas by the rapid tempo he took in certain numbers.
I have since then seen many German Kapellmeisters
who have the same way of thinking on this point ; such
are, among others, Mendelssohn, Krebs and Guhr. As
to the tempi in the FrcyseJiiitz, I have nothing to say,
for they have undoubtedly the true traditions much bet-
ter than I ; but as for La Muette, La Vestale, Moise and
the Huguenots^ which have been put upon the stage in

lOO FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

Paris under the very eyes of the composers, and in
which the tempi have been preserved as they were given
at the first performances, I affirm that the rapidity with
which I have heard certain parts of those scores per-
formed in Stuttgard, Leipzig, Hamburg and Frankfort is
an unfaithfulness of execution; an involuntary unfaith-
fulness, no doubt, but real and very hurtful to the ef-
fect. Yet we think in France that the Germans drag all
our tempi.

The Stuttgard orchestra comprises 1 6 violins — 4
violas — 4 violoncelli — 4 basses, and the necessary wind
instruments and instruments of percussion for the per-
formance of most modern operas. But there is besides
an excellent harp, M. Kriiger, and this is truly a rarity
in Germany. The study of this beautiful instrument is
neglected there in a ridiculous and even barbarous man-
ner, without any discoverable cause. I incline to think
that it has always been so, considering that none of the
masters of the German school have made use of it. We
find no harp in Mozart's works; neither in Don Gio-
vanni, nor in Figaro, nor in the Magic Flute, nor in the
Seraglio, nor in Idomeneo, nor in Cost fan tntte, nor in
his masses nor his symphonies; Weber has kept equally
aloof from it everywhere; the same is true of Haydn
and Beethoven'; Gluck alone has written a very easy
harp part for one Jiand in OrpJieus, and this opera was
written and performed in Italy. There is something in
this which astonishes and at the same time irritates me!
... It is a disgrace to German orchestras, which ought
to have at least two harps, especially now that they give
operas coming from France and Italy, in which they are
so often used.

The Stuttgard violins are excellent; one sees that
they are for the most part pupils of the Conzertmeister,

1 Berlioz is not quite right liere; there is an important harp obbligata
in the Prometheus music. — Trans.

FIRS T JO URNE V TO GERM A NY. j q i

MoHque, whose vigorous playing, broad and severe
style, somewhat wanting in light and shade though it
be, and whose learned compositions we admired some
years ago at the Conservatoire. Molique, occupying
the first desk of the violins at the theatre and concerts,
has for the most part to direct only his own pupils, who
profess a very proper respect and admiration for him.
Hence a precious precision of execution, a precision due
as much to the unity of sentiment and method as to
the attention of the players.

I must especially mention among them the second
ConzerUneister, Habenheim, a distinguished artist in
every respect, a cantata of whose I heard, in an express-
ive melodic style, of pure harmony and very well scored.

The other strings, if not equal to the violins, are at
least of sufficient excellence to be counted as good. I
will say as much for the wind instruments: the first
clarinet and the first oboe are capital. The artist who
plays first flute, M. Kriiger Sr., uses, unfortunately, an
old instrument which leaves much to be desired in point
of purity of tone in general, and in facility of emission
of the high notes. M. Kriiger ought also to be on his
guard against a tendency which at times leads him to
make trills and gruppctti where the composer has not
written any.

The first bassoon, M. Neukirchner, is a virtuoso of
the first order, who is perhaps too fond of making a dis-
play of great difficulties; he plays, moreover, on so bad
a bassoon that doubtful intonations wound the ear it
every instant and mar the effect of even those phrases
which the player gives in the best manner. Among the
horns is to be distinguished M. Schuncke; he, like his
brother horn-players in Frankfort, rather forces the tone
of his high notes. The horns with cylinders (chromatic
horns) are used exclusively in Stuttgard. The able
maker, Adolphe Sax, now established in Paris, has

102 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

abundantly proved the superiority of this system over
that of pistons, which is now as good as abandoned
throughout Germany, whereas horns, trumpets, bom-
bardons, bass-tubas with cyhnders, are coming into
general use. The Germans call instruments to which
this system is applied, valve instruments (vciitil-Jiorii^
vcntil-tronipete). I was surprised not to see it adopt-
ed in the trumpets of the military band, which is good
enough in other respects, at Stuttgard; they still use
the trumpets with two pistons, very imperfect instru-
ments, and far behind the trumpets with cylinders,
which are used almost everywhere else, in sonority and
quality of tone. I do not speak of Paris; we shall come
to that in ten years or so.

The trombones are fine: the first (M. Schrade), who
belonged to the orchestra of the Concert Vivienne four
3^ears ago in Paris, has genuine talent. He has a com-
plete mastery over his instrument, makes light of the
greatest difficulties and brings out a magnificent tone
from the tenor trombone; I might even say tones, for
he can produce three or four notes at a time, by a
process not yet explained, like that young horn-player'
who recently took up the attention of the Parisian mu-
sical press. Schrade, in a cadenza in a Fantaisie which
he performed in public in Stuttgard, produced simulta-
neously, and to everybody's astonishment, the four
notes of the chord of the dominant seventh in the key
of B<^, in this position:

F
Acousticians ought to explain this new phenomenon in
the resonance of sonorous tubes; we musicians ought

^Vivier, the clever mystifier; an eccentric artist, but one of real merit
and very rare musical gifts.

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. 103

to study it thoroughly and turn It to account when the
opportunity presents itself.

Another merit of the Stuttgard orchestra is, that it
is composed of intrepid readers, who are disturbed and
disconcerted by nothing, who read at once the note and
the shading, who at first sight let neither a P nor an F,
nor a inczzo-fortc nor a smorzando escape them. They
are also well broken in to all caprices of rhythm and
measure, do not always cling hold of the strong beats,
but know how to accentuate weak beats without hesita-
tion, and pass unembarrassed from one syncopation to
another without seeming to perform a laborious feat.
In a word, their musical education is complete in every
respect. I could recognize these precious qualities in
them from the time of the first rehearsal for my concert.
I had chosen the SympJionie fantastique and the over-
ture to the Francs- Jugcs. You know how full both
these works are of rhythmical difficulties, of syncopated
phrases, crossed syncopations, groups of four notes
against groups of three, etc., etc. ; things we to-day at
the Conservatoire hurl vigorously at the head of the
public, but which we have had to work at much and
long. I had, then, to fear a host of mistakes in various
passages in the overture and in the finale of the sym-
phony ; I could not detect a single one, all was seen,
read and conquered at the first dash. My astonishment
was extreme. Yours will not be less, when I tell you
that we played this devilish symphony and the rest of
the program after two rehearsals. The effect would
even have been very satisfactory if either real or pre-
tended cases of illness had not carried off half my vio-
lins on the day of the concert. Can you see me with
four first violins and four second, to cope with all those
wind instruments and instruments of percussion ? For
the epidemic had spared the rest of the orchestra, and
nothing was wanting, nothing but half the violins ! Oh !

1 04 FIRST JO URNE Y TO GERM A NY.

in a case like that I would do like Max in the Frcy-
schiltz, and to get violins I would sign a compact with
all the devils of hell. It was all the more heart-breaking
and irritating that, in spite of Lindpaintner's predictions,
the king and court came to the concert. Notwithstand-
ing the desertion of a few desks, the execution was, if
not powerful (that was impossible), at least intelligent,
precise and fiery. The movements of the Fantastic
SympJwny which made the most effect were the adagio
(the scene in the fields), and the finale (the Walpurgis-
night's dream). The overture was warmly received ; as
for the March of the Pilgri7ns from Harold, which was
also on the program, it passed by almost unnoticed.
The same thing happened on another occasion, when I
had the imprudence to have it played alone ; whereas,
everywhere that I have given Harold entire, the march
has been received as it is in Paris, and often encored.
A new proof of the necessity of not dismembering cer-
tain compositions, and of producing them in their proper
light, and from the point of view which belongs to them.
Must I now tell you that I received all sorts of con-
gratulations after the concert from the king, from M. le
comte Neiperg and Prince Jerome Bonaparte ? Why
not ? It is well enough known that princes are in gen-
eral exceedingly gracious to foreign artists, but I should
really be wanting in modesty if I were to repeat to you
what some of the musicians said to me on that evening
and the following days. But after all, why not be want-
ing in modesty ? So as not to make some chained bull-
dogs growl, who would like to bite every one who
passes unchained before their kennel ? That would in-
deed make it worth my while to go and mumble some
old formulas and act a farce that nobody is deceived by !
True modesty consists then, not only in not talking
about one's self, but in not making one's self talked
about, in not drawing public attention to one's self, in

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. 105

saying nothing, writing nothing, doing nothing, in hid-
ing one's self, in not existing. Is not that an absurdity ?
. . . And, besides, I have determined upon avowing
everything, good and bad ; I have already begun in my
preceding letter, and I am ready to go on in this one.
Thus I greatly fear that Lindpaintner, who is a master,
and whose good opinion I was very ambitious of obtain-
ing, profoundly abhorred my symphony, only approving
the overture ; I would bet that Molique approved noth-
ing. As for Dr. Schilling, I am sure that he found the
whole execrable, and that he was deeply ashamed of
having taken the first steps towards exhibiting in Stutt-
gard a brigand of my sort, strongly suspected of having
violated Music, and who, if he could succeed in inspiring
her with his own passion for the open air and vagabond
life, would make a sort of bohemian of the chaste muse,
not so much an Esmeralda as a Helen MacGregor, an
armed virago with hair floating on the breeze and a dark
tunic sparkling with brilliant gew-gaws, bounding bare-
foot over wild crags, dreaming to the noise of the winds
and the thunder, whose black glance scares women and
troubles men without inspiring them with love.

Schilling, in his character of counsellor to the Prince
of Hohenzollern-Hechingen, did not fail to write to his
Highness and propose to him as an amusement the cu-
rious savage, more suited to the Black Forest than to a
civilized city. And the savage, curious to know every-
thing, received an invitation couched in language as
obliging as it was choice, from M. le baron de Billing,
another intimate counsellor of the prince, and set out
over snow and through the great pine woods for the
little town of Hechingen, without troubling himself too
much about what he could do there. This excursion in
the Black Forest has left in me a confused mixture of
joyful, sad, sweet and painful remembrances, which I
could not now recall witlK)ut almost inexpressible men-

I06 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

tal anguish. The cold, the double mourning of black
and white spread over the mountains, the wind howling
through the shuddering pines, that silent gnawing at the
heart which is so active in solitude, a sad episode of a
melancholy novel read during the trip. . . Then the
arrival at Hechingen, the gay faces, the prince's kind-
ness, the festival of new year's day, the ball, the concert,
the mad laughter, the projects of meeting again in Paris,
and . . . the farewell . . . and the departure ... oh ! I
suffer ! . . . What devil prompted me to tell you all
this story, which does not indeed contain, as you will
see, any moving or romantic incident? . . . But I am so
made that I suffer at times without any apparent cause,
as, in certain electric conditions of the atmosphere, the
leaves on the trees move when there is no wind blowing.

. . . Luckily, my dear Girard, you have known me a
long time, and you will not think this exposition with-
out a catastrophe too ridiculous ; this introduction with-
out an allegro, this theme without a fugue ! Ah !
Egad ! a theme without a fugue is rare good luck, you
must allow. And we who have both read over a thou-
sand fugues which had no theme, without counting those
which had bad ones. Come ! there is my melancholy
taking wings, thanks to the interv^ention of the fugue
(old dotard who has so often brought boredom), I am
regaining my good spirits, and . . . will tell you about
Hechingen.

When I said just now that it is a little town, I exag-
gerated its geographical importance. Hechingen is only
a large village, a market-town at the very most, built
on quite a steep hill-side, about like the part of Mont-
martre which crowns the butte, or, still better, like the
village of Subiaco in the Roman States. Above the
town, and situated so as to command it completely,
stands the Villa Eugenia, occupied by the prince. On
the right of this little palace is a deep valley, and, a

F//^S T JO URNE Y TO GR RMA X Y. ^01

little farther on, a sharp, bare peak crowned by the okl
castle of HohenzoUern, which is now nothing more than
a hunting rendezvous, after having long been the feudal
homestead of the prince's ancestors.

The present sovereign of this romantic landscape is
an intelligent young man, lively and good, and w4io
seems to have but two constant preoccupations in this
world ; the desire to make the inhabitants of his little
states as happy as possible, and the love of music. Can
you conceive of a more pleasant existence than his ?
He sees every one contented around him ; his subjects
adore him ; music loves him ; he understands it as a
poet and musician ; he composes charming Liedcr, of
which two, dcr Fischcrknahe and des ScJujfcrs Abcnd-
licd, really touched me by the expression of their mel-
ody. He sings them with the voice of a composer, but
with an infectious fire and in accents of the soul and
heart ; he has, if not a theatre, at least a chapel (an
orchestra), conducted by a master of pre-eminent merit,
Techlisbeck, wdiose symphonies the Conservatoire in
Paris has often performed with honor, and who conducts
the simpler masterpieces of instrumental music without
ostentation, but prepared with care. Such is the amia-
ble prince whose invitation was so agreeable to me and
from whom I received the most cordial welcome.

On arriving at Hechingen I renewed my acquaintance
with Techlisbeck. I had known him in Paris five years
before ; he overpowered me with attentions at his
house, and with those proofs of genuine kindness which
one never forgets. He soon acquainted me with the
musical forces that were at our disposal. There were
eight violins in all, of which three were very weak, three
violas, two violoncelli, two basses. The first violin.
Stern, is a virtuoso of talent. The first cello, Oswald,
deserves the same distinction. The recording pastor of
Hechingen plays the double-bass to the satisfaction of

I o 8 ^'^^^^' T 70 C7KNE Y TO GERMANY.

the most particular composers. The first flute, the first
oboe and the first clarinet are excellent ; only the first
flute is sometimes stung with that -desire for fioriture
that I have mentioned in the one at Stuttgard. The
second wind instruments are good enough. The two
bassoons and the two horns leave somewhat to be de-
sired. As for the trumpets and the trombone (there is
but one), they make you wish that you had asked them
to be silent whenever they play. They know nothing.

I see you laughing, my dear Girard, and asking me
what I could have performed by so small an orchestra?
Well ! by patience and good will, by arranging and
modifying certain parts, and by having five rehearsals in
three days, we got up the overture to King Lear, the
March of the Pilgrims, the Ball-scene of the Fantastic
Symphony, and divers other fragments proportionate in
size to the frame destined to receive them.

I had written in pencil on the viola part the essential
notes of the third and fourth horns (since we could have
only the first and second); Techlisbeck played the first
harp part of the Ball-scene on the piano-forte; he was
also good enough to take upon himself the viola solo in
the march from Harold. The Prince of Hechingen
stood beside the drummer to count his rests for him
and to set him agoing at the right time; I had cut out
of the trumpet parts such passages as we found inaccess-
ible to the two performers. Only the trombone was
left to his own devices; but by giving only those notes
with which he was very familiar, B^, D and F, and
carefully avoiding all others, he shone almost every-
where by his silence. You should have seen how vital-
ly and rapidly musical impressions circulated in that
pretty concert-room where his Highness had called to-
gether a numerous audience! Nevertheless, you will
no doubt imagine that I only felt a pleasure mingled
with impatience at all these manifestations; and when

FJKS T yo URNE V TO GERM A NY. j 09

the prince came to shake me by the hand I could not
help saying to him:

"Ah ! monseigneur, I swear I would give two of the
years I have yet to live to have my orchestra of the
Conservatoire here now, to have it try conclusions be-
fore you with these scores which you judge with so
much indulgence!"

"Yes, yes, I know," he answered, **you have an im-
perial orchestra which calls you: Sire! and I am only
a Highness; but I shall come to Paris to hear it, I shall
come, I shall come!"

May he keep his word! His applause, which still
weighs upon my heart, seems an ill-gotten gain.

After the concert there was a supper at Villa Eu-
genia. The charming gayety of the prince communicat-
ed itself to all his guests ; he wished me to hear one of
his compositions for tenor, piano- forte and violoncello;
Techlisbeck sat down at the piano-forte, the composer
took the voice part upon himself, and I was detailed to
sing the cello part by general acclamation. The piece
was much applauded, and they laughed almost as much
at the singular quality of tone of my first string. The
ladies especially could not get over my A.

The next day but one, after many farewells, I had to
return to Stuttgard. The snow was thawing on the
great weeping pines, the white mantle of the mountains
was becoming mottled with black spots; ... it was pro-
foundly sad, . . . the heart-gnawing could set to work
again. . . .

TJie rest is silence. . . .
Farewell.

TO LISZT.

THIRD LETTER.

MANHEIM, WEIMAR.

ON returning from Hechingen, I stopped a few days
in Stuttgard, a prey to new perplexities. I might
have answered all questions addressed to me about my
projects, and the future course of the journey I had just
begun, as that character in Moliere did :

*' Non, je ne reviens point, car je n'ai point ete;
Je ne vais pas non plus, car je suis arrete,
Et ne demeure point, car tout de ce pas nieme
Je pretends m'en aller." . . .'

Go . . . where ? I did not know. I had written to
Weimar, to be sure, but the answer persisted in not
coming, and I had absolutely to wait before deciding
upon anything.

You do not know these uncertainties, my dear Liszt;
you little care about knowing whether the orchestra in
the city you intend passing through is well composed,
whether the theatre is open, whether the iiitendant is
willing to place it at your disposal, etc. After all, of

1 No, I have not come back, for I have not been ; neither am I going,
for I have been stopped, and I am not going to slay, for at this very mo-
ment I am trying to go.
IIO

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. j j j

what use is such Information to you ? You can say
with confidence, changing the saying of Louis XIV :

'' Lorchcstrc, c'est moi ! le cJiocur, cest moil le cJicf,
cest encore moi! (The orchestra; I am the orchestra!
the chorus; I am the chorus! the conductor; I am the
conductor too !)." My piano-forte sings, dreams, ex-
plodes, resounds ; it defies the flight of the most skillful
bows; it has, like the orchestra, its brazen harmonies;
like it, and without the least preparation, it can give to
the evening breeze its cloud of fairy chords and vague
melodies ; I need neither theatre, nor box-scene, nor
much staging; I have not to tire myself out at long re-
hearsals ; I want neither a hundred, nor fifty, nor twenty
players ; I do not even want any at all ; I do not even
need any music. A grand hall, a grand piano-forte,
and I am master of a grand audience. I show myself
and am applauded ; my memory awakens, dazzling
fantasies grow beneath my fingers, enthusiastic accla-
mations answer them ; I sing Schubert's Ave Maria or
Beethoven's Adelaide, and all hearts tend tow^ards me,
all breasts hold their breath. . . . Then come luminous
bombs, the bouquet of this grand firew^ork, and the
cries of the public, and the flowers and crowns that rain
around the priest of harmony shuddering on his tripod ;
and the young beauties who, all in tears in their divine
confusion, kiss the hem of his cloak ; and the sincere
homage drawn from serious minds, and the feverish ap-
plause torn from envy ; the lofty browns that bow down
and the narrow hearts marveling to find themselves
expanding. . . . And the next day, when the young
inspired one has spread abroad what of his inexhaustible
passion he wishes to spread abroad, he goes away, he
vanishes, leaving behind him a dazzling tw^ilight of en-
thusiasm and glory. ... It is a dream ! . . . One of
those golden dreams one has when one is called Liszt
or Paganini.

112 FJKST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

But the composer who would try, as I did, to travel
about bringing out his own works ; what fatigues what
ungrateful and ever-renewed toil must he not expect ! . . .
Do people realize what a torment rehearsals may be to
him ? . . . To begin with, he has to meet the cold looks
of all the musicians who are only half pleased at being
unexpectedly disturbed on his account and being sub-
jected to unaccustomed tasks. — ''What does this
Frenchman want? Why does he not stop at home?"
They take their places at their desks nevertheless, but
at the first glance the composer is aware of annoying
gaps in the orchestra. He asks the Kapellmeister the
reason: **The first clarinet is ill, the oboe has a wife at
an interesting crisis, the first violin's child has the
croup, the trombones are on parade ; they forgot to
ask for exemption from military duty for that day ; the
drummer has sprained his wrist, the harp will not come
to the rehearsal because he must have time to practice
his part, etc., etc." They begin, though, and the notes
are read as well as may be, in a tempo more than twice
as slow as that of the composer ; nothing is so horrible
as this dragging out of the rhythm ! Little by little his
instinct gets the upper hand, his heated blood forces him
on, he hurries the measure and comes in spite of himself
to the proper tempo ; then confusion declares itself, a
formidable hodge-podge of sounds tears his ears and
his heart ; he must stop and take the tempo slower, and
practice piecemeal those long periods whose free and
rapid course he has so often guided before with other
orchestras. Even that will notdo; in spite oi the slow
tempo, strange dissonances are audible in certain parts
of the wind instruments ; he tries to find out the cause :
"Let us try the trumpets alone ! . . . What are you doing
there ? I ought to hear a third, and you are giving me
a chord of the second. The second trumpet in C has a
D, give me your D ! . . . Very good ! The first has a C

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY, 113

which sounds F, give me your C ! Oh ! . . . horrors !
you are giving me an E<^ !"

*'No, sir, I am playing what is written !"

"But I tell you you are not, you are a zvJiole tone
out!"

*'But I am sure that I played C !"

"What key is the trumpet in you are playing on?"

"In E^!"

"There ! What are you talking about? You ought
to take the trumpet in F ! "

"Ah! I did not read the direction right; you are
right, excuse me."

"Come ! What devil of a row are you making over
there, you, the drummer?"

"I have a fortissimo, sir."

"Not a bit of it, it is a mezzo-forte, there are not two
/s, but an M and an F. Besides you are playing with
wooden drum-sticks, and you ought to take sponge-
headed sticks at that place ; it makes all the difference
between black and white."

"We don't know what you mean," says the Kapell-
meister; "what do you mean by sponge-headed sticks?
we have never seen more than one kind of sticks."

"I thought as much; I have brought some from Paris.
Take a pair that I have put on that table. Now, are
we ready? . . . Good God! that is twenty times too
loud! And you have not put on any mutes! ..."

"No, we have not got any; the orchestra boy forgot
to put them on the desks; we will get some to-morrow,
etc., etc."

After three or four hours of exchanging shots in this
anti-harmonic fashion, not a single piece has been made
intelligible. Everything is broken, disjointed, false,
cold, flat, noisy, discordant, hideous! And that is the
impression which must be left on the minds of sixty or
eighty musicians who go away tired out and discontent-

I 14 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

ed, to tell everybody that they do not know what it all
means, that that music is a pandemonium, a chaos, that
they never fell foul of the like of it before. The next
day scarcely perceptible progress is made ; it hardly be-
comes clearly manifest on the third day. Then only
does the poor composer begin to breathe; well-poised
harmonies become clear, rhythms bound along, melodies
weep and smile; the compact, united mass rushes on
boldly; after all this groping and stuttering, the orches-
tra expands, it walks, it speaks, it becomes human!
Understanding brings back courage to the astonished
players; the composer asks for a fourth trial; his inter-
preters, who are, upon the whole, the best sort of people
in the world, grant it readily. This time, fiat lux!
''Attend to the light and shade? You are not afraid ?" —
*'No! give us the ygbX tempo/" — " Via/" And there is
light, the art appears, the thought glistens, the work is
understood! And the orchestra rises, applauding and
saluting the composer ; the Kapellmeister comes to con-
gratulate him; curious persons, who have kept aloof in
the shade of dark corners, climb up on to the stage, and
exchange exclamations of pleasure and astonishment
with the musicians, looking all the while with surprised
faces at the stranger whom they had at first taken for a
madman or a barbarian. Now is the time that you
would think he needed rest. Let the unhappy man take
anything but that! Now is the time for him to redouble
his pains and attention. He must come back before the
concert to oversee the placing of the music stands, to
inspect the orchestral parts and be sure that they have
not got mixed. He must pass through the ranks, red
pencil in hand, and mark down on the music of the wind
instruments the names of the keys as they are under-
stood in Germany, instead of those used in France; put
everywhere in C, in D, in Des, in Fis, instead of e7t nt,
en ;V, en re bcmol, en fa diese. He has to transpose an

FIRST JOURXEY TO GERMANY. j j ^

English-horn solo for the oboe, because the English-
horn is not found in the orchestra he is to conduct, and
the player often hesitates to transpose himself He
must go and make the chorus and singers rehearse by
themselves if they have not shown enough assurance.
But the public arrives, the hour strikes; tired out, bro-
ken with fatigue of mind and body, the composer pre-
sents himself at the conductor's desk, hardly able to
stand on his feet, uncertain, disgusted, up to the mo-
ment when the applause of the audience, the verve of
the players, his love for his own work, suddenly trans-
form him into an electric machine, whence dart fulmi-
nating irradiations, invisible, but real. And his com-
pensation begins. Ah! it is then, I admit, that the
conductor-composer lives a life unknown to the virtuoso.
With what furious joy he gives himself up to the happi-
ness o{ playing upon the orcJicstra I How he presses in
his arms, how he embraces, how he hugs the immense
and impetuous instrument ! He has acquired a thousand-
fold power of attention; his eye is everywhere; he in-
dicates with a glance the points of entry of the voices
and instruments, above, below, on the right hand and
the left; he hurls with his right arm terrible chords that
seem to burst afar off like harmonious projectiles; then
at the holds he stops all this movement that he has com-
municated; he enchains the attention of all ; he suspends
the motion of every arm, of every breath, listens an in-
stant in silence . . . and again gives more passionate
impetus to the fiery whirlwind he has subdued..

" I^uctantes ventos tempestatesque sonoras
Imperio premit, ac vinclis et carcere frenat."

And in the great adagios, how happy he is to rock
gently on his beauteous lake of harmony ! listening to
the hundred intertwined voices singing his hymns of
love, or seeming to confide his complaints of the present

I 1 5 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

and his regrets of the past to soHtude and to night.
Then, often, but only then, does the conductor-com-
poser wholly forget his audience ; he listens to and
judges himself; and if the emotion seizes upon him,
shared by the artists who surround him, he no longer
considers the impression upon the public, too far re-
moved from him. If his heart has quivered at the con-
tact of the poetic melody, if he has felt that inward
glow that shows his soul to be on fire, the goal is
reached, the heaven of art is opened to him, what mat-
ters the earth ! . . .

Then at the end of the evening, when the grand suc-
cess has been won ! His joy is increased an hundred-
fold, shared as it is by all the satisfied self-loves of his
army. Thus you, great virtuosos, you are princes and
kings by the grace of God, you are born on the steps
of the throne; composers must fight, subdue, and con-
quer, to reign. But even the fatigues and dangers of
the tussle add to the lustre and the intoxication of their
victories, and they would perhaps be happier than you
. . . had they but always soldiers.

My dear Liszt, this is a long digression, and I was on
the point of forgetting, in my chit-chat with you, to
continue the story of my journey. I will return to it.

During the few days that I passed in Stuttgard wait-
ing for letters from Weimar, the Society of the Redoute,
under the conductorship of Lindpaintner, gave a bril-
liant concert, where I had a second opportunity for
observing the coldness with which the great German
public in general receives the most colossal conceptions
of the immense Beethoven. The overture to Leonore,
a truly monumental work, played with rare verve and
precision, was hardly applauded, and I heard in the
evening, at the table d'hote, a gentleman complaining
that they did not give Haydn's symphonies instead of
this violent music ^ where there is no melody !! I . . .

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. nj

Frankly, we no longer have any such bourgeois in
Paris! . . .

A favorable answer from Weimar having reached me,
I started for Carlsruhe. I could have wished to give a
concert in passing through ; the Kapellmeister, Strauss,
informed me that I should have to wait eight or ten
days for that, on account of an engagement made by
the theatre with a Piedmontese flute-player. I conse-
quently hurried on to Manheim, full of respect for the
great flute. Manheim is very calm, very cold, very flat,
and very square. I do not believe the passion for music
keeps the inhabitants from their sleep. Yet there is a
numerous singing academy, a pretty good theatre, and
a very intelligent little orchestra. The direction of the
singing academy and of the orchestra is confided to the
younger Lachner, brother of the famous composer. He
is a mild and timid artist, modest and talented. He or-
ganized a concert for me very quickly. I do not re-
member the program ; I only know I wished to have in
it my second symphony (Harold) entire, and that I
had to cutout \\\& finale (the Orgy) at the first rehearsal,
on account of the manifest incapacity of the trombones
to fill the part allotted them in that movement. Lach-
ner was evidently much vexed, being anxious, as he
said, to hear my picture in its entirety. I was obliged
to persist, assuring him that, independently of the weak-
ness of the trombones, it would be folly to hope for the
eflect of the finale from an orchestra so scantily fur-
nished with violins. The first three parts of the sym-
phony were well given, and made a vivid impression
upon the public. They told me that the Grand Duchess
Amelia, who was at the concert, remarked the coloring
of the Mare/i of the Pilgrims, and especially of the
Serenade in the Abruzzi, which brought up before her
mind the happy calm of the fine Italian nights. The
solo for the viola was played with talent by one of the
lO*

tig FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

violas of the orchestra, who yet makes no pretensions
to virtuosity.

I found quite a good harp in Manheim, an excellent
oboe, who plays the English-horn decently, a skillful
violoncello (Heinefetter, cousin of the singers of that
name), and valiant trumpets. There is no ophicleide ;
Lachner has found himself obliged to have a trombone
with cylinders made, descending to low C and B, to
take the place of that instrument, which figures in all
full modern scores. It would have been simpler, it
seems to me, to have imported an ophicleide, and, music-
ally speaking, it would have been much better, as the two
instruments have little resemblance. I could only hear
one rehearsal of the singing academy ; the amateurs
who compose it have in general quite fine voices, but
they are far from being all musicians and readers.

Mademoiselle Sabine Heinefetter sang Norma during
my stay in Manheim. I had not heard her since she
left the Theatre des Italiens in Paris ; her voice still has
strength, and a certain agility ; she forces it a little at
times, and her high notes become often hard to bear ;
yet, such as she is. Mademoiselle Heinefetter has few
rivals among German singers ; she knows how to sing.

I was much bored in Manheim, in spite of the kind
attentions of a Frenchman, M. Desire Lemire, whom I
had met sometimes in Paris eight or ten years ago. It
is easy to see from the manners of the inhabitants, even
from the aspect of the city, that they are wholly unpro-
gressive in art, and that music is considered a pleasant
enough amusement, in which they willingly indulge in
the leisure hours left by their business. Besides, it rain-
ed incessantly ; I lived next to a clock, the bell of which
had the harmonic resonance of a minor third, and to a
tower inhabited by a villainous sparrow-hawk, whose
piercing and discordant shrieks drilled into my ears
from morning till night. I was impatient also to see

FIRS T yO URNE V TO GERM A N V. j j q

the city of poets, whither I was hurried by the pressing
letters of the Kapellmeister, my countryman, Chelard,
and of Lobe, that type of the genuine German mu-
sician, whose merit and warmth of feeUng I know you
appreciate.

Here I am again on the Rhine ! — I meet Guhr. — He
begins to swear again. — I leave him. — I see our friend
Hiller again for a moment at Frankfort. — He tells me
that he is going to have his oratorio of The Fall of Jeru-
salem performed. . . . — I leave the city, provided with a
very fine sore throat. — I fall asleep on the way. — A
frightful dream . . . which I shall not tell you. — Here is
Weimar. — I am very ill. — Lobe and Chelard make
futile attempts to wind me up. — The concert is prepar-
ing.— The first rehearsal is announced. — Joy returns to
me. — I am cured.

Ha ! I can breathe here ! I feel something in the air
which bespeaks a literary city, an artistic city ! Its as-
pect perfectly answers to the idea I had formed of it, it
is calm, luminous, airy, full of peace and reverie ;
charming surroundings, beautiful waters, shady hills
and laughing valleys. How my heart beats as I walk
through it ! What ! That is Goethe's summer house !
There is where the late grand duke used to like to come
and take part in the learned conversations of Schiller,
Herder, and Wieland ! This Latin inscription was traced
upon this rock by the author of Faust / Is it possible ?
Those two little windows admit the air to the poor attic
where Schiller lived ! It is in this humble retreat that
the great poet of all noble enthusiasms wrote Don
Carlos, Mary Stuart, the Robbers, Wallenstein I There
he lived like a simple student ! Ah ! I do not like
Goethe's having allowed that ! He, who was rich, a
minister of state, . . . could he not have changed the
fate of his friend the poet? ... or was this illustrious
friendship void of all reality ! . . . I fear that it was

I20 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY,

genuine only on Schiller's side ! Goethe loved himself
too much ; he also cherished his devilish son, Mephisto,
too much ; he lived to be too old ; he was in too great
fear of death.

Schiller ! Schiller ! you deserved a less human friend !
My eyes cannot leave those narrow windows, that ob-
scure house, that wretched black roof; it is one o'clock
in the morning, the moon gleams, the cold is intense.
All is silent ; they are all dead. . . . Little by little my
breast swells ; I tremble ; crushed with veneration, with
regrets and with those endless affections that genius
sometimes inflicts from beyond the tomb upon obscure
survivors, I kneel down beside the humble threshold,
and sufferingly, admiringly, lovingly, adoringly repeat :
Schiller! . . . Schiller! . . . Schiller! . . .

What can I tell you now, my dear fellow, about the
real subject of my letter ? I have strayed far. Wait a
bit; to come back to prose and calm myself a little, I
will remember another inhabitant of Weimar, a man of
great talent, who wrote masses and beautiful septets,
and played the piano-forte severely. Hummel. ... It
is done, I am rational again !

Chelard, first in his character of artist, and then of
Frenchman and old friend, did everything to enable me
to gain my ends. The intendant, M. le baron Spiegel,
entering into his kind views, put at my disposal the
theatre and the orchestra ; I do not say the chorus, for
he would probably not have dared to mention it to me.
I had heard them in Marschner's Vampyr on my arrival ;
such a collection of unhappy individuals braying out of
tune and measure are not to be imagined. I had never
heard anything of the kind before. And the female
singers ! oh ! the poor women ! Let us not talk of
them, for the sake of gallantry. But there is a bass
there who filled the part of the Vajnpyr ; you have
guessed that I mean Genast ! Is not he an artist in the

FIRST yOURNE Y TO GERMANY. j 2 i

full force of the term ? , . . He is above all a tragedian ;
I regretted deeply that I could not stop longer in Wei-
mar to see him play Lear, in Shakspere's tragedy, which
was in rehearsal when I left.

The orchestra is well composed; but, to do me honor,
Che'lard and Lobe went in search of stringed instru-
ments to add to those they already had, and they pre-
sented me with a force of 22 violins, 7 violas, 7 vio-
loncelli, and 7 basses. The wind instruments were com-
plete; I remarked among them an excellent first clari-
net, and an extraordinarily strong trumpet with cylin-
ders (Sachse). There was no English-horn. I had to
transpose the part for a clarinet; no harp: a very amia-
ble young man, M. Montag, a pianist of merit and a
perfect musician, was good enough to arrange the two
harp parts for a single piano-forte and play them him-
self; no ophicleide : it was replaced by quite a strong
bombardon. Nothing was wanting, then, and we began
the rehearsals. I must tell you that I had found in the
musicians in Weimar a very well-developed passion for
my overture to the Francs- jfiiges, which they had al-
ready played several times. They were thus as well
disposed as possible ; I was also really happy, contrary
to my usual experience, during the rehearsals of the
Fantastic Symphony that I had again chosen after their
own heart. It is a great pleasure, though a very rare
one, to be comprehended at once. I remember the im-
pression that the first movement (Reveries — Passions),
and the third (Scene in the Fields), made upon the or-
chestra and some amateurs who were present at the re-
hearsal. The latter movement seemed in its perora-
tion to have oppressed all breasts, and after the last roll-
ing of thunder, at the end of the solo of the abandoned
shepherd, when the orchestra, coming in, seems to
breathe a profound sigh and die away, I heard my
neighbors also sighing in sympathy, crying out, etc.,
1 1

J 2 2 ^^^^ ^ 70 URNE V TO GERM A N V.

etc. Chelard declared himself a parti zan of the JMarch
to the Scaffold above all. As for the public, it seemed
to prefer the Ball and the Scene in the Fields. The
overture to the Francs-Juges was received like an old
acquaintance that one is glad to see again. Good, here
I am again on the point of being wanting in modesty ;
and if I speak of the full house, the prolonged applause,
the recalls, the chamberlains coming to compliment the
composer on the part of their Highnesses, of the new
friends waiting for him at the theatre door to kiss him
and keep him willy-nilly up till three in the morning; if
I were to describe, in fine, a success, I should be found
very indecorous, very ridiculous, very . . . see here, in
spite of my philosophy, this frightens me, and I stop
short. Good-bye.

TO STEPHEN HELLER.

FOURTH LETTER.

LEIPZIG.

YOU have laughed, no doubt, my dear Heller, at the
mistake I made in my last letter, about the Grand
Duchess Stephanie whom I called Amelia ? Well ! I
must admit that I am not in too great despair about
the reproaches of ignorance and light-headedness t^iat
my mistake will call down upon me. It would be all
very well if I had called the Emperor Napoleon Francis
or George ! but at the worst, it may be permissible to
change the name of the sovereign of Manheim, all
gracious though it be. Besides, Shakspere has said it :

'* What's in a name ? that we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet ! "

x\t any rate, I humbly beg her Highness's pardon ;
and if she grants it, as I hope she will, I shall make out
to laugh at your joking.

After leaving Weimar, the musical city that I could
visit most easily was Leipzig. Yet I hesitated about
showing myself there in spite of the dictatorship with
which Felix Mendelssohn was invested, and the musical
relations which united us in Rome in 183 1. We had
since then followed such divergent paths in art, that I

123

124 FIRST yOURXEY TO GERMANY.

admit I feared that I should not meet with very lively
sympathy from him. Chelard, who knows him, made
me blush at my doubts, and I wrote to him. His
answ^er did not keep me waiting ; here it is :

*'My dear Berlioz, I thank you from my heart for
your kind letter, and for having kept up the memory of
our Roman friendship ! I shall never forget it as long
as I live, and I rejoice to be soon able to tell you so
viva voce, I will do, as a pleasure and a duty, all I can
to make your stay in Leipzig happy and pleasant. I
think I can assure you that you will be satisfied with
our city, that is, with the musicians and the public. I
did not want to write to you without consulting several
people who know Leipzig better than I, and they all
confirm my opinion that you will have an excellent
concert. The expenses for orchestra, hall, advertise-
ments, etc., amount to i lO crowns; the receipts may
amount to from 600 to 800 crowns. You ought to be
here to draw up the program, and do everything need-
ful, at least ten days before hand. Besides, the directors
of the society of subscription concerts beg me to ask
you whether you will have one of your works performed
at the concert to be given, February 22, for the benefit
of the poor of the city. I hope that you will accept
their proposal after the concert you give yourself. Thus
I beg you to come here as soon as you can leave Wei-
mar. I shall be rejoiced to shake you by the hand,
and bid you : Willkommen to Germany. Do not laugh
at my vile French as you used to in Rome, but con-
tinue my good friend,^ as you were then, and as I shall
always be, your devoted

** Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy."

' (May 25, 1864) I have just seen in a volume of Felix Mendelssohn's
letters, recently published by his brother, in what his Roman friendship
for me consisted. He says to his mother, clearly describing me: "*■**

FIRST JO URXE V TO GERMANY. j 2 5

Could I resist an invitation couched in such lanq-uage ?
... I started for Leipzig, not without regretting Weimar
and the new friends I left there.

My intimacy with Mendelssohn had begun in Rome
in an odd enough way. At our first interview he spoke
about my cantata of Sardanapalits, crowned by the In-
stitute of Paris, parts of which my co-laureate, Montfort,
had played to him. Having myself evinced a thorough
aversion for the first allegro of that cantata :

'*Well and good," cried he, full of joy, "I compliment
you ... on your taste ! I had feared that you were
satisfied with that allegro; frankly, it is wretched
enough !"

We nearly came to a quarrel the next day, because
I spoke enthusiastically of Gluck, and he answered me
in a surprised, rallying tone :

"Ah! you like Gluck!"

Which seemed as much as to say: "How has a mu-
sician like you enough elevation of ideas, a sufficiently
vivid sense of grandeur of style and truth of expression
to like Gluck ?" I soon had an opportunity to revenge
myself for this little bit of sauciness. I had brought
from Paris the air of Astcria from the Italian opera of
Telemaco ; an admirable piece, but little known. I
placed a manuscript copy, without the author's name,
on Montfort's piano-forte one day when we expected a
call from Mendelssohn. He came. Seeing the music,
he took it for a bit from some modern Italian opera,
and set himself to performing it, and, in the last four
measures, at the words: "(9 giorno I 0 dolce sgiiardi !
0 rinieinbranza ! 0 amor I'' of which the musical accent

is a real caricature, ivitkotit a spark of talent, etc., etc., . . . / have at
times a desire to devour him^ When he wrote that letter he was twenty-
one, and did not know a single score of mine ; I had then only written
the first sketch of my Fantastic Symphony which he had not read ; it was
only a few days before his departure from Rome that I showed him the
overture to King Lear which 1 had just finished.

I 2 6 ^^^^ ^ 70 URNE V TO GERM A NY,

is truly sublime, seeing that he was burlesquing them in
a grotesque way in imitation of Rubini, I stopped him,
saying, with an air of confounded astonishment :

"Ah ! you don't like Gluck?"

*'HowGluck?"

**Alas, yes, my dear fellow, this is by him and not by
Bellini as you supposed. You see that I know him
better than you do, and that I am of your opinion . . .
more than yourself!"

One day I happened to say something about the
metronome and its usefulness.

*' What is the metronome good for ?" cried out Men-
delssohn ; "it is a very useless instrument A musician
who does not divine the tempo of a piece at first sight
is a blockhead."

I might have answered that there were a good many
blockheads ; but I kept that to myself I had hardly
written anything then. Mendelssohn only knew my
Irish Melodies with piano-forte accompaniment. Hav-
ing asked one day to see the score of the overture to
King Lear which I had just written at Nice, he read it
first attentively and slowly, then just as he was about to
touch the piano to play it (which he did with incom-
parable talent) :

"Now give me your tempo,'' said he.

"What is the use? Did not you tell me yesterday
that every musician who did not divine the tempo of a
piece at first sight was a blockhead ?"

He tried not to show it, but these unexpected return
thrusts, or rather cudgel strokes, displeased him greatly.^

He never would pronounce the name of Sebastian
Bach without adding ironically: " Yoiir little pupil l''
In fact he was a perfect porcupine as soon as music was
on the tapis ; you could not tell where to touch him so

1 And perhaps that is what gave him such a desire to devour me.
(1864.)

FIRS T JO URNE V TO GERM A N V. 127

as not to wound him. Of an excellent disposition and
a charming sweetness of temper, he would easily brook
contradiction on any other subject, and I in turn took
unfair advantage of his tolerance in the philosophical
and religious discussions that used to come up between
us at times.

One evening we were exploring the baths of Caracalla
together, debating the question of the merit or demerit
of human actions and their reward in this life. As I
was answering his wholly religious and orthodox ex-
pression of opinion by I forget what enormity, his foot
slipped and down he rolled, with many bruises and
scratches, down the ruins of a very steep staircase.

''Admire the divine justice," said I, while helping him
up, "I blaspheme, and you fall."

This impiety, accompanied with great shouts of
laughter, appears to have struck him as too much of a
good thing, and from that time religious discussions
were tabooed. It was in Rome that I first appreciated
that fine and delicate musical tissue which bears the
name of Overture to Fins!;ar s Cave. Mendelssohn had
just finished it, and gave me a pretty accurate idea of
it; such is his prodigious skill in playing the most com-
plex scores on the piano-forte. Often, on oppressive
sirocco days, I used to go and interrupt him at his work
(for he is an indefatigable producer) ; he would then
quit his pen with a very good grace, and, seeing me al-
most bursting with spleen, he would try to alleviate it
by playing for me whatever I asked for from the works
of the masters we both were fond of How often have I
sung the air from Iphigenie en Taiudde : '' Uiine image,
heias ! trop cheriej' lying peevishly on his lounge, while
he played the accompaniment, seated decorously at the
piano-forte. And he used to cry out : "That is beauti-
ful ! It is very beautiful ! I could hear it from morning
till night without tiring, forever, forever ! " And we

J 28 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

would begin afresh. He used to like to make me hum
over, with my bored voice and in that horizontal
posture, two or three melodies I had written to some
of Moore's verses, and which pleased him. Mendels-
sohn has always had a certain esteem for my . . . little
songs. After a month of this relationship, which be-
came at last so full of interest to me, Mendelssohn dis-
appeared without saying good-bye, and I never saw
him again. His letter, which I have just quoted, was
calculated to be, and really was, a very pleasant surprise.
It seemed to show a kindness of disposition, an amenity
of manners that I had not known in him ; I was not
long in recognizing, on coming to Leipzig, that these
excellent qualities had really become his own. He has
at the same time lost nothing of the inflexible firmness
of his principles of art, but he does not try to force
them upon you by violence, and confines himself, in the
exercise of his functions as Kapellmeister, to giving
prominence to what he judges fine, and leaving what he
considers bad, or of a pernicious example, in the shade.
Only he is still rather too fond of the dead.

The society of subscription concerts, which he had
spoken of as very numerous, is as well composed as
possible ; it possesses a superb singing academy, an ex-
cellent orchestra, and a hall, that of the Gewandhaus, of
perfect acoustic properties. It was in this large and
beautiful hall that I was to give my concert. I went to
see it as soon as I left my carriage, and came right in
the middle of the general rehearsal of a new work of
Mendelssohn ( WalpurgisnacJit). I was really astonish-
ed from the very first at the fine quality of the voices,
the intelligence of the singers, the precision and verve
of the orchestra, and, above all, at the splendor of the
composition.

I am strongly inclined to regard this sort of oratorio
(the Walpiirgisnacht) as the most complete thing that

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. 129

Mendelssohn has produced up to this time.^ The poem
is by Goethe, and has nothing in common with the
Walpurgis-night scene in Faust. It treats of the noc-
turnal assemblies that were held in the mountains in the
early days of Christianity by a religious sect who were
faithful to the old customs, even after sacrifices on high
places had been forbidden. They were accustomed, on
nights appointed for the holy rite, to place armed senti-
nels, clothed in strange disguises, in large numbers at
all paths leading to the mountain. At an agreed signal,
when the priest, walking up to the altar, intoned the
sacred hymn, this troupe, of diabolic aspect, brandishing
their pitchforks and torches in a terrific manner, made
all sorts of frightful noises and shrieks, to drown the
voices of the religious chorus and terrify all profane
persons who might be tempted to interrupt the cere-
mony. From this comes undoubtedly the use of the
word sabbat in French as a synonym for any great noc-
turnal noise. One must hear Mendelssohn's music to
form an idea of the varied resources that this poem
offered to a skillful composer. He has turned it to ad-
mirable account. His score is perfectly clear in spite
of its complexity ; vocal and instrumental effects cross
each other in every direction, thwarting and jostling
each other in an apparent disorder, which is the height
of art. I will quote especially, as superb things in two
opposite styles, the mysterious number where the senti-
nels are stationed, and the final chorus, where the
priest's voice rises at intervals, calm and pious, above
the infernal din of the pretended demons and sorcerers.
One knows not which to praise most in this finale,
whether the orchestra, or the chorus, or the whirling
movement of both together !

At the moment when Mendelssohn, full of joy at

' When I wrote these lines, I did not yet know the fascinating score of
A MidsHininer Night's Dream.
II*

130 F/A'Sr yOURXEY TO GERMANY.

having written it, stepped down from his desk, I ad-
vanced all in ecstasy at having heard it. The time for
such a meeting could not have been better chosen ; and
yet after we had exchanged the first words of greeting,
the same sad thought struck us both :

"What! it is twelve years! twelve years since we
used to dream together on the Campagna ! "

"Yes, in the baths of Caracalla !"

"Oh! Still cynical! still always ready to laugh at
me!"

"No, no, I hardly jeer much nowadays; it was to
test your memory, and to see if you had forgiven my
impieties. I am so far from joking that now, at our
first meeting, I am going to ask you very seriously to
make me a present to which I attach the greatest value."

"What is it?"

"Give me the baton with which you have just con-
ducted the rehearsal of your new work."

"Oh! very willingly, on condition that you will send
me yours."

"In that case I should be giving brass for gold; but
never mind, I agree to it."

And the musical sceptre of Mendelssohn was brought
me forthwith. The next day I sent him my heavy bit
of oak with the following letter, which, I hope, the last
of the Mohicans would not have disowned :
" To the chief Mendelssohn !

"Great chief! We have promised to exchange toma-
hawks; here is mine! It is coarse, yours is simple;
only squaws and pale-faces like ornamented weapons.
Be my brother ! and when the Great Spirit shall have
sent us to the land of souls, may our warriors hang our
united tomahawks over the door of the council cham-
ber."

There is in all its simplicity a fact which a very inno-
cent malice has tried to make ridiculously dramatic.

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY, j^j

When it came, some days afterwards, to organizing my
concert, Mendelssohn behaved truly like a brother to
me. The first artist he introduced to me as his fidus
Achates, was the Conzertincister, David, an eminent
musician, a composer of merit and a distinguished vio-
linist. M. David, who spoke French to perfection, was
a great help to me.

The Leipzig orchestra is no larger than the orches-
tras in Frankfort and Stuttgard ; but as the city does
not want for instrumental resources, I wished to increase
it a little, and the number of violins was consequently
brought up to twenty-four; an innovation which, I
found out afterwards, raised the indignation of two or
three critics zvhose mind ivas already made up. Twenty-
four violins instead of sixteen, which had till then suf-
ficed to perform the symphonies of Mozart and Beetho-
ven ! What insolent pretension ! . . . We tried in vain
to procure three other instruments which were set down
and quite prominent in several of my movements (an-
other heinous offense) ; it was impossible to find an
English-horn, an ophicleide and a harp. The English-
horn (the instrument) was so bad, so dilapidated, and
consequently so extraordinarily false, that, in spite of
the skill of the artist who played it, we had to give up
the idea of using it, and give its solo to the first clarinet.

The ophicleide, or at least the thin brass instrument
they presented under that name, bore no resemblance
to the French ophicleides ; it had hardly any tone. It
was consequently considered as null and void ; we re-
placed it as well as might be by a fourth trombone. As
for the harp, we could not dream of such a thing ; for
six months before, when Mendelssohn wanted to have
parts of his Antigone performed in Leipzig, he was
obliged to have some harps come from Berlin. As they
assured me that he had been very moderately satisfied
with them, I wrote to Dresden, and Lipinski, a great

1^2 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

and worthy artist, of whom I shall soon have occasion
to speak, sent me the harpist of the theatre. We had
nothing further to do but to find the instrument. After
running about in vain to various makers and music-
sellers, Mendelssohn found out at last that an amateur
owned a harp, and got him to lend it to us for a few
days. But, admire my ill luck, w^hen the harp was
brought and restrung, it turned out that M. Richter (the
harpist from Dresden, who had so obligingly come to
Leipzig at Lipinski's request) was a very clever pianist
and played the violin very well, but hardly played the
harp at all. He had studied the technique of the instru-
ment only eighteen months, so as to be able to play the
simplest arpeggi which commonly serve to accompany
the songs in Italian operas. So that when he looked at
the diatonic runs and cantabile figures that are often to
be met with in my symphony, his courage wholly failed
him, and Mendelssohn had to seat himself at the piano-
forte on the evening of the concert to represent the harp
solo and be sure of coming in at the right time. What
a fuss about so little !

Be it as it might, my resolution about those inconven-
iences once taken, the rehearsals began. The disposi-
tion of the orchestra in this fine hall is so excellent, the
means of communication between each player and the
conductor are so easy, and the artists, who are thorough
musicians, have been accustomed by Mendelssohn and
David to bring such strict attention to bear upon pro-
tracted studies, that two rehearsals were enough to pre-
pare a long program, on which figured, among other
difficult compositions, the overtures to King Leai' and
the Francs-Jngcs^ and the Syniphonie fantastiqiic.
David had in addition to this consented to play the solo
for violin (Reverie et Caprice) which I had written two
years before for Artot, and of which the orchestration
is pretty complicated. He played it in a superior man-
ner with great applause from the assemblage.

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. j^^

As for the orchestra, to say that it was irreproach-
able in the execution of the pieces I have just men-
tioned, after two rehearsals, is to give it high praise.
All the musicians in Paris and many others beside will
be of my opinion, I am thinking.

Already this concert troubled the musical conscience
of the inhabitants of Leipzig, and, as far as I am able to
judge by the polemics in the newspapers, at least as
violent discussions resulted from it as the same works
called out in Paris some ten years ago. While they
were thus debating on the morality of my harmonic
deeds and actions, and some were calling them good,
while others accounted them crimes with malice pre-
pense, I took a trip to Dresden, of which I shall have
something to say by and by. But not to cut short the
story of my experiences in Leipzig, I will tell you, my
dear Heller, what happened about the concert for the
benefit of the poor, which Mendelssohn mentioned in
his letter, and in which I had promised to take part.

This concert having been organized by the entire
society of concerts, I had at my disposal the rich and
powerful singing academy to which I have just given
such well-deserved praise. I took good care, as you
may imagine, to turn these fine choral masses to ac-
count, and I proposed to the directors of the society the
finale for three choruses to Rouico ct Juliette, the Ger-
man translation of which had been made in Paris by
Professor Diisberg. This translation had only to be
made to agree with the notes of the vocal parts. It
was a long and tedious task ; and when done, as the
German rules of prosody had not been well observed
by the copyists in their distribution of long and short
syllables, there resulted such difficulties for the singers
that Mendelssohn was forced to waste his time in re-
vising the text and correcting the most shocking of the
mistakes. He had, besides, to drill the chorus for nearly
12

134 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

eight days. (Eight rehearsals with a chorus of that size
would cost 4,800 francs in Paris. And I am sometimes
asked why I do not give Romeo et Juliette at my con-
certs !) This academy, to which belong some artists
from the theatre, it is true, and the pupils of the St.
Thomas school, is composed for the most part of ama-
teurs belonging to the upper classes of Leipzig society.
That is the reason w^hy a large number of rehearsals can
more easily be had, whenever a serious wc5rk is to be
studied. When I got back from Dresden the rehearsals
were still far from being at an end ; the male chorus
especially left much room for improvement. It pained
me to see a great master and virtuoso like Mendelssohn
filling this subaltern office of chorus leader, which he
did, I must say, with unflinching patience. All his re-
marks were made with perfect sweetness and politeness,
which would be all the better appreciated, if people
only knew how rare those qualities are in such cases.
As for myself, I have been often charged with impolite-
ness by our ladies of the Opera ; my reputation in this
point is perfect. I admit that I deserve it ; when it
comes to drilling a large chorus, and even before begin-
ning, a sort of anticipated wrath compresses my throat,
my ill humor comes to the surface, and I make all the
chorus-singers understand from my very looks the idea
of that Gascon who, after kicking a little boy who was
passing by quite harmlessly, answered the latter's obser-
vation : TJiat lie had not done any tiling to him, by :
"Just think what you would have caught if you had !"

But after two more rehearsals, the three choruses
were learned, and the finale wdth the support of the
orchestra would undoubtedly have gone to perfection,
had not a singer from the theatre, who had been crying
out for some days against the difficulties of the part of
Fi'iar Lawrence^ which he had undertaken, come and
demolished our whole harmonic edifice, which we had
built up at such great pains.

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. i o r

I had already noticed in the rehearsals at the piano-
forte that this gentleman (I have forgotten his name)
belonged to the numerous class of musicians who know
nothing about music ; he counted his rests badly, he did
not come in at the right time, he made mistakes of in-
tonation, etc.; but I said to myself: "Perhaps he has
not had time to study his part; he learns very difficult
parts for the theatre, and why should he not conquer
this one ?" I often thought of Alizard, who has always
sung this scene so well, with many regrets that he was
in Brussels and did not speak German. But at the
general rehearsal, on the eve of the concert, as the gen-
tleman had not made any progress, and what is more,
kept growling between his teeth I don't know what
Teutonic imprecations, whenever the orchestra had to
be stopped on his account, or when either Mendelssohn
or I sang over his phrases for him, my patience at last
gave out, and I thanked the chorus and orchestra, beg-
ging them to take no further trouble about my work,
which this bass part evidently made impossible to per-
form. While going home I made this sorrowful reflec-
tion : Two composers, who have brought to bear what
of intelligence and imagination nature has allotted them
upon the study of art during many long years, two
hundred musicians, attentive and capable instrumental-
ists and singers, have all been uselessly tiring themselves
out for eight days, and must give up performing the
w^ork they had chosen on account of the incapacity of
a single man ! O singers who cannot sing, so }'e also
are of the gods ! . . . The society was thrown into
great perplexity to find anything to replace X\\\'^ finale^
which lasts half an hour ; by means of a supplementary
rehearsal, which the orchestra and chorus agreed to have
on the very morning before the concert, we succeeded.
The overture to King Lear, which the orchestra knew
already, and the Offcrtoire from my Requiem^ in which

136 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

the chorus has only a few notes to sing, were substituted
for the fragment from Romeo, and performed most satis-
factorily in the evening. I must even add that the
movement from the Requiem produced an effect that I
did not expect, and gained for me an inestimable mark
of approval from Robert Schumann, one of the most
justly renowned composers and critics in Germany.^

Some days afterwards this same Offei'toire was the
subject of an encomium that I had still less reason to
expect ; it happened in this wise : I had fallen ill in
Leipzig, and when, on the point of going away, I asked
the physician under whose care I had been, what I
owed him, he answered :

"Write the theme of your Ojfertoire with your signa-
ture for me on this bit of paper, and I shall still be in
your debt; never did a piece of music strike me so
much !"

I hesitated a little before paying the doctor for his
care in such a way, but he insisted, and chance having
offered me an opportunity to respond to his compliment
by another, better deserved, will you believe that I had
the simplicity not to seize upon it. I wrote at the top
of the page : ''To the Doe tor Clams.''

" Cams,'' said he ; **you have put an / too many."

I thought immediately : Patientibus Cams, sed Clarus
inter doetos, and did not dare to write it.'^ . . .

There are moments when I am gifted with rare stu-
pidity.

A composer and virtuoso like you, my dear Heller,
feels a lively interest in everything connected with his
art ; I find it accordingly very natural that you have

^ At the rehearsal, Schumann, breaking his usual silence, said to me :
" That Offerlorium surpasses ally Mendelssohn himself complimented
me on an entry of the double basses in the accompaniment of my song,
E' Absence, which was also sung at the concert.

* Dear to his patients, but illustrious among the learned.

FIRS T JO URNE V TO GERM A NY. joy

asked me so many questions about the musical riches
of Leipzig; I will answer some of them laconically.
You ask if the great pianist, Madame Clara Schumann,
has any rival in Germany who can be decently com-
pared with her ?

I don't think so.

You ask me to tell you if the musical sentiment of
the great heads in Leipzig is good, or, at the very least,
aspiring toward what you and I call the beautiful ?

I don't want to.

If it is true that the creed of everybody who pretends
to love high and serious art is this: "There is no other
God but Bach, and Mendelssohn is his Prophet?"

I must not.

If the theatre is well constituted, and if the public is
far wrong in being amused by the little operas of Lor-
zing which are often given there ?

I cannot.

If I have heard any of those old five-part masses, with
continued bass, that are so much esteemed in Leipzig ?

I don't know.

Good-bye ; keep on writing fine caprices like your
last two, and may God preserve you from fugues with
four themes on a choral.

TO ERNST.
FIFTH LETTER.

DRESDEN. '

YOU often advised me, my dear Ernst, not to stop at
the small towns in traveling through Germany, as-
suring me that only the capitals would offer the means
of execution necessary for my concerts.

Others beside you and several German critics spoke
to the same purpose, and have since reproached me
with not having followed their advice and not having
gone to Berlin or Vienna at the outset. But you know
that it is always easier to give advice than to follow it ;
and if I did not follow the plan that everybody deemed
most rational, it was because I could not. In the first
place, 1 could not so command circumstances as to
choose the time for my trip. After having made a
futile visit to Frankfort, as I have said, I could not come
back to Paris looking like a fool. I could have wished
to go to Munich, but a letter from Baermann informed
me that my concerts could not take place in that city
within a month, and Meyerbeer, on the other hand,
wrote me that the revival of several important works
w^ould take up the Berlin theatre long enough to make
my presence in Prussia useless at that time. But I
could not remain idle; consequently, being extremely
138

FIRS T JO URNE V TO GERM A NY. j 3 q

desirous to know what musical institutions your harmo-
nious country can boast, I formed the project of seeing
and hearing everything, and of greatly reducing my
orchestral and choral designs, so that I might also be
heard almost everywhere. I knew very well that mu-
sical means were not to be found in cities of the second
rank in the profusion required by the form and style of
many of my scores ; but I kept those for the end of the
trip, they were to form the forte of the crescendo ; and
I thought that, all things considered, this slowly pro-
gressive plan would neither lack prudence nor a certain
degree of interest. At all events I have no reason to
repent having followed it.

Now, let us speak of Dresden.

I was engaged for two concerts there, and was to find
a chorus, orchestra, band of wind instruments, and a
famous tenor ; since my arrival in Germany I had not
seen such musical riches united in one place. I was
besides to meet in Dresden a warm, devoted, energetic,
and enthusiastic friend, Charles Lipinski, whom I used
to know in Paris. I cannot tell you, my dear Ernst,
with what ardor this admirable and excellent man sec-
onded me. His position of first Conzertmcister, and the
universal esteem he enjoys, gives him great authority
over the artists of the orchestra ; and he certainly did
not shrink from exerting it. As had been promised
me by the intendant, Baron von Liittichau, the entire
theatre was at my disposal for two evenings, and I had
nothing to do but to attend to the quality of the per-
formance. We obtained a splendid one, and yet the
program was formidable ; it comprised the overture to
King Lear, the Symphonic fantastiqiie, the Ojfertoire,
Sanctns and Quaerens me from my Requiem, the last
two movements of my SympJionie funebre, written, as
you know, for two orchestras and chorus, and some
vocal pieces. I had no translation of the chorus in the

J 40 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

Symphony, but the manager of the theatre, M. Winkler,
who is both clever and learned, had the great kindness
to improvise, so to speak, the German verses that we
stood in need of, and the rehearsals of the finale could
be entered upon. As for the vocal solos, they were in
Latin, German and French. Tichatschek, the tenor I
have just mentioned, has a pure and 'touching voice,
which, when animated by dramatic action on the stage,
acquires a rare degree of energy. His style of singing
is simple and in good taste; he is a consummate mu-
sician and reader. He took the tenor solo in the Saiic-
tits upon himself at my first request, without even ask-
ing to see it, unreservedly, without making faces, with-
out playing the god ; he might have accepted the Sanc-
tis and stipulated for some cavatina of his own choice
for the sake of his personal success, as so many others
have done in similar cases ; he did not do so ; that is
what I call thoroughly as it should be !

But the cavatina from Benvcnuto, which I took into
my head to add to the program, gave me more trouble
than all the rest of the concert put together. It could
not be given to the prinia-donna, Madame Devrient, as
the tessitura of the piece was too high and the vocaliza-
tion too rapid for her ; Mademoiselle Wiest, the seeoncia-
donna, to whom Lipinski offered it, found the German
translation bad, the andante too high and too long, the
allegro too low and too short, she asked for cuts and
changes, she had a cold, etc., etc. ; you know by heart
the little farce of a singer who neither can nor will.

At last Madam Schubert, wife of the excellent Con-
zertnieister and clever violinist whom you know, put an
end to my troubles by accepting, not without terror, this
unfortunate cavatina, the difficulties of which her mod-
esty had • exaggerated. She was much applauded in it.
In truth, it seems as if it were at times more difficult to
have Flenve du Tage sung, than to get up the C-minor
symphony.

FIRS T JO URNE V TO GERM A NY. j ^ j

Liplnski had so worked upon the self-love of the
players, that their wish to do well, and especially
their ambition to do better than those in Leipzig
(there is a covert musical rivalry between the two cit-
ies), made us work prodigiously. Four long rehearsals
seemed hardly sufficient, and the orchestra would have
willingly asked for a fifth of their own accord, if there
had been time. The effect was noticeable at the per-
formance, which was capital. The chorus alone fright-
ened me at the last rehearsal ; but two additional lessons
before the concert gave them the assurance they lacked,
and the selections from the Requiem were as well given
as the rest. The Symphonie fimebre had the same effect
as in Paris. Next morning the musicians of the military
band, who had played in it, came full of joy to give me
a serenade, which dragged me out of bed, though I had
great need of sleep, and forced me in spite of neuralgia
in the head and my eternal sore throat, to go and drain
a little bowl of punch with them.

It was at this concert in Dresden that I first saw the
German public manifest a predilection for my Requiem ;
yet we did not dare (the chorus not being large enough)
to attack the great numbers, such as the Dies iree, the
Lachrymosa^ etc. The Symphonie faiitastiqtie pleased
one part of my judges much less. The elegant part of
the audience, the King of Saxony and the court at their
head, were very moderately charmed, as was told me,
with the violence of those passions, the sadness of those
reveries, and all the monstrous hallucinations of the
finale. Only the Ball- scene and the Scene in the Fields
found favor in their eyes, I fancy. As for the public
properly so called, it let itself be carried aw^ay in the
musical current, and applauded the March to the Scaf-
fold and the Walpurgis-nighf s Dream more warmly
than the three other movements. Still it was easy to
see that this composition as a whole, so well received in

12*

1^2 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

Stuttgard, so perfectly comprehended in Weimar, so
much discussed in Leipzig, was not much in accordance
with the musical and poetic habits of the Dresdeners,
that it confused them by its want of resemblance to the
symphonies they were acquainted with, and that they
were more surprised than enchanted ; less moved than
stunned.

The Dresden orchestra, for a long time under the
command of the Italian, Morlachi, and the illustrious
composer of the Freyschiitz, is conducted now by
Messrs. Reissiger and Richard Wagner. We in Paris
hardly know anything of Reissiger beyond the sweet,
melancholy waltz published under the title of Weber's
Last Thought ; during my stay in Dresden one of his
sacred compositions was given, which was greatly
praised in my hearing. I could not add my praises ;
the day of the ceremony at which it was performed I
was kept to my bed by cruel sufferings, and I was thus
unhappily prevented hearing it. As for the young
Kapellmeister^ Richard Wagner, who lived for a long
while in Paris without succeeding in making himself
known otherwise than as the author of some articles
published in the Gazette viiisicale, he exercised his au-
thority for the first time in helping me in my rehearsals,
which he did with zeal and a very good will. The
ceremony of his presentation to the orchestra and taking
the oath took place the day after my arrival, and I
found him in all the intoxication of a very natural joy.
After having undergone in France a thousand privations
and all the trials to which obscurity is exposed, Richard
Wagner, on coming back to Saxony, his native country,
had the daring to undertake and the happiness to
achieve the composition of the text and music of an
opera in five acts (Rienzi). This work had a brilliant
success in Dresden. It was soon followed by the Flying
Dutchman, an opera in three acts, of which also he

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. 143

wrote both text and music. Whatever opinion one
may hold of those works, it must be acknowledged that
men capable of accomplishing this double literary and
musical task twice with success are not common, and that
M. Wagner has given enough proof of his capacity to
excite interest, and rivet the attention of the world upon
himself This was very well understood by the King
of Saxony ; and the day that he gave his first Kapell-
meister Richard Wagner for a colleague, thus assuring
the latter's subsistence, all friends of art must have said
to His Majesty what Jean Bart answered to Louis XIV,
when he made him commander of a squadron : " Sire,
you have done well ! "

The opera of Rienzi, exceeding by a good deal the
length ordinarily assigned to operas in Germany, is now
no longer given entire ; the first two acts are given one
evening, and the three last the next. I only saw the
second part; I could not become thoroughly enough
acquainted with it, hearing it only once, to be in condi-
tion to give a final opinion ; I only remember a beauti-
ful prayer in the last act sung by Ricnzi (Tichatschek),
and a triumphal march, well modeled upon the magnifi-
cent march in Olynipie but without servile imitation.
The score of the Flying Dutchman seemed to me re-
markable for its sombre coloring and certain stormy
effects perfectly in keeping with the subject ; but I
could not help noticing also an abuse of the tfrrnolo,
which was the more regrettable that 1 had already been
struck by it in Rienzi, and that it announced a certain
lazy habit of mind in the author against which he is not
sufficiently on his guard. The sustained trcmoto is, of
all orchestral effects, the one that one grows tired of
.soonest ; besides, it makes no demands upon the com
poser's invention when it is accompanied, either above
or below, by no salient idea.

Be it as it may, I repeat that we must honor the

144 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

royal thought which has, so to speak, saved a young
artist of precious gifts, by granting him a complete and
active protection.

The administration of the Dresden theatre has nesf-
lected nothing that could add all possible brilliancy to
the performance of Wagner's two works ; the scenery,
costumes and mise-en- scene approach the best things of
the kind in Paris. Madame Devrient, of whom I shall
take occasion to speak at greater length apropos of her
performances in Berlin, plays the part of a young boy
in Riejizi ; this dress hardly suits the rather maternal
outline of her figure. She struck me as much more
fittingly placed in the Flying Dntchman, in spite of
some affected poses and spoken interjections that she
feels called upon to introduce everywhere. But a true,
pure and complete talent, which had a most vivid effect
upon me, was that of Wechter, who filled the part of the
cursed Dutchman. His baritone voice is one of the
finest I have heard, and he uses it like a consummate
singer; his voice has that unctuous, vibrating quality
w^iich has such great expressive power, wnatever
amount of heart and sensibility the artist throws into
his singing ; and Wechter possesses both these qualities
to a very high degree. Tichatschek is graceful, passion-
ate, brilliant, heroic and captivating in the part of Ri-
enzi, where his fine voice and large eyes full of fire
stand him in good stead. Mademoiselle Wiest played
RicjizVs sister; she has hardly anything to say. The
author, in writing this part, adapted it perfectly to the
singer's ability.

I would like now, my dear Ernst, to speak in detail
about Lipinski; but it is not you, the so much admired
violinist, applauded from one end of Europe to the
other, you, the attentive and studious artist, that I can
tell anything new of the talent of that great virtuoso
who preceded you in the path of art. You know as

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. j^^

well and better than I how he sings, how touching and
pathetic he is in the grand style, and you have long
since lodged in your imperturbable memory many of
the beauties of his concertos. Besides, Lipinski w^as so
good, so warmly devoted to me during my stay in
Dresden, that my praises might appear wanting in im-
partiality in the eyes of many people; they would be
attributed (and very wrongly, I can assure you,) rather
to gratitude than to genuine admiration. He was enor-
mously applauded at my concert, in my rornanza for
the violin, which David had played some days before in
I^ipzig, and in the viola solo of my second symphony
(Harold).

The success of this second concert was greater than
that of the first; the melancholy and religious scenes of
Harold seemed to unite all sympathies from the very
first, and the same good luck fell to the movements
from Romeo et Juliette (the adagio and Festival at the
Jiouse of Capnlet). But what touched the Dresden pub-
lic and the artists most vividly, was the cantata of the
FiftJi of May, admirably sung by Wechter and the
chorus, in a German translation which the indefatigable
M. Winkler again had the goodness to prepare for the
occasion. The memory of Napoleon is to-day almost
as dear to the German people as it is to France, which
is, without doubt, the cause of the profound impression
invariably produced by this piece in all cities where I
had it performed subsequently. The end especially has
often given rise to singular manifestations;

"Loin de ce roc nous fuyons en silence,
L'astre du jour abandonne les cieux, . . ."^

I made acquaintance in Dresden with the prodigious
English harpist, Parish-Alvars, whose name has not yet
all the popularity it deserves. He had just come from

* "Far from that rock we fly in silence, the star of day leaves the skies."
13

J .5 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY,

Vienna. He Is the Liszt of the harp! One cannot im-
agine all the graceful and energetic effects, original fig-
ures, unheard of sonorities he has succeeded in drawing
from his instrument, which is so limited in resources in
certain respects. His fantasia on Aloise, the form ot
which has been imitated and so happily applied to the
piano-forte by Thalberg, his variations in harmonics on
the chorus of Naiads in Oberon, and twenty other pieces
of the same sort, gave me a delight I shall not try to de-
scribe. The advantage the new harps have of tuning
two strings in unison by means of a double movement
of the pedals, has given him the idea of combinations
which, when we see them written, seem absolutely un-
playable.

Yet all their difficulty consists in an ingenious use of
the pedals, producing those double notes called syn-
onyvies. Thus he plays with lightning rapidity passages
in four parts moving by skips of minor thirds, because
by means of synonyincs, the strings of his harp, instead
of giving, as is usual, the diatonic scale of C-flat, gives
the descendincr series : C-natural C-uatural, A-natural,

G-flat, G-flat, E-flat, E-flat. Parish- Alvars has form-
ed some good pupils during his stay in Vienna. He
has just been playing in Dresden, Leipzig, Berlin, and
many other cities, where his extraordinary talent invari-
bly excited enthusiasm. What is he waiting for to
come to Paris ? . . .

In the Dresden orchestra is to be found, beside the
eminent artists I have named, the excellent Professor
Dotzauer ; he is at the head of the violoncelli, and has
to take upon himself the whole responsibility of the
entry of the first desk of the basses, for the double-bass
player who reads with him is too old to play some notes
of his part, and has just strength enough to bear the

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY, j^y

weight of his instrument I have often met in Germany
with examples of this mistaken respect for old men,
which leads orchestra conductors to retain them in office
long after the performance of its duties has become
beyond their physical strength, and unfortunately to
leave them in it until death takes them away. I have
more than once had to arm myself with all my insensi-
bility, and ask for substitutes for these poor invalids
with cruel persistency. There is a very good English-
horn in Dresden. The first oboe has a fine tone, but
an old style, and a mania for tn7/s and mordants which,
I admit, deeply outraged me. He indulged in especially
frightful ones in the solo at the beginning of the Scene
in the Fields. I gave very lively expression, at the sec-
ond rehearsal, to my horror of these melodic ameni-
ties ; he maliciously abstained at the succeeding re-
hearsals ; but it was only a trap, and on the day of the
concert, the perfidious oboe, well aware that I could not
stop the orchestra and call him up in person before the
court and public, began his little scurvy tricks again,
giving me a bantering look which all but upset me with
indignation and fury.

Among the horns is to be remarked M. Levy, a vir-
tuoso who has a fine reputation in Saxony. He, as well
as the other players in the orchestra, plays on the horn
with cylinders, which the Leipzig orchestra, almost
alone in this respect in North Germany, has not yet
admitted. The trumpets in Dresden are also with
cylinders, and can advantageously take the place of our
cornets-a-pistons, which are unknown there.

The military band is very good, even the drummers
are musicians ; but the reed instruments that I heard
did not strike me as irreproachable ; they are not quite
true, and the band-master of these regiments ought
to get some clarinets from our incomparable maker,
Adolphe Sax.

148 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

There are no ophlcleides ; the bass part Is taken by
Russian-bassoons, serpents and 'tubas.

I often thought of Weber while conducting that or-
chestra in Dresden, which he led for some years, and
which was larger then than now.

Weber had so drilled it that sometimes in the allegro
of the overture to the Freyscliiitz he only gave the tempo
of the first four measures, leaving the orchestra to go
on by itself as far as the holds near the end. Musi-
cians must be proud who see their leader thus fold his
arms at such a time.

W^ill you believe me, my dear Ernst, that in the
weeks I passed in this musical city, nobody took the
trouble to speak to me of Weber's family, nor to tell me
that they were in Dresden? I should have been so
happy to make their acquaintance and to express in
some degree my respectful admiration for the great
composer who ma^e the name illustrious! ... I learned
too late that I had let this precious opportunity slip, and
I must at least here beg Madame Weber and her chil-
dren not to doubt the regrets I felt.

They showed me in Dresden some scores of the cele-
brated Hasse, called // Sassone, who was once for a long
time arbiter of the destinies of this orchestra. I admit
that I found nothing very remarkable in them; only a
Tc Dciiin, composed expressly for a glorious commem-
oration of the Court of Saxony, struck me as pompous
and brilliant, like a ringing of great bells, pealing out
with all their might. This Te Deitnt must seem fine to
those who are content with great sonority in such cases ;
as for me, this quality does not strike me as sufficient of
itself W'hat I should most like to know, but know
through a good performance, are some of the numerous
operas Hasse wrote for the theatres of Italy, Germany,
and England, and to which he owed his immense repu-
tation. Why do they not try to revive at least one in
Dresden? It would be a curious experiment to make;

FIRS T yo URNE Y TO GERM A N Y. j^g

it might perhaps be a resurrection. Hasse's Hfe must
have been full of incident; I have tried in vain to find
an account of it. I have only found vulgar biographies
which repeated what I already knew, and did not tell
me a word of what I wished to learn. He traveled so
much, lived so much in the torrid zone and at the poles,
that is to say, in Italy and England ! There must have
been a curious romance in his relations with the Vene-
tian, Marcello, in his love-passages with La Faustina,
whom he married, and who sang the leading parts of his
operas; in their conjugal quarrels, battles of composer
with singer, where the master is the slave, where the
right is ever in the wrong. Perhaps there was really
nothing of all this; who knows? Faustina may have
lived a very human di^'a, a modest singer, a virtuous
wife, a good musician, faithful to her husband, faithful
to her parts, telling her beads and knitting socks when
she had nothing to do. Hasse wrote, Faustina sang;
they both made a good deal of money which they did
not spend. That sort of thing has been seen before,
and is still seen at times; if you get married, I wish as
much for you.

When I left Dresden to return to Leipzig, Lipinski,
learning that Mendelssohn was getting up n\y finale to
Romeo et Juliette for the concert for the benefit of the
poor, announced his intention of coming to hear it, if
the intendant would give him two or three days' leave
of absence. I took this promise for a very amiable
compliment; but judge of my dismay when, on the day
of the concert, the finale could not be given owing to
the incident I related in my last letter. I saw Lipinski
arrive. . . . He had come thirty-five leagues to hear that
movement! . . . There is a musician who loves music!
. . . But you, my dear Ernst, will not be astonished
at that trait; you would do as much, I am sure; you
are an artist I

Good-bye, good-bye.

TO HENRI HEINE.

SIXTH LETTER.
BRUNSWICK, HAMBURG.

1HAD every sort of good luck in this excellent city
of Brunswick ; in fact I had an idea at first of regaling
one of my intimate enemies with this account of it ; it
would have pleased him ! . . . whereas the picture of all
this harmonic festiv-al may give you pain, my dear
Heine. Immoralists pretend tJiat in zvhatever good
fortune we enjoy, there is something disagreeable to our
best friends ; but I do not believe a bit of it ! It is an
infamous calumny, and I can swear that unexpected
good luck has come in the most brilliant guise to some
of my friends, without having any effect upon me what-
ever !

Enough ! let us not enter upon the thorny field of
irony, where bloom the absinthe and the euphorbia in
the shade of branching nettles, where vipers and toads
hiss and croak, where the water bubbles up in the
ponds, where the earth quakes, where the evening
breeze burns, where the western clouds dart forth silent
lightnings ! For what is the good of biting our lip,
hiding greenish pupils under ill-closed eyelids, softly
grinding our teeth, handing our companion a chair
armed with a hidden barb or covered with a coating of
150

FIRST JOURXEY TO GERMANY. j^^

glue, when far from having anything bitter In our souls,
laughing remembrances crowd the mind, when we feel
the heart full of gratitude and artless joy, when we
would call on a hundred Fames with immense trumpets
to proclaim to all that Is dear to us : I have been happy
for a day. It was a little movement of vanity that
made me begin In this way ; I was unconsciously trying
to imitate you, you, the inimitable master of irony. It
will not happen again. I have too often regretted, in
our conversations, not being able to compel you to
seriousness, nor to stop the convulsive movement of
your claws, even at times when you thought you were
showing your best velvet paw, tiger-cat that you are,
Ico quaercns qiicvi dcvorct. And yet what sensibility,
what an imagination without gall show themselves
throughout your works ! How you sing, when you
please, In the major mode ! How your enthusiasm
rushes and flows with full banks when admiration seizes
upon you suddenly, and you forget yourself! What
infinite tenderness breathes in one of the secret folds of
your heart for that country you have so railed at, for
that soil, fertile in poets, for the great fatherland of
dreamy geniuses, for that Germany you call your old
grandam, and which loves you so much in spite of all !

I saw it well In the sadly tender tone in which she
spoke of you to me during my journey ; yes, she loves
you ! She has centred all her affections in you. Her
elder sons are dead, her great sons, her great men ; yc i
are all that is left to her, you, whom she smilingly caL^
her naughty child. It was she, it was those low, ro-
mantic songs with which she rocked your first years,
that inspired you with a pure and elevated sentiment
for music ; and when you left her. It was by running
about in the world, it was after having suffered, that you
grew pitiless and began to rail.

It would be easy for you, I know, to make an enor-

1^2 FJKSr JOURNEY TO GERMAXY.

mous caricature of the recital I am about to undertake
of my stay in Brunswick, and 'yet, see what confidence
I have in your friendship, or perhaps how my fear of
irony is diminishing, for it is precisely to you that I
address it.

. . . Just as I was leaving Leipzig I got a letter from
Meyerbeer, telling me that they could not do anything
about my concerts for a month. The great master ad-
vised me earnestly to turn this delay to account by go-
ing to Brunswick, where I should find, as he said, an or-
chestra of Jionor. I followed this advice, but without
suspecting that I should be so glad of having done so.
I knew nobody in Brunswick; I was in total darkness as
to the disposition of the artists toward me, and the state
of the public taste. But the thought that the brothers
Miiller were at the head of the orchestra would have
been enough to inspire me with all confidence, inde-
pendently of Meyerbeer's very encouraging opinion. I
had heard them during their last trip to Paris, and I
looked upon the playing of Beethoven's quartets by
these four virtuosi as one of the most extraordinary
prodigies of modern art.

In fact the Miiller family gives us the ideal of the
Beethoven quartet, as the Bohrer family does of the
trio. Never in any place in the world have perfection
of cnscinhlc, unity of sentiment, depth of expression,
purity of style, grandeur, power, verve and passion been
carried to such a pitch of perfection. Such a rendering
of those sublime works gives us, I fancy, the most ex-
act idea of what Beethoven thought and felt while writ-
ing them. It is the echo of the creative inspiration! It
is the recoil of genius!

This musical family of the Miillers is more numerous
than I had supposed; I counted seven artists of the
name, brothers, sons and nephews, in the Brunswick or-
chestra. George Miiller is Kapellmeister ; his elder

FJRS T JO URNE V TO GERM A X V. 1^3

brother, Charles, Is only first Conzcrtineistcr, but one can
see by the deference with which every one listens to all
his remarks, that he is respected as the leader of the
famous quartet. The second Conzcrtjucistcr is M.
Freudenthal, a violinist and composer of merit. I had
notified Charles Miiller of my arrival; on getting out of
my carriage at Brunswick I was met by a very kind
young man, M. Zinkeisen, one of the first violins of the
orchestra, who spoke French like you and me, and who
had waited at the post station to conduct me to the Ka-
pelhneister forthwith.

This attention and politeness seemed a good omen.
M. Zinkeisen had seen me sometimes in Paris, and rec-
ognized me in spite of the piteous state I was in from
the cold; for I had passed the night in a coupe, pretty
well open to the wind so as to avoid the smell and
smoke of six horrible pipes which were untiringly at
work in its interior. I admire the police regulations es-
tablished in Germany: smoking is forbidden under pen-
alty of a fine in the streets and on the public squares,
where that amiable exercise can inconvenience nobody ;
but if you go into a cafe, they smoke there; to a table
d'hote, they smoke there; in a post conveyance, they
smoke there; the infernal pipe pursues you everywhere.
— You are a German, my dear Heine, and you do not
smoke! That is not the least of your virtues, believe
me, and posterity will not reward you for it, but many
of your contemporaries, especially all the women, will
thank you.

Charles Miiller received me with that serious, calm
manner that has frightened me at times in Germany,
thinking it an indication of indifference and coldness ;
but it is not so much to be mistrusted as our French
demonstrations, so full of smiles and fine words, with
which we greet a stranger, who slips from our memory
five minutes after. Far from that : the Conr^ertnicister^

13*

I ^ ^ FIRS T yo URNE V TO GERM A NY.

after asking me how I wished to compose my orchestra,
went immediately to agree with his brother upon the
means of collecting the mass of stringed instruments I
had thought necessary, and to make an appeal to such
amateurs and artists as, not belonging to the Ducal or-
chestra, were worthy of being joined with it. The next
day they had formed a fine orchestra for me, a little
larger than that of the Opera in Paris, and composed
of musicians who were not only very clever, but also
animated by an incomparable zeal and ardor. The
question of the harp, ophicleide and English-horn came
up afresh, as it had come up in Weimar, Leipzig, and
Dresden. (I mention these details to get up a reputa-
tion for you as a musician). One of the orchestra, M.
Leibrock, an excellent artist, well versed in musical lit-
erature, had applied himself to the study of the harp
for about a year, and very much dreaded in consequence
the test my second symphony was to put him to. Be-
sides he only had an old harp, of which the pedals with
single action did not admit of executing all that is
written for the instrument nowadays. Luckily the harp
part in Harold is extremely easy, and M. Leibrock
worked at it so for five or six days, that he came, to his
honor, to . . . the last rehearsal. But on the evening of
the concert, a panic terror seizing him at the important
moment, he stopped short in the introduction and left
Charles Miiller, who played the leading viola part, play-
ing alone.

This was the only accident we had to regret, an acci-
dent, by the way, that the- public did not perceive, and
on the strength of which M. Leibrock loaded himself
with bitter reproaches some days afterwards, in spite of
my efforts to make him forget it. As for the ophicleide,
there was no sort of one in Brunswick : I was success-
ively presented in its stead with a bass-tuba (a superb
brass instrument of which I shall have something to say

FIRST JOURNE V TO GERMANY. j ^ ^

in speaking of the military bands in Berlin) ; but the
young man who played it did not seem to have mucli
command over its mechanism, he was even ignorant of
its true compass ; then with a Russian-bassoon, which
the player called a double- bassoon (contra- fagotto). I
had much trouble in setting right his idea of the nature
and name of his instrument, which gives out the notes
as they are written, and is played with a mouth-piece
like the ophicleide ; while the double-bassoon, a trans-
posing reed instrument, is nothing more than a large
bassoon which gives almost the entire scale of the bas-
soon an octave lower. Be it as it might, the Russian-
bassoon was adopted to take the place of the ophicleide
as well as might be. There was no English- horn, so
we arranged the solos for an oboe, and began the or-
chestra rehearsals, while the chorus was at work in an-
other hall. I must say here that never up to this day,
neither in F>ance, Belgium nor Germany, have I seen a
collection of eminent artists so passionately devoted and
attentive to the task they had undertaken. After the
first rehearsal, at which they were able to form an idea
of the principal difficulties of my symphonies, the word
of command was given for the succeeding rehearsals ;
they agreed to deceive me about the hour at which they
were supposed to begin, and every morning (I only
learned it afterwards) the orchestra came together an
hour before I came, for the sake of studying the most
dangerous passages and rhythms. As for myself, I
went from one astonishment to another in seeing what
rapid transformations the execution underwent every
day, and the impetuous assurance with which the entire
body rushed upon difficulties which my Paris orchestra,
that young guard of the Grand Army, had approached
for a long time only with certain precautions. Only
one piece troubled Charles Miiller very much ; it was the
scherzo of Romeo et Juliette (Queen Mab). Giving way

1^5 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

to the solicitations of M. Zinkeisen, who had heard this
scJicrzo in Paris, I had dared, for the first time since my
arrival in Germany, to place it on a concert program.

"We shall work so," said he, " that we shall succeed!"
He did not presume too much upon the strength of the
orchestra, as it turned out, and Qiiccn Mab, in her mi-
croscopic chariot, drawn by the buzzing insect of sum-
mer nights, rushing along at the full speed of her atomic
horses, could show her lively frolics and the thousand
caprices of her flight to the Brunswick public. But you
understand my anxiety about it, you, the poet of all
fairies and elves, you, the natural brother of those
graceful and impish little creatures; you know too well
of what delicate thread the gauze of their veil is woven,
and how calm the sky must be for their many-hued
hosts to play at will in the pale rays of the moon.
Well! In spite of our fears, the orchestra identified itself
completely with Shakspere's ravishing fancy, and grew
so little, so agile, so cunning and soft, that never, I
think, did the invisible Queen flit more gaily through
more silent harmonies.

In the finale of Harold, on the other hand, that fero-
cious orgy, in which the intoxications of wine, blood,
joy, and rage vie with each other, where the rhythm
seems now to reel, now to run all in fury, where brazen
mouths seem to belch forth imprecations and answer
suppliant voices with blasphemy, where there is laugh-
ter, drinking, blows, destruction, murder, rape, in a
word, a jolly time; in this scene of brigands, the or-
chestra became a very pandemonium; there was some-
thing supernatural and terrific in the frenzy of its excite-
ment; everything sang, leaped, roared in diabolical or-
der and harmony, violins, basses, trombones, drums, and
cymbals; while the viola solo, Harold, the dreamer, fly-
ing in terror, sounded in the distance some few, trem-
bling notes of his evening hymn. Ah ! what a drum-

FIRST JO URNE V TO GERMANY. j ^ j

roll in the heart! what wild shudders I felt in leading
that astounding orchestra, in which I thought to recog-
nize all my young Paris lions, more fiery than ever!!!
You know of nothing like it, you poets, you are never
whirled along on such tornadoes of life! I could have
kissed the whole orchestra at once, and could not
help crying out, in French, it is true, but my intonation
must have made me understood: ''Sublime! prodigious!
I thank you, gentlemen, and I admire you ! You are
perfect brigands!"

The same violent qualities were noticeable in their
playing of the overture to Benvenuto, and yet, in the
opposite style, the introduction to Harold, the March
of the Pilgrims, and the Serenade, were never rendered
with more calm grandeur and religious serenity. As
for the movement from Romeo (the Festival at the
house of Capulet), its character tends rather towards the
turbulent; it also was accordingly, to use a Parisian ex-
pression, really run azvay with.

You should have seen, in the pauses at rehearsals, the
inflamed look of all those faces. . . . One of the players,
Schmidt (the thundering double-bass), had torn off a bit
of skin from the forefinger of his right hand at the be-
ginning of \\\Q. piszieato passage in the orgy; but with-
out thinking of stopping for such a trifle, and in spite of
the blood that flowed, he kept on, just changing his fin-
ger. That is what is called standing fire, in military
language.

While we were giving ourselves up to these amuse-
ments, the chorus, for its part, was studying, and with
great pains too, but with different results, the numbers
from my Requiem. The Offertory and the Quaerens me
went well enough at last ; but an insurmountable ob-
stacle stood in the way of the Sanctus, in which the solo
was to have been sung by Schmetzer, the first tenor of
the theatre, and an excellent musician. The andante
14

1^8 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

of this piece, written for three female voices, presents
some enharmonic modulations which the Dresden cho-
rus had understood very well, but which, it seems, were
beyond the musical intelligence of those in Brunswick.
Consequently, after trying in vain for three days to
catch the meaning and intonation, the poor people, in
despair, sent a deputation to conjure me not to expose
them to public insult, and get the terrible Sanctus taken
off the posters. I had to consent, but unwillingly, es-
pecially on Schmetzer's account, whose very high tenor
suits the seraphic hymn to perfection, and who also took
great pleasure in singing it.

Now all is in readiness, and despite the terrors of
Ch. Miiller about the scJierzo^ which he wanted to re-
hearse again, we go to the concert to study the impres-
sions this music is to call up. I must first tell you that,
by advice of the Kapellmeister, I had invited some
twenty persons who stood at the head of the legion of
amateurs in Brunswick to come to the rehearsals. Thus
I had every day a living advertisement, which, spread-
ing over the city, wrought up the public curiosity to
the highest pitch ; hence the singular interest the gen-
eral public took in the preparations for the concert, and
the questions they addressed to the players and privi-
leged listeners: "What happened at the rehearsal this
morning ? . . . Is he satisfied ? . . . He is a Frenchman,
then ? . . . But the French only write comic operas ! . . .
The chorus find him awfully wicked ! . . . He said that
the women sang like dancers ! . . . He knew, then, that
the soprani belong to the coi^ps de ballet ? . . . Is it true
that he bowed to the trombones in the middle of a
piece ? . . . The orchestra boy vows that at yesterday's
rehearsal he drank two decanters of water, a bottle of
white wine and three glasses of brandy ! . . . What does
he keep saying : Cesar ! Cesar ! (cest fa, cest (a / that's
it, that's it !) to the Conzcrtmeister for?" etc.

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. j^q

So much so, that long before the fixed time the the-
atre was filled to the roof with an impatient crowd,
already prejudiced in my favor. Now, my dear Heine,
draw in your claws completely, for here is where you
might feel tempted to make me feel them. When the
time comes, the orchestra being seated, I step upon
the stage ; and passing through the ranks of violins, I
come to the conductor's desk. Imagine my horror at
seeing it wound round from top to bottom with a great
garland of leaves. " It is the musicians," said I to myself,
"who have probably compromised me. What impru-
dence ! Counting one's eggs in this way before they are
hatched ! and if the public does not agree w^ith them,
■here I am in a pretty fix ! This manifestation would
be enough to ruin an artist in Paris twenty times over."
Yet grand acclamations greet the overture ; the MarcJi
of the Pilgrims has to be repeated ; the Orgy throws
the whole house into a fever ; the Offertory^ with its
chorus on two notes, and the Qiiaerens me seem to
touch many religious souls ; Ch. Miiller gets applauded
in the Romanza for violin ; Queen Mab causes extreme
surprise ; a Lied with orchestra is encored, and the Fes-
tival at the house of Capulet w^inds up the evening in
the most glowing manner. Hardly had the last chord
been struck, when a terrific noise shook the whole thea-
tre ; the audience rose like one man and yelled, in the
pit, in the boxes, everywhere ; the trumpets, horns and
trombones of the orchestra sounded discordant calls, one
in one key and another in another, accompanied by all
the din the violins and basses could make by being
struck on the back with the back of the bow, and all the
instruments of percussion.

There is a word in the German language to designate
this singular fashion of applauding. Hearing it unex-
pectedly, my first impression was one of rage and hor-
ror; the musical effects I had just been experiencing

l5o FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

were thus spoiled, and I had half a grudge against the
artists for testifying their satisfaction by such a row.
But how could I help being deeply moved by their
homage, when the Kapellmeister, George Miiller, came
up loaded with flowers, and said to me in French :

"Allow me, sir, to offer you these wreaths in the
name of the Ducal orchestra, and suffer me to place
them upon your scores !"

At these words the audience redoubled its yells, the
orchestra set off again with its noise . . . the baton fell
from my hands, and I no longer knew what I was about.

Laugh away, come, don't be bashful. It will do you
good, and cannot hurt me ; besides I have not done yet,
and it would cost you too much self-denial to hear my
dithyramb to the end without scratching me. . . . Well,
you are not too cross to-day ; I will go on.

On coming out of the theatre, perspiring and steam-
ing as if I had been dipped in the Styx, dazed and en-
chanted, not knowing whom to listen to in the midst of
all those congratulators, I am notified that a supper of
a hundred and fifty covers, ordered at my hotel, is offer-
ed me by a society of amateurs and artists. Of course
I had to go. New applause, new acclamations at my
arrival ; toasts and speeches in French and German
succeed each other; I make the best reply I can to
those I can understand, and at each health given, hun-
dred and fifty voices answ^er w^ith a hurrah in chorus with
the most superb effect. The basses begin on D, the
tenors on A, and then the ladies sing F-sharp, giving the
chord of D-major, soon followed by four chords, of the
sub-dominant, tonic, dominant and tonic, which succes-
sion gives a plagal cadence followed by an authentic
cadence. This salvo of harmony, in its broad move-
ment, bursts out with pomp and majesty ; it is very
fine ; this at least is truly worthy of a musical people.

What shall I say, my dear Heine ? Even if you w^ere

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

i6i

to find me innocent and primitive to a superlative de-
gree, I must own that these manifestations of good will
made me extremely happy. Such happiness undoubt-
edly does not approach, in the composer's mind, that of
conducting a superb orchestra playing with inspiration
his beloved works ; but the two go well together, and
after such a concert, such a night spoils nothing. I
owe much, as you see, to the artists and amateurs of
Brunswick ; I also owe much to her first musical critic,
M. Robert Griepenkerl, who launched out into a vehe-
ment discussion with a Leipzig paper, in a learned
pamphlet that he wrote about me, and gave, I think, a
good idea of the strength and direction of the musical
current which carries me along.

Give me your hand, then, and let us sing a grand
hurrah for Brunswick, on her favorite chords :

Moderato.

'^V

Ha!

ha!

ha! ha!

ilii-^

— ^^-

Ha!

ha! ha! ha!

ha!

i&E^i

Ha!

1-
ha! ha! ba!| ha!

Long live artistic cities !

I am sorry for it, my dear poet, but here you are,
compromised as a musician.

Now for the trip to your native city, Hamburg, that
desolate city like unto old Pompeii, but who rises strong
again from her ashes, and bravely binds up her wounds !
. . . Surely, I can only be glad of that, too. Ham-
burg has great musical resources ; singing societies, phil-
harmonic societies, military bands, etc. The theatre or-

1(32 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

chestra has been reduced, for the sake of economy, to
ultra-niggardly proportions, it 'is true; but I had made
my arrangements beforehand with the director of the
theatre, and they presented me with an orchestra,
thoroughly fine both as to numbers and the talent of
the players, thanks to a rich supplement of stringed in-
struments and the leave of absence I obtained for two
or three almost centenarian invalids to whom the thea-
tre is attached. Strange to say, there is an excellent
harpist in Hamburg, armed with a very good instru-
ment ! I had begun to despair of seeing either the one
or the other in Germany. I also found a vigorous
ophicleide, but I had to do without the English-horn.

The first flute (Cantal), and the first violin (Linde-
nau), are both virtuosi of the first rank. The Kapell-
meister (Krebs) fills his place with talent, and a severity
that I like to see in orchestra conductors. He helped
me very kindly in my long rehearsals. The singing
troop at the theatre was well enough composed at the
time of my trip ; it comprised three artists of merit ; a
tenor gifted, if not with an exceptional voice, at least
with taste and method ; an agile soprano. Mademoiselle
. . . Mademoiselle . . . faith, I have forgotten her name,
(this young divinity would have done me the honor to
sing at my concert if I had been better known. — Ho-
sanna in excelsis !) and finally Reichel, the formidable
bass, who, with a voice of enormous volume and superb
quality, has a compass of two octaves and a half!
Reichel is, over and above, a superb fellow; he piays
such parts as Sarastro, Moses and Bertram wonderfully
well. Madame Cornet, wife of the director, a finished
musician, and whose soprano of great range must have
had no common brilliancy, was not engaged ; she only
figured in some performances where her presence was
necessary. 1 applauded her in the Queen of the Night
in the Magic Flute, a difficult part, written in a very
high register, which very few singers possess.

FIRST JOURXEY TO GERMANY. j^-^

The chorus, though small and rather weak, got
through what they had to sing well enough.

The Hamburg opera-house is very large; I felt
nervous about its dimensions, having found it empty
three times running at the performances of the Magic
Flute, Mo'ise and Linda di CJiainoiinix. I was very
agreeably surprised to see it filled the day I presented
myself before the Hamburg public.

An excellent performance, and a large, intelligent
and very warm audience made the concert- one of the
best that I had given in Germany. 'Harold and the
cantata of the Fifth of May, sung with profound senti-
ment by Reichel, carried off the honors. After this
piece two musicians near my desk, spoke to me in a low
voice, in French, in these simple words which touched
me deeply :

"Ah ! sir ! our respect ! our respect ! . . ." They did
not know how to say any more. Upon the whole, the
Hamburg orchestra has remained very good friends with
me, of which I am not moderately proud, I swear it to
you. Only Krebs gave his suffrage with peculiar reti-
cence : "My dear sir," said he, "in a few years your
nnusic will get all over Germany ; it will become popu-
lar, and that will be a great misfortune ! What imita-
tions it will give rise to ! What a style ! What mad-
nesses ! It were better for art that you had never been
born!"

Let us hope, however, that those poor symphonies
are not as contagions as he has the kindness to say, and
that neither yellow fever, nor cholera- morbus will ever
come from them.

Now, Heine, Henri Heine, famous banker of Ideas,
nephew of M. Solomon Heine, author of so many pre-
cious poems in bullion, I have nothing more to tell you,
and I . . . salute you.

TO MADEMOISELLE LOUISE BERTIN.

SE VENTH LE TTER.

BERLIN.

1MUST first implore your Indulgence, mademoiselle,
for the letter I am about to write ; I have too much
reason to distrust the state of mind that I am in. An
attack of black philosophy has seized hold of me for
some days, and God knows to what sombre ideas, to
what absurd judgments, to what strange fancies it will
infallibly lead ... if it holds on. Perhaps you do not
yet quite know what black philosophy is ? . . . It is the
opposite of white magic, no more nor less.

By white magic we are able to divine that Victor
Hugo is a great poet; that Beethoven was a great mu-
sician ; that you are at once a musician and a poet ;
that Janin is a clever man ; that, if a fine opera, well
performed, fails, the public has understood nothing of
it ; that if it succeeds, the public has understood it no
better ; that the beautiful is rare ; that the rare is not
always beautiful ; that the strongest reason is the best ;
that Abd-el-Kader is wrong, O'Connell too; that Arabs
are decidedly not Frenchmen ; that pacific agitation is
all tomfoolery; and other propositions just as com-
plicated.

B^^ black philosophy we come to doubt, to be aston-
164

FIRS T JO URNE V TO GERM A N Y. 1 6 ^

ished at everything; to see graceful Images upside
down, and hideous objects in their true hght ; we grum-
ble incessantly, blaspheme life, and curse death ; we are
indignant, like Hamlet, that Imperious Caesar, dead, and
tiirnd to clay, might stop a hole to keep the wind away ;
we should be much more indignant if the ashes of poor
wretches were the only ones fit for that ignoble use ; we
pity poor Yorick's not being even able to laugh that
stupid grin he did after passing fifteen years under-
ground, and we throw away his skull with horror and
disgust ; or perhaps we carry it away with us, saw it
open, make a cup of it, and poor Yoriek, who can drink
no longer, serves to quench the thirst of mocking lovers
of Rhine wine.

Thus, in your rocky solitude, where you give your-
self up in peace to the current of your thoughts, I
should only feel mortal discontent and enmd in this
hour of black philosophy.^ If you should try to make
me admire a beautiful sunset, I should, very likely, pre-
fer the gaslight in the avenue des Champs-Elysees ; if
you were to show me one of your swans on the pond,
and point out its elegant shape, I should tell you that
the swan is a silly animal, that only thinks of paddling
about and eating, and whose song is nothing but a stu-
pid and frightful squawk ; if you were to seat yourself
at the piano-forte and play me some pages of your fa-
vorite composers, Mozart and Cimarosa,"-^ I should per-

' Yesterday, mademoiselle, suffering from an attack of this philosophy,
I happened to be in a house where the mania for autographs rages. The
queen of the drawing-room did not fail to ask me to write something in
her album. "But, I beg you," added she, "no flippancies." This ad-
vice irritated me, and I wrote at once :

" Capital piinishntent is a very bad thing, for, if it did not exist, I
should probably have killed a good many people by this time, and we
should not have now so many of those blackguardly idiots, the scourge of
art and artists. ''''

My aphorism was a good deal laughed at, as they thought that I did
not believe a word of it.

2 Mademoiselle Bertin has lately assured me that I slandered her in
counting Cimarosa among her favorite composers. So I must acknowl-

1 56 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

haps interrupt you in a huff, opining that it was high
time to come to the end of all this admiration for Mo-
zart, whose operas are all alike, and whose fine com-
posure is tiresome and exasperating ! . . . As for Cim-
arosa, I should send him to all the devils with his eternal
and only Alatrirnoitio segreto, which is almost as tiresome
as the Nozze di Figaro, without being nearly so musical ;
I should prove to you that the comic element in that
work lies solely in the pasquinades of the actors ; that
its melodic invention is quite limited ; that the perfect
cadence alone, returning every instant, forms nearly
two-thirds of the score ; in a word, that it is an opera fit
for the carnival and market days. If you should choose
an example of the opposite style, and fall back upon
some work of Sebastian Bach, I should probably betake
myself to flight from before his fugues, and leave you
alone with his Passion.

See the consequences of this terrible disease! . . .
When the fit is upon us, we have neither politeness, nor
tact, nor prudence, nor policy, nor worldly wisdom, nor
common sense; we propound all sorts of enormities;
and, what is worse, we mean what we say, we compro-
mise ourselves, we lose head.

A fig for black philosophy! the fit is over; I am
cool-headed enough now to talk reasonably; and here,
mademoiselle, is what I heard in Berlin: I will tell fur-
ther on, what I gave them to hear there.

I begin with the lyric theatre; all honor to whom
honor is due!

The late German opera-house, so quickly destroyed
hardly three months ago by fire, was dark and dirty
enough, but very sonorous and well calculated for mu-
sical effect. The orchestra did not occupy a position so
far advanced into the rows of stalls as in Paris; it was

edge my mistake, regretting having made it. At all events it is not a
very grave calumny, I fancy, nor one for which consolation is impossible.

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. iQj

spread out much more to the right and left, and the vio-
lent instruments, such as the trombones, trumpets, drums
and big-drum, being under the eaves of the first boxes,
lost something of their excessive resonance. The body
of instruments, one of the best that I have heard, is
composed as follows, on the days of grand perform-
ances: 14 first, and 14 second violins — 8 violas — lO
violoncelli — 8 double basses — 4 flutes — 4 oboes — 4 clar-
inets— 4 bassoons — 4 horns — 4 trumpets — 4 trom-
bones— I drummer — i big-drum — I pair of cymbals,
and 2 harps.

The strings are almost all excellent; at their head are
to be mentioned especially the brothers Ganz (first vio-
lin and first violoncello of great merit), and the clever
violinist Ries. The wooden wind instruments are, as
you see, twice as many as we have at the Opera in
Paris. This combination has great advantages; it al-
lows tw^o flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, and two bas-
soons to come in ripicnim \\\q fortissimo, and singularly
softens the harshness of the brass, which is otherwise
always too prominent. The horns are capital, and are
all with cylinders, to the great sorrow of Meyerbeer,
who still holds the opinion I used to but a little while
ago about the new mechanism. Several composers are
hostile to the horn with cylinders, because they think
that its quality of tone is no longer the same as that of
the plain horn. I made the experiment several times,
listening alternately to the open notes of a plain horn
and a chromatic horn (with cylinders); I confess that it
was impossible for me to detect the slightest difference
of tone between them, either in quality or quantity.
Another objection to the new horn has been advanced,
apparently well founded, but which is easily met. Since
the introduction into orchestras of this (as I think,
perfected) instrument, certain horn-players, using the
cylinders to play parts written for the common horn.

1 58 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY,

find It more convenient to produce In open tones by
means of this mechanism, the. ^/^//^^ tones intentionally
written by the composer. This is in fact a very grave
abuse, but it must be imputed to the players, and not
to the instrument. Far from this, the horn with cylin-
ders, in the hands of a clever artist, can give not only
all the stopped notes of the common horn, but can give
the entire scale without a single open note. We must
only conclude from all this that horn-players ought to
know how to use their hand in the bell, as if the mech-
anism of cylinders did not exist, and that composers
must in future indicate in their scores, by some sign,
what notes of the horn-parts are to be stopped, the play-
er only playing open notes when no indication to the
contrary is given.

The same prejudice has for some time fought against
the trumpets with cylinders. In general use in Germany
to-day, though with less strength than it brought to
bear upon opposing the new horns. The question of
stopped notes, which no composer has used with the
trumpet, was naturally laid aside. They confined
themselves to saying that the trumpet lost much of its
brilliancy through the mechanism of cylinders, which Is
not so ; at least as far as my ear can tell. So, if it
takes a more delicate ear than mine to detect a differ-
ence between the two instruments, you will admit, I
hope, that the disadvantage the trumpet with cylinders
suffers from this difference bears no proportion to the
advantage this mechanism gives it of being able to pass
through, without difficulty or the slightest inequality of
tone, a chromatic scale of two octaves and a half I
can only applaud the Germans for having almost com-
pletely abandoned the plain trumpet, as they have.
We have hardly any chromatic trumpets (with cylinders)
in France as yet ; the inconceivable popularity of the
comet-a-pistons competes victoriously with them as yet,

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. j^q

and wrongly as I think ; the tone of the cornet being
far from having the nobihty and brilHancy of that of the
trumpet. In any case the instruments are not wanting ;
Adolphe Sax makes now trumpets with cyHnders, both
large and small, in every possible key, common or not,
of which the excellent sonority and perfection are in-
contestable. Will you believe it that this young and
ingenious artist has a thousand troubles in getting an
opening and making a living in Paris ? Persecutions
worthy of the Middle Ages are renewed against him,
exactly resembling the machinations of the enemies of
Benvenuto, the P^lorentine carver. His workmen are
enticed away, his plans stolen, he is accused of insanity,
beset with lawsuits ; only a little more daring is wanting
to have him assassinated. Such is the hatred inventors
always excite among those of their rivals who invent
nothing. Luckily the protection and friendship with
which General de Rumigny has constantly honored the
clever maker have helped him so far to sustain this
wretched struggle; but will they suffice long? ... It
is for the Minister of War to place a man so useful, and
with so rare a specialty, in a position of which he is
worthy,- by his talent, his perseverance and his efforts.
Our military bands have as yet neither trumpets with
cylinders nor bass-tubas (the most powerful of bass in-
struments). The manufacture of these instruments will
become inevitable, if the French military bands are to
be on a level with those in Prussia and Austria ; an or-
der for three hundred trumpets and a hundred bass •
tubas, given to Adolphe Sax by the Minister, would
save him.

BerHn is the only German city (that I have visited)
where the great bass-trombone (in E-flat) is to be
found. We have not got any as yet in Paris, the play-
ers refusing to practice an instrument which is so hard
upon the chest. It seems that Prussian lungs are more
IS

I^o FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

robust than ours. The orchestra of the Berhn opera
has two of these instruments, of which the sonority is
such as to overwhelm, and completely cause to vanish,
the tone of the two other trombones, the alto and tenor,
which play the upper parts. The rough and prominent
tone of one bass-trombone would be enough to upset
the equilibrium and destroy the harmony of the three
trombone parts which composers write everywhere to-
day. There is no ophicleide at the Berlin opera, and
instead of replacing it by a bass-tuba in operas that
come from France, and which almost invariably contain
a part for the ophicleide, they have hit upon the plan of
having the part played by a second bass-trombone.
The result is that the ophicleide part, often written so as
to double that of the third trombone in the lower oc-
tave, being played in this fashion, the union of these
two terrible instruments produces a disastrous effect.
Only the low notes of the brass instruments are heard ;
it is as much as ever that the voice of the trumpets can
come to the surface. In my concerts, even where I
only used (for my symphonies) one bass-trombone, I
was obliged, seeing that it was the only one I could
hear, to make the player sit down so that the bell of his
instrument was turned against his desk, which acted to
some extent as a mute, while the alto and tenor trom-
bones played standing, their bells thus passing over the
desk. It was only then that the three parts were audi-
ble. These repeated experiments, made in Berlin, have
led me to think that the best way of grouping the trom-
bones in theatres is, after all, that which is adopted at
the Opera in Paris, and which consists in employing
three tenor trombones. The tone of the small trom-
bone (the alto) is shrill, and its high notes are of little
value. I should vote also for its exclusion from theatres,
and should only desire the presence of a bass-trombone
when foiu' parts are written, and with tJwce tenors capa-
ble of resisting it.

FIRST JO URNE Y TO GERMANY. j j j

If I do not speak of gold, I have at least said a good
deal about brass ; yet I am sure, mademoiselle, that
these details of instrumentation will interest you much
more than my misanthropic tirades, or my stories of
death's-heads. You are a melodist and a harmonist,
and very little versed, as far as I know, in osteology.
So I will go on with my examination of the musical
forces of the Berlin opera.

The kettle-drummer is a good musician, but has not
much agility in his wrists ; his rolls are not close enough.
Besides, his drums are too small. They have not much
tone, and he only knows of one kind of sticks, of a me-
diocre effect, about half-way between our leather-headed
sticks and those wdth sponge heads. In this respect
they are far behind France, throughout Germany. As
for the execution itself, with the exception of Wiprecht,
the head of the military bands in Berlin, who plays the
drums like a Jiipitci'' tonans, I have not found an artist
w4io can compare with Poussard, the excellent drummer
of the Opera, for precision, closeness of rolling and del-
icacy of shading. Must I speak of the cymbals ? Yes,
and only to tell you that a pair of intact cymbals, that
is to say, such as are neither cracked nor notched, such
as are whole in short, are a great rarity, that I have found
neither in Weimar, nor Leipzig, nor Dresden, nor Ham-
burg, nor Berlin. It was always a source of great wrath
to me, and I have sometimes kept the orchestra waiting
half an hour, being unwilling to begin a rehearsal before
they brought me a pair of really new cymbals, really
quivering, really Turkish, as I wished them to be, to
show the Kapellmeister whether I was wrong or not in
finding the bits of broken dishes presented to me under
that name ridiculous and detestable. In general, w^e
must acknowledge the shocking inferiority of certain
parts of the orchestra in Germany up to the present
day. They do not seem to suspect the effects that can

J 72 FJ^ST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

be drawn from them, and which really are drawn from
them elsewhere. The instruments are worthless, and the
players are far from knowing all their resources. Such
are the kettle-drums, the cymbals, even the big-drum ;
still more so the English-horn, the ophicleide and the
harp. But this fault is evidently to be laid to the charge
of the composers' way of Avriting, as they, not having
ever demanded anything important from these instru-
ments, are the cause of their successors', who write in
another manner, not being able to obtain anything from
them.

But, on the other hand, how far the Germans are our
superiors in brass instruments in general, and the trump-
ets in particular ! We have no idea of it. Their clar-
inets too are better than ours ; such is not the case with
the oboes ; I think that in this point the two schools are
of equal merit; as for the flutes, we surpass them ; the
flute is played nowhere as it is in Paris. Their double-
basses are stronger than the French ; their violoncelli,
violas and violins have great excellences ; yet they
cannot be, without injustice, placed on an equality with
our young school of stringed instruments. The violins,
violas and violoncelli of the orchestra of the Conserva-
toire in Paris have no rivals. I have given more than
abundant proof, I think, of the scarcity of good harps
in Germany ; those in Berlin are no exceptions to the
general rule, and they have great need in that capital
of some pupils of Parish- Alvars. This superb orchestra,
whose excellent precision, ensemble, strength and deli-
cacy are pre-eminent, is placed under the direction of
Meyerbeer, general director of music to the King of
Prussia. It is . . . Meyerbeer (I think you know him ! ! !
. . .) ; of Henning (first Kapellmeister), a clever man,
whose talent is greatly esteemed by the artists ; and of
Taubert (second Kapellmeister), a brilliant pianist and
composer. I heard (played by himself and the brothers

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. j ^^

Ganz) a piano-forte trio of his composition, of excellent
workmanship, in a new style, and full of vigor. Tau-
bert has just written and had successfully performed,
choruses to the Greek tragedy of Medea, recently put
upon the stage in Berlin.

MM. Ganz and Ries divide between them the title
and duties of Conzertnteister.

Let us now go upon the stage.

The chorus, on days of ordinary performances, is
composed of only sixty voices; but when grand operas
are given in presence of the king, the choral force is
doubled, and sixty other singers from outside are added
to those of the theatre. All these voices are excellent,
fresh, and vibrating. The greater part of the chorus-
singers, men, women, and children, are musicians, less
skillful readers, it is true, than those of the Opera in
Paris, but much more trained than they in the art of
singing, more attentive and careful, and better paid. It
is the finest theatre chorus that I have yet met with.
Their director is Elssler, brother of the famous dancer.
This intelligent and patient artist might spare himself
much trouble, and advance the choral studies more rap-
idly, if, instead of drilling the hundred and eighty
voices all at the same time and in the same hall, he
would at first divide them into three groups (the soprani
and confralti, the tenors, and the basses), studying sep-
arately, in three separate rooms, under the direction of
three sub-leaders, chosen and superintended by himself
This analytic method, which has been steadfastly refused
admission to theatres, from wretched reasons of econo-
my and mere routine, is still the only one that can allow
of each choral part being thoroughly studied, and ob-
tain a careful and well-shaded rendering of it ; I have
said this elsewhere, and shall not get tired of repeating it.

The acting singers of the Berlin theatre do not occu-
py so exalted a rank in the hierarchy of virtuosi as

1^4 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

that which the chorus and orchestra have attained, each
in its own specialty, among the musical bodies of Eu-
rope. Yet this troupe comprises some notable talents,
among whom I must mention :

Mademoiselle Marx, an expressive and very sympa-
thetic soprano, whose extreme chords, in the upper and
lower registers, unluckily begin to show signs of wear ;

Mademoiselle Tutchek, flexible sopi^ano, of quite pure
quality and fair agility ;

Mademoiselle Hahnel, contralto, of good character ;

Boeticher, excellent bass, of great compass and fine
quality ; skillful singer, fine actor, musician, and con-
summate reader ;

Zische, basso-cantantc, of real talent, whose voice and
method seem to shine more in concert than on the
stage ;

Mantius, first tenor; his voice is a little wanting in
flexibility, and has not much range.

Madame Schroder-Devrient, engaged only a few
months ago ; a soprano worn out in the upper part, not
very flexible, but explosive and dramatic. Madame
Dcvrient sings flat now whenever she cannot force a
note. Her ornaments are in bad taste, and she inter-
lards her singing with spoken phrases and interjections,
with execrable effect, after the manner of our vaudeville
actors in their songs. This school of singing is the
most antimusical and the most trivial that can be pointed
out to beginners to avoid imitating.

rischek, the excellent baritone of whom I have
spoken in Frankfort, has just been engaged, so they tell
me, by M. Meyerbeer. He is a precious acquisition
that the direction of the Berlin theatre is to be congrat-
ulated upon.

There, mademoiselle, is all that I know about the
resources dramatic music can look to in the capital of
Prussia. I did not hear a single performance at the
Italian theatre, so I shall not speak about it.

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

175

In another letter I shall have to scrape together my
recollections of a performance of the Huguenots and of
Armide at which I was present, of the Singing Acad-
emy and the military bands, two institutions of essen-
tially opposite character, but of immense value, and
whose splendor, compared with anything we have of
the same sort, must profoundly humiliate our national
pride.

TO MONSIEUR HABENECK.^

EIGHTH LETTER.

BERLIN.

I LATELY made an enumeration of the vocal and In-
strumental riches of the Grand Opera of Berlin for
Mademoiselle Louise Bertin, whose musical knowledge
and serious love for art you know. I shall now have to
speak of the Singing Academy and the corps of military
bands ; but as you wish to know above all things what
I think of the performances at which I was present, I
will invert the order of my account, to tell you how
I saw the Prussian artists conduct themselves in the
operas of Meyerbeer, Gluck, Mozart and Weber.

There are, unfortunately, in Berlin, as in Paris, as
everywhere, certain days on which it seems as if, by
tacit agreement between the artists and the public, the
performances were more or less neglected. Many
empty seats are visible in the house, and many unoccu-
pied desks in the orchestra. The leaders dine out, and
give balls on those evenings ; they are off hunting, etc.
The musicians doze while playing the notes of their
parts ; some do not even play at all ; they take naps,
they read, they draw caricatures, they play tricks on

1 Conductor of the orchestra at the Paris Opera. — Traxs.
176

FIRST JO URNE V TO GERM A NY. iy>j

their neighbors, they chatter quite loudly ; I need not
tell you all that goes on in the orchestra in such
cases. . . .

As for the actors, they are in too prominent a posi-
tion to take such liberties (which, however, sometimes
happens), but the chorus give themselves up to them to
their hearts' content. They come upon the stage one
after the other, in incomplete groups ; several of them,
coming late to the theatre, are not yet dressed ; some,
having sung in a fatiguing service at church during the
day, come all tired out, with the fixed intent of not
singing a note. Every one is at his ease ; high notes
are transposed an octave lower, or else they are given
as well as may be in a timid mezza voce ; there is no
longer any light and shade ; the mezzo forte is adopted
for the whole evening, nobody looks at the conductor's
baton, and three or four wrong entries and as many dis-
located phrases are the result ; but what matter ! Does
any one suppose that the public notices all that ? The
director does not know anything about it, and if the
composer complains, they laugh in his face and call him
a mischief-maker. The opera girls especially have
charming amusements. There is no end to their smiles
and telegraphic communications either with the musi-
cians or the habitues of the balcony. They have been
in the morning to the christening of Mademoiselle ***'s,
one of their comrade's, baby ; they have brought away
sugar-plums which they eat on the stage, laughing at
the queer face of the godfather, the coquetry of the
godmother, the w^ell-fed countenance of the cure. While
keeping up this chit-chat, they distribute a few slaps
among the chorus boys who begin to be unruly :

**Come, stop that, you little rascal, or I'll call the
leader of the chorus."

''Just look, my dear, see what a lovely rose M. ***
has got in his button-hole ! Florence gave it him."
15*

J ^ S FIRST JO URXE Y TO GERM A NY.

" So she is as spooney as ever on her exchange
broker?"^

''Yes, but it's a secret; everybody can't have a law-
yer."

"Oh! get out! By the way, are you going to the
court-concert ?"

"No, I've something to do that day."

*' What's that?"

" Get married."

" My ! what an idea ! "

" Look out, here's the curtain."

So the act comes to an end, the pubhc is mystified
and the work spoiled. But, what ! People must have
some time to rest a bit ; one cannot be always sublime,
and these performances in shirt-sleeves only serv^e to
give prominence to those that are gotten up with care,
zeal, attention and talent. I agree to it ; but yet you
will admit that there is something sad in seeing master-
works treated with this extreme familiarity. I can un-
derstand not wishing to burn incense night and day
before the statues of great men ; but would you not be
angry to see the bust of Gluck or of Beethoven used as
a wig-block in a hair-dresser's window ? . . .

Do not clothe yourself in philosophy ; I am sure it
would make you indignant.

I do not mean to conclude from all this that they give
themselves up to having a good time to this extent at
certain performances in the Berlin opera-house ; no, they
go at it with more moderation ; on this head, as on some
others, the superiority remains with us. If by chance
we happen to see in Paris a masterpiece given in its
sJiirt-sIceves, as I have just said, they never allow them-
selves in Prussia to give it in more than Jialf undress.
I have seen Figaro and the FreyscJtiitz given so. It was

' There is a pun in the original on argent (money) and agent (broker)
which baffles attempt at translation. — Trans.

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. i>jg

not bad, without being wholly good. There was a cer-
tain rather relaxed ensemble, a little undecided precision,
a moderate verve, a tepid warmth; one could only de-
sire the color and animation which are the true symp-
toms of life, and that luxury, which for good music is
really a necessary; and then something else that is rather
essential . . . inspiration.

But when Arniide or the Huguenots come upon the
boards, you can see a complete transformation. I
thought myself at one of those first performances in
Paris where you come early, to have time to look over
your people a bit and give your last advice, where every
one is at his post before his time, where every one's
mind is on the stretch, where serious faces express a
fixed and intelligent attention, where one sees, in fact,
that an important musical event is to take place.

The grand orchestra with its twenty-eight violins and
its doubled wind instruments, the great chorus with its
hundred and twenty voices were present, and Meyer-
beer ruled at the conductor's desk. I had a lively de-
sire to see him conduct, especially conduct his own
work. He performs this task as if he had been at it for
twenty years ; the orchestra is in his hand, he does with
it what he wishes. As for the tempi he takes in the
Huguenots, they are the same as your own, with the
exception of the entry of the monks in the fourth act,
and the march which closes the third ; these are a little
slower. This difference made the former number seem
a little cold to me ; I should have preferred a little less
breadth, while I found it wholly to the advantage of the
latter, played upon the stage by the military band ; it
gains by it in every respect.

I cannot analyze, scene by scene, the playing of the
orchestra in Meyerbeer's masterpiece ; I will only say
that it struck me as magnificently fine from the begin-
ning to the end of the performance, perfectly shaded,

j3o first yOCRXEY TO GERMAXY.

incomparably precise and clear, even in the most in-
tricate passages. Thus the finale of the second act,
with its phrases rolling upon series of chords of the di-
minished seventh and its enharmonic modulations, was
given, even in the most obscure parts, with irreproach-
able nicety and purity of intonation. I must say as
much of the chorus. The running passages, the con-
trasted double choruses, the entries in imitation, the
sudden changes from forte to piano, the intermediate
shades, were all given clearly and vigorously, with rare
warmth and a still more rare sentiment for true expres-
sion. The stretta of the benediction of poniards struck
me like a thunder-bolt, and I was a long time in getting
over the incredible confusion it threw me into. The
great enseinble piece in the Pre aux clcrcs^ the quarrel
of the women, the litanies to the Virgin, the song of the
Huguenot soldiers presented to the ear a musical tissue
of astounding richness, but of which the listener could
easily follow the web, without the complex thought of
the composer being for an instant veiled. This marvel
of dramatized counterpoint has also remained in my
mind as the marvel of choral execution. Meyerbeer,
I think, can hope for nothing better in any part of Eu-
rope. I must add that the niise-en-scene is arranged in
an eminently ingenious manner. In the singing of the
rataplan, the chorus imitate a sort of drummier's march,
with certain movements forward and back, which ani-
mate the scene and assimilate very well with the musical
effect.

The military band, instead of being placed, as in Paris,
at the back of the stage, from whence, separated from
the orchestra by the crowd which encumbers the stage,
it cannot see the movements of the conductor, and can
consequently not follow the measure exactly, here begins
pla}'ing behind the side-scenes at the right of the spec-
tator; it then marches across the stage near the foot-

FIRST yOURXE Y TO GERMANY. j g j

lights, passing across the groups of the chorus. In this
way the players are very near the conductor until al-
most the end of their piece ; they keep strictly the same
time as the orchestra below, and there is never the
slightest rhythmical discordance between the two bodies.
Boeticher makes an excellent Saint- Bris ; Zsische fills
the part of Marcel with talent, yet without the qualities
of dramatic Jiuutor that make our own Levasseur such
an originally true MarccL Mademoiselle Marx shows
sensibility and a certain modest dignity, essential quali-
ties in the character of Valentine. Yet I must reproach
her with two or three spoken monosyllables which she
was wrong in borrowing from the school of Madame
Devrient. I saw this latter actress in the same part a
few days afterwards, and if, by pronouncing myself
openly against her rendering of it, I astonished and
even shocked several persons of excellent understand-
ing, who admire the famous artist without restriction, no
doubt from habit, I must say here why I differ so widely
from their opinion. I had no fixed opinion, no pre-
possession either for or against Madame Devrient. I
only remembered that she struck me as admirable in
Paris many years ago in Beethoven's Fidelia, and that
quite recently in Dresden, on the other hand, I had
noticed very bad habits in her singing, and a scenic
action often blemished by exaggeration and affectation.
These faults struck me afterwards in the Huguenots all
the more forcibly that the situations of the drama are
more enchaining, and the music bears a plainer stamp
of grandeur and truth. Thus I severely blamed the
singer and actress, and here is the reason : In the scene
of the conspirators where Saint-Bris lays his plan for
massacring the Huguenots before Nevers and his friends,
Valentine hstens shuddering to her father's bloody
scheme, but she has a care not to show the horror w^ith
which it inspires her; Saint- Bris^ indeed, is not the man
i6

1 82 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

to endure such opinions in his daughter. Valentine^ &
invokintary start towards her husband at the moment
when he breaks his sword and refuses to join in the
plot is the more beautiful, that the timid woman has
suffered so long in silence, and that her agitation has
been so painfully contained. Well ! instead of hiding
her agitation and remaining almost passive, as most
tragedians of good sense do in this scene, Madame Dev-
rient goes and takes hold of Nevcrs, forces him to follow
her to the back of the stage, and there, striding along
by his side, she seems to be tracing out his plan of con-
duct for him, and dictating his answer to Saint-Bris.
Whence it comes that when Valentine's husband cries
out :.

" Parmi mes illustres ai'eux,
Je compte des soldats, mais pas un assassin! "

(Among my illustrious ancestors I count soldiers, but
not one assassin !) he loses all the merit of his opposi-
tion ; his movement has no longer any spontaneity,
and he seems simply a submissive husband who is re-
peating the lesson his wife has taught him. When
Saint-Bris begins the famous theme : A cctte canse
sainte^ Madame Devrient forgets herself so far as, willy-
nilly, to throw herself into the arms of her father, who
is yet supposed to be ignorant of Valentine s senti-
ments ; she implores him, she supplicates him, she
pesters him, in a word, with such vehement panto-
mime, that Boeticher, who was not prepared the first
time for these tempestuous demonstrations, did not
know what to do to preserve his freedom of action
and respiration, and seemed to say by the shaking of
his head and right arm, *' For God's sake, madam, let
me alone, and allow me to sing my part to the end ! "
Madame Devrient shows by this to what a degree she
is possessed by the demon of personality. She would
think herself lost if in every scene, whether right or

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY, jg^

wrong, and by no matter what scenic manoeuvres, she
did not draw the attention of the audience upon her-
self. She plainly considers herself as the pivot of the
drama, as the only person worthy of interesting the
spectators. *' You are listening to that actor ! you are
admiring the composer ! this chorus interests you !
Fools that you are ! only look this way, look at me ; for
I am the poem, I am poetry, I am the music, I am all
in all ; there is no other interesting object beside me,
and you must have come to the theatre for my sake
alone !" In the prodigious duet which follows this im-
mortal scene, while Raoul is giving himself up to all the
storm of his despair, Madame Devrient, with her hand
resting upon a lounge, bends her head gracefully so as
to let the lovely curls of her blonde hair hang down
disheveled at her left side ; she says a few words, and,
during RaouV s cue, throwing herself into another pose,
she offers the soft reflections in her hair for admiration
on her right side. I do not think, however, that these
minute details of a puerile coquetry are precisely those
which ought to fill the soul of Valentine at such a mo-
ment.

As for Madame Devrient's singing, I have already
said that it is often wanting in trueness and taste. The
eadenzas and the numerous changes she now introduces
into her parts are in bad style, and clumsily brought in.
But I know of nothing that can .be compared to her
spoken ejaculations. Madame Devrient never sings
the words : God ! O God ! yes ! no ! is it true ! can it
be ! etc. All this is spoken and shrieked at the top of
her voice. I cannot tell the aversion I feel for this sort
of antimusical declamation. To my mind it is a hun-
dred times worse to speak in opera than to sing in
tragedy.

The notes designated in certain scores by the words :
Canto parlato, are not intended to be thrown out in

I §4 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

that way ; in the serious style, the quahty of voice they
demand ought always to adhere to the tonahty ; this
does not overstep the bounds of music. Who does not
remember how Mademoiselle Falcon used to know how
to give, in canto parlato, the words at the end of this
duo: '' Raoul ! ils te tueroiit V' (Raoul ! they will kill
thee !) Surely that was at once natural and musical,
and made an immense effect.

Far from that, when answering to the supplications
of Raoul, Madame Devrient cries out three times with
a crescendo of strength, nein I iiein! nein ! I fancy
that I am hearing Madame Dorval or Mademoiselle
Georges in a melodrama, and ask of myself why the
orchestra keeps on playing, since the opera is over. I
did not hear the fifth act, so furious was I at seeing the
masterpiece of the fourth disfigured in this fashion.
Would it be calumniating you to say that you would
have done as much, my dear Habeneck ? I hardly
think so. I know your way of thinking in music ;
when the performance of a fine work is wholly bad, you
bravely make up your mind to it ; and then, the more
detestable it is, the more courageous you are ! But on
the other hand, when all goes satisfactorily with a single
exception, oh ! then that exception irritates you, grates
on your nerves, exasperates you ; you get into one of
those passions of indignation that would make you look
upon the extermination of the discordant individual with
composure, and even with joy, and while the good bour-
geois are amazed at your wrath, all true artists share it
with you, and you and I gnash all our teeth in unison.

Madame Devrient certainly has eminent good quali-
ties ; such as warmth and power over her audience ; but
even if these qualtities were sufficient in themselves,
they did not seem to me to be always kept within the
bounds of nature or the character of certain parts.
Valentine, for instance, even putting aside what I have

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. jgt

said above, Valentine, the young bride of a day, with a
heart strong but timid, the noble wife of Nevers, the
chaste and reserved lover, who only avows her love for
Raoul to snatch him from the jaws of death, lends her-
self more readily to modest passion, decent action and
expressive song than to all the three-decker broadsides
of Madame Devrient with her devilish personalism.

Some days after the Hnguenots I saw Arniide. The
revival of this celebrated work was conducted with all
the care and respect due to it ; the inise-en-scene was
magnificent, dazzling, and the public showed itself
worthy of the favor granted it. Of all the old com-
posers, Gluck is the one who seems to me to have the
least to fear from the incessant revolutions in art. He
never sacrificed anything either to the caprices of sing-
ers, nor to the requirements of fashion, nor to the invet-
erate habits he had to combat with on coming to France,
still tired out by the struggle he had kept up against
those of the Italian theatres. No doubt this war with
the dilettanti of Milan, Naples and Parma, instead of
weakening him, had redoubled his strength by revealing
its extent ; for in spite of the fanaticism which then per-
vaded all our French customs in art matters, it was al-
most in making light of them that he crushed and tram-
pled under foot the wretched schemes that opposed
him. The shrill shrieking of critics succeeded once in
betraying him into a movement of impatience ; but this
fit of wrath, which led him to commit the imprudence
of answering them, was the only one with which he had
to reproach himself; and after that, as before, he walked
on in silence, straight to his goal. You know what the
goal was he wished to attain, and whether or not it was
ever granted to a man to reach it more surely than he.
With less conviction, or less firmness of purpose, it is
probable that, in spite of the genius with which nature
had gifted him, his corrupted works would not have

J 86 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

long outlived those of his mediocre rivals, so completely-
forgotten to-day. But truth of expression, which brings
with itself purity of style and grandeur of forms, is of
every age ; the beautiful pages of Glack will remain
always beautiful. Victor Hugo is right : Le coeur na
pas de rides (The heart has no wrinkles).

Mademoiselle Marx, as Armide, struck me as noble
and impassioned, although a thought crushed by her epic
burden. In fact it is not enough to possess a real talent
to represent Gluck's women ; as with Shakspere's wo-
men, there must be such high qualities of soul, heart,
voice, physiognomy and bearing, that it is no exaggera-
tion to say that these roles also demand beauty and . . .
genius.

What a happy evening I passed at this performance
of Annide, conducted by Meyerbeer! The orchestra
and chorus, inspired at once by two illustrious masters,
the composer and the conductor, showed themselves
worthy of both. The famous finale: Pours?iivoJis jns-
qii'aiL trepas (Let us pursue unto death), produced a ver-
itable explosion. The act of Hatred, with the admirable
pantomimes composed, if I mistake not, by Paul Tagli-
oni, master of the ballet at the Grand Theatre in Berlin,
struck me as no less remarkable in its apparently disor-
dered verve, of which every outbreak was yet full of an
infernal harmony. They cut the dance air in f time
in A-niajor, which we give here, and gave instead the
great eJiaconne in B-fl,at, which we never hear in Paris.
This very fully developed number is full of fire and
brilliancy. What a conception this act of Hatred is! I
had never so fully comprehended and admired it. I
shuddered at the passage in the evocation:

" Sauvez moi de I'amour,
Rien n'est si redoutable ! "

(Save me from love, nothing is so terrible).

FIKS T yO URNE V TO GERMANY. j g j

At the first hemistich, the two oboes give out a cruel
dissonance of a major seventh, a woman's cry which
shows us terror and the most acute anguish. But at
the following line:

" Centre un ennemi trop aimable"

(Against too lovable an enemy), how these same two
voices sigh tenderly, uniting in thirds! What regrets
lie in these {^\n notes! and how we feel that love so re-
gretted will conquer in the end! In fact, Hatred, com-
ing with her frightful army, has hardly begun her work,
when Annidc interrupts her and refuses her aid. Hence
the chorus:

" Suis I'amour, puisque tu le veux,
Infortunee Armide ;
Suis I'amour qui te guide
Dans un abime affreux ! "

(Follow love, since you so wish it, unhappy Armida ;
follow love, which leads you to a frightful chasm!)

In Ouinault's text the act ends there; Armide went
out with the chorus without saying anything. This
catastrophe seeming vulgar and unnatural to Gluck, he
wished to have the sorceress remain alone for an in-
stant, and then go out, thinking of what she has just
heard, and one day, after a rehearsal, he improvised at
the opera-house the words and music of this scene, of
which the following are the verses:

"O ciel ! quelle horrible menace !
Je fremis ! tout mon sang se glace !
Amour, puissant amour, viens calmer mon effroi,
Et prends pitie d'un coeur qui s'abandonne a toi ! "

(Oh heavens ! What a fearful threat ! I tremble ! all my
blood curdles! Love, powerful love, come and calm my
terror, and take pity on a heart which gives itself up to
thee !)

The music of it is beautiful in melody, harmony,
vague anxiety, tender languor, and all that can be finest

1 88 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

in dramatic and musical inspiration. Between each of
the exclamations of the first verse, under a sort of inter-
mittent tremolo of the second violins, the basses unfold
a long chromatic phrase that growls and threatens up to
the first word of the third verse: ''Amour'' (Love),
Avhen the sweetest melody, expanding as in a dream,
dissipates by its soft light the half obscurity of the fore-
going measures. Then all is extinguished. . . Armide
retires with downcast eyes, while the second violins,
abandoned by the rest of the orchestra, still murmur
their solitary tremolo. Immense, immense is the genius
that can create such a scene !!!...

Egad! I am really Arcadian in my admiring analy-
sis! Do not I look like a man to initiate you, you
Habeneck, into the beauties of Gluck's score? But you
know it is involuntary ! I talk to you here as we some-
times do on the Boulevards, coming out of a Conserva-
toire concert, when our enthusiasm must positively air
itself a little.

I will make an observation upon the mise-en-secne of
this piece in Berlin:

The machinist lets the curtain fall too soon; he ought
to wait until the last measure of the closing ritoiirnelle
has been heard; otherwise Armide cannot be seen leav-
ing the back of the stage with slow steps, during the
ever feebler and feebler palpitations and sighs of the
orchestra. This effect was very beautiful at the Opera
in Paris, where, at the time of the performances of Ar-
mide, the curtain never fell. To make up for it, although
I am not, as you know, an advocate of any modifica-
tions made by the conductor of an orchestra in a score
which is not his own, and of which he ought only to
seek a good execution, I will compliment Meyerbeer
upon a happy idea he has had concerning the intermit-
tent tremolo I have just mentioned. This passage for
the second violins being on low D, Meyerbeer, to give

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. jgg

it more prominence, had It played upon two strings in
unison (the open D and the D o\\ the fourth string). It
naturally sounds as if the number of second violins
were suddenly doubled, and a peculiar resonance results
from these two strings which produces the happiest ef-
fect. So long as only corrections like this are made in
Gluck, we may be allowed to applaud them.^ It is like
your idea of playing the famous continued tremolo of
the oracle in Alceste near the bridge and scraping the
string. Gluck did not indicate it, to be sure, but he
oiigJit to have.

In respect to exquisite sentiment and expression I
found the execution of the scenes In the Garden of
Pleasures, even superior to all the rest. It was a sort of
voluptuous languor, of morbid fascination, which trans-
ported me to that palace of love, dreamed of by two
poets (Gluck and Tasso), and seemed to give it to me
for my enchanted dwelling place. I shut my eyes, and
while hearing that divine gavotte with its caressing mel-
ody, and the sweetly monotonous murmur of its har-
mony, and that chorus : Jamais dans ces beaux lieiix
(Never in this beautiful place), whence happiness over-
flows with so much grace, I saw charming arms entwined
about me, adorable feet cross each other, perfumed locks
of hair roll down, diamond eyes sparkle, and a thousand
intoxicating smiles glisten. The flower of pleasure
opened, softly shaken by the melodious breeze, and from

^ No, it shall not be allowed. I was in the wrong to write that. Gluck
knew the effect of two strings in unison as well as Meyerbeer, and if he
did not wish to enijiloy it, no one has the mission to introduce it into his
work. Besides, Meyerbeer has added other effects to Ai'iiiide, such as
trombones in the duet '■^ Esprils de /mine et de rage'''' (Spirits of Hatred
and Rage), which cannot be enough censured. Spontini once quoted
them to me and reproached me with not having called attention to them.
And yet he too added wind instruments to the orchestra in Iphigenie en
Taiiride. . . . Forgetting that he had had this weakness, he cried out
another time: "It is frightful I So I suppose I too shall be instrumented
when I am dead ? . . . "

1 6*

lOQ FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

its ravishing corolla escaped a concert of sounds, colors
and perfumes. And it is Gluck, the terrible musician,
who has sung all woes, who has made Tartarus roar,
who has painted the desolate shores of Tauris and the
savage customs of its people ; it is he who knew how
thus to reproduce in music this strange ideal of dreamy
voluptuousness, and peace in love ! . . . Why not ? Had
he not already opened the Elysian Fields before ? . . .
Is it not he who found that immortal chorus of happy
shades :

**Torna, o bella, al tuo consorte
Che non vuol che piu diviso
Sia di te pietoso il del! "

And is it not commonly, as our great modern poet
has said, the strong who are the gentlest ?

But I see that the pleasure of talking to you about all
these beautiful things leads me on too far, and that I
cannot talk to-day about the non-dramatic musical in-
stitutions which flourish in Berhn. So they must be the
subject of another letter, and will give me an excuse for
plaguing somebody else with my indefatigable verbiage.

You are not too cross at this one, are you ?

At any rate, good-bye !

TO M. DESMAREST.i

NINTH LETTER.

BERLIN.

I SHOULD never get through with this royal city of
BerHn, were I to study all its musical riches in detail.
There are few capitals, if any, that can pride themselves
upon treasures of harmony comparable to hers. Music
is in the air, you breathe it, it penetrates you. You
find it at the theatre, at church, in the concert-room, in
the street, in the public gardens, everywhere ; ever
grand and proud, strong and agile, radiant in youth and
splendid trappings, of noble and serious mien, a beau-
tiful-armed angel who sometimes deigns to walk, but
whose quivering wings are ever ready to carry her again
on her heavenward flight.

It is because music in Berlin is honored by all. Rich
and poor, clergy and army, artists and amateurs, peo-
ple and king have an equal veneration for it. The king
especially brings the same real fervor to bear upon this
adoration that he does upon the cultivation of the sci-
ences and the other arts, which is saying much. He
follows with a curious eye the progressive movements,
I might even say the summersaults, of new art, without
neglecting the preservation of masterpieces of the old

* First violoncello of the Conservatoire orchestra. — Trans.

191

1 02 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

school. He has a prodigious memory, embarrassing
even to his Hbrarians and Ka,pellincistcrs, when he asks
them all at once for the performance of certain selections
from some old masters whom nobody any longer knows.
Nothing escapes him, neither in the domain of the pres-
ent nor of the past ; he wishes to hear and examine
everything. Hence the lively attraction great artists
feel towards Berlin ; hence the extraordinary popularity
of musical sentiment in Prussia ; hence the instrumental
and choral institutions its capital possesses, and which
seemed to me so worthy of admiration.

The Singing Academy is one of these. Like that in
Leipzig, like all other similar academies in Germany, it
is almost wholly composed of amateurs ; but several
artists, male and female, attached to the theatres, also
belong to it ; and ladies of the upper ten-thousand do
not think it beneath them to sing an oratorio of Bach
by the side of Boeticher or Mantius or Mademoiselle
Hahnel. — The greater part of the singers of the Berlin
Academy are musicians, and they almost all have fresh
and sonorous voices ; the soprani and basses struck me
as especially excellent. The rehearsals are made dili-
gently and at great length under the skillful direction
of M. Rugenhagen ; and the results obtained, when a
great work is submitted to the public, are magnificent
and beyond all comparison with anything of the sort
that we can hear in Paris.

The day on which I went to the Singing Academy,
by the director's invitation, they performed Sebastian
Bach's Passion. This famous score, which you have, no
doubt, read, is written for two choruses and two orches-
tras. The singers, to the number of at least three hun-
dred, were seated on the steps of a large amphitheatre,
exactly like the one we have in the chemistry lecture-
room in the Jardin des Plantes ; a space of only three
or four feet separates the two choruses. The two or-

. FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. 1^3

chestras, rather small ones, accompanied the voices from
the upper steps, behind the choruses, and were thus pret-
ty far from the Kapellmeister, who stood down in front
beside the piano-forte. I should not have said piano-
forte, but harpsichord ; for it had almost the tone of the
wretched instruments of that name which were in use in
Bach's time. I do not know whether they made such
a choice designedly, but I noticed in the singing schools,
in the green-rooms of the theatres, everywhere where
voices were to be accompanied, that the piano-forte in-
tended for that purpose was invariably the most detest-
able that could be found. The one Mendelssohn used
in Leipzig in the hall of the Gewand-Haus forms the
sole exception.

You will ask me v/hat the harpsichord-piano can have
to do during the perfonnance of a work in which the
composer has not used this instrument ! ^ It accompanies,
toeether with the flutes, oboes, violins and basses, and
probably serves to keep the first rows of the chorus up
to pitch, as they are supposed not to hear, in the tutti,
the orchestra, which is too far off. At any rate it is the
custom. The continual tinkling of chords struck on this
bad piano produces the most tiresome effect, and spreads
over the ensemble a superfluous coating of monotony ;
but that is, no doubt, another reason for not giving it
up. An old custom is so sacred, when it is a bad one !

The singers all remain seated during the pauses, and
rise at the moment of singing. There is, I think, a real
advantage in respect to a good emission of the voice in
singing standing ; it is only unfortunate that the chorus,
giving up too easily to the fatigue of this posture, sit
down as soon as their phrase is over ; for in a work like
Bach's, where the two answering choruses are often in-
terrupted by solo recitative, it happens that there is

' Berlioz shows here, as elsewhere, his utter ignorance of Bach's
scores. — Trans.

J Q^ FIRS T JO URNE V TO GERM A NY.

always some group getting up or some other sitting
down, and in the long run this succession of movements
up and down gets to be rather laughable ; besides it
takes away all the surprise from certain entries of the
chorus, the eye notifying the ear beforehand from what
part of the vocal body the sound is to come. I should
rather have the chorus keep seated unless they can keep
standing. But this impossibility is one of those that
disappear immediately if the director knows how to say :
/ ivish it or / do not wish it.

Be it as it may, the execution of those vocal masses
was something imposing to me ; the first tutti of the
two clioruses took away my breath ; I was far from sus-
pecting the power of that great harmonic blast. Yet
we must recognize the fact that one gets tired of this
beautiful sonority more quickly than of that of the or-
chestra, the qualities of the voices being less varied
than those of the instruments. This is conceivable ;
there are hardly four voices of different natures, while
the number of instruments of different kinds amounts
to over thirty.

You do not expect of me, I fancy, my dear Desma-
rest, an analysis of Bach's great work ; that would be
wholly overstepping the limits I have had to impose
upon myself Besides, the selection they played at the
Conservatoire three years ago may be considered as the
type of the composer's style and manner in this work.
The Germans profess an unlimited admiration for his rec-
itatives, and their pre-eminent quality is precisely the
one to have escaped me, as I do not understand the
language in which they are written, and could not con-
sequently appreciate the merit of their expression.

When one comes from Paris and knows our musical
customs, one must witness the respect, the attention,
the piety with which a German audience listens to such
a composition, to believe it. Every one follows the

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. jg^

words of the text with his eyes ; not a movement in the
house, not a murmur of approbation or blame, not the
least applause ; they are listening to a sermon, hearing
the Gospel sung; they are attending in silence, not a
concert, but divine service. And it is really thus that
this music ought to be listened to. They adore Bach,
and believe in him, without supposing for an instant
that his divinity can ever be questioned ; a heretic would
horrify them ; it is even forbidden to speak on the sub-
ject. Bach is Bach, as God is God.

Some days after the performance of this masterpiece
of Bach, the Singing Academy announced Graun's
Death of Jeszis. There is another consecrated score, a
sacred book, but one whose adorers are specially in Ber-
lin, while the religion of S. Bach is professed through-
out North Germany. You can imagine the interest this
second evening offered me, especially after the impres-
sion I had received from the first, and the eagerness
with which I should have listened to the favorite work
of the great Frederick's Kapellmeister ! See my misfort-
une ! I fall ill precisely on that day ; the physician
(great lover of music as he was, the learned and amiable
Doctor Gaspard) forbids me to leave my room; they
again invite me in vain to hear a famous organist; the
the doctor is inflexible; and it is only after holy week,
when there are neither oratorios, nor fugues, nor chorals
to be heard, that the good God gives me back my health.
That is why I am forced to keep silence about the mu-
sical service in the Berlin churches, which is said to be
so remarkable. If ever I return to Prussia, ill or not, I
must hear Graun's music, and I will hear it, be calm on
that head, though I die of it. But in that case, I should
not be able to tell you about it. . . . Thus, it is evident
that you will never know anything of it from me ; so,
make the journey, and then you can tell me about it.

As for the military bands, one must take great pains

Iq5 first journey to GERMANY,

to the contrary, if one does not hear at least some of
them, as they go through the streets of Berhn, on foot
or on horseback, at all hours of the day. These little
troops, however, can give no idea of the majesty of the
great combinations which the director and instructor of
the military bands of Berlin and Potsdam (Wiprecht) can
form when he pleases. Imagine him with a force of six
hundred musicians and more under his orders, all good
readers, well up in the mechanism of their instruments,
playing true, and favored by nature with indefatigable
lungs and lips of leather. Hence the extreme ease with
which the trumpets, horns and cornets give out the high
notes which our players cannot reach. They are regi-
ments of musicians, and not musicians of regiments.
The Prince of Prussia, anticipating my desire to hear and
study at leisure his musical troops, had the gracious
kindness to invite me to a matinee got up for my bene-
fit at his house, and to give the necessary orders to Wi-
precht.

The audience was very small; we were twelve or fif-
teen at the most. I was astonished to see no orchestra,
not a sound betrayed its presence, when a slow phrase
in F-ininoi% well known to you and me, made me turn
my head tow^ards the largest hall in the palace, which
was concealed from view by a large curtain. H. R. H.
had had the courtesy to let them begin the concert with
the overture to the Francs-juges, which I had never
heard thus arranged for wind instruments. Three hun-
dred men were there, conducted by Wiprecht, and they
played this difficult piece with marvelous precision and
that furious verve that you show for it, you of the Con-
servatoire, on great days of enthusiasm and vim.

The solo for brass instruments, in the introduction,
was especially startling, played by fifteen great bass-
trombones, eighteen or twenty alto and tenor trombones,
twelve bass-tubas and a perfect ant-hill of trumpets.

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. jq^

The bass-tuba, which I have already mentioned sev-
eral times in my former letters, has completely de-
throned the ophicleide in Prussia, if, indeed, it ever
reigned there, which 1 doubt, It is a brass instrument,
derived from the bombardon, and provided with a
mechanism of five cylinders, which gives it an immense-
ly low range.

The extreme low notes of its scale are a little vague,
it is true; but when doubled in the upper octave by
another bass- tuba part, they acquire an incredible round-
ness and force of vibration. The tone of the medium
and upper registers of the instrument is very noble, it
it is not dead like that of the ophicleide, but vibrating
and very sympathetic to that of the trombones and
trumpets, of which it is the real double-bass, and with
which it combines as well as possible. Wiprecht intro-
duced it in Prussia. A. Sax makes admirable ones now
in Paris.

The clarinets struck me as as good as the brass in-
struments; they especially showed their prowess in a
grand battle-symphony composed for two orchestras by
the English Ambassador, the Earl of Westmoreland.

Next came a brilliant and chivalric piece for brass in-
struments only, written for the court fetes by Meyer-
beer, under the title of Fackeltanz (Torchlight dance),
in which there is a long trill on D, which eighteen trum-
pets sustained, trilling as rapidly as any clarinet, for six-
teen bars.

The concert ended with a funeral- march, very well
written and of fine character, composed by Wiprecht.
There had been only one rehearsal ! ! !

In the intervals left between the pieces by this terri-
ble orchestra, I had the honor to talk a few moments
with the Princess of Prussia, whose exquisite taste and
knowledge of composition render her good opinion so
precious. Besides, H. R. H. speaks our language with

I g S ^^^'^S T JO URNE V TO GERM A NY.

a purity and elegance that much intimidated the indi-
vidual she was talking with. *I wish I could draw a
Shaksperian portrait of the Princess, or at least give a
glimpse at a veiled sketch of her soft beauty ; I should,
perhaps, dare to . . . were I a great poet.

I was present at one of the court concerts. Meyer-
beer was at the piano-forte ; there was no orchestra,
and the singers were no others than those of the theatre,
whom I have already mentioned. Towards the end of
the evening, Meyerbeer, great pianist though he be,
perhaps on that very account, found himself fatigued by
his duties as accompanyist, and gave up his place; to
whom ? I leave you to guess ... to the first chamberlain
of the king, M. le comte de Roedern, who accompanied
Madame Devrient in Schubert's Erl-Konig like a pian-
ist and a musician! What do you say to that? There is
something to give you a proof of an astonishing diffu-
sion of musical knowledge. M. de Roedern also pos-
sesses a talent of another nature, of which he gave
brilliant proofs in organizing the famous masked ball,
which threw all Berlin into agitation last winter, under
the name of A fete at the Court of Fcrrai'a, and for
which Meyerbeer wrote a host of pieces.

These etiquette concerts always seem cold; but they
are found agreeable when they are over, because they
usually bring together some listeners with whom one is
proud and happy to have a moment's conversation.
Thus I met M. Alexander v. Humboldt at the Prince's,
that shining hero of literary science, that great anato-
mist of the terrestrial globe.

Several times during the evening, the King, Queen
and Princess of Prussia came to talk with me about the
concert I had just given at the Grand Theatre, to ask
my opinion of the principal Prussian artists, to ask me
questions about my manner of orchestration, etc., etc.
The king said that I had played the devil with the mu-

FIJ^ST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. j^^

sicians in his orchestra. After supper His Majesty was
getting ready to retire to his apartments, but coming
up to me of a sudden, and, as if altering his mind :

"By the way, Monsieur Berlioz, what arc you going
to give us at your next concert?"

"Sire, I shall repeat half of the last program, and
add to it five movements of my Romeo et Juliette sym-
phony."

"Of Romeo et Juliette! and I shall be out of town!
But we must hear that! I will come back."

In fact, the evening of my second concert, live min-
utes before the advertised time, the king stepped from
his carriage and entered his box.

Now shall I tell you about these two concerts? They
gave me a good deal of trouble I assure you. And yet
the artists are clever, they were most kindly disposed,
and Meyerbeer seemed to multiply himself to come to
my aid. But the daily service of a great theatre like the
Berlin opera has requirements that are always very awk-
ward, and incompatible with the preparations for a con-
cert ; and, to turn aside and conquer the difficulties that
arose every instant, Meyerbeer had to use more strength
and skill, I am sure, than he did when the Hiigiienots
was first put upon the stage. I had wished to give in
Berlin the great numbers of the Requiem, those of the
Prose (Dies irae, Lacrymosa, etc. J, which I had not yet
attempted in the other cities of Germany; and you know
what a vocal and instrumental apparatus they require.
I had luckily notified Meyerbeer of my intention, and
he had already been hunting up the means of execution
I needed before my arrival. As for the four small or-
chestras of brass instruments, they were easily found ;
we might have had thirty if we had needed them; but
the kettle-drums and the drummers gave us much
trouble. At last, with the assistance of the excellent
Wiprecht, we contrived to get them together.

200 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

They put us for the first rehearsals in a splendid con-
cert-hall belonging to the second theatre, of which the
sonority is unfortunately so great that on coming into
it I immediately saw that we should have trouble. The
sound being unduly prolonged, caused an insupportable
confusion, and made our orchestral studies excessively
difficult. There was even one piece (the scherzo of Ro-
meo ct Juliette) that we had to give up, not having suc-
ceeded, after an hour's w^ork, in getting through more
than half of it. Yet the orchestra, I repeat, was as well
composed as possible. We had not time enough, and
were forced to postpone the scherzo to the second con-
cert. At last I began to get accustomed to the row we
made, and to detect in that chaos of sounds what was
well or ill done by the players; we pursued our studies
without taking into account the, very luckily, quite dif-
ferent effect we obtained afterwards in the opera-house.
The overture to Bejivenuto, 'Harold, Weber's Invitation
a la valse, and the numbers from the Reqiuem were
thus learned by the orchestra alone, the chorus working
separately in another hall. At the special rehearsal I
had asked for, for the four orchestras of brass instru-
ments in the Dies IrcB and Lacrymosa, I observed for
the third time a fact which I am not yet able to explain,
and which is this:

In the middle of the Tuba inirum there is a call for
the four groups of trombones on the four notes of the
chord of G-major successively. The tempo is very
broad; the first group ought to give G on the first beat;
the second, B on the second; the third, D on the third,
and the fourth, octave G on the fourth. Well! when
this Requiem was performed for the first time in the
church of the Invalides in Paris, it was impossible to ob-
tain an execution of this passage. When I afterwards
gave selections from it at the Opera, after having re-
hearsed this solitary measure to no purpose for a quar-

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. 2OI

ter of an hour, I had to give it up; there were ahvays
one or two groups that did not strike in; it was invari-
ably that on B, or that on D, or both. In casting my
eyes upon this place in the score in Berlin, I immedi-
ately thought of the restive trombones in Paris:

''Ah, let us see," said I to myself, "whether the
Prussian artists will succeed in forcing this open door!"

Alas no ! vain efforts ! Nor rage, nor patience do any
good! impossible to obtain the entry either of the sec-
ond or the third groups; even the fourth, not hearing
its cue, which ought to have been given by the others,
does not go off any better. I take them separately, I
ask No. 2 to give me its B.

It does it very well.

Turning to No, 3, I ask for Its D.

It gives it without difficulty.

Now let us have the four notes one after the other, in
the order in which they are written! . . . Impossible!
wholly impossible! and we myst give it up! . . . Can
you understand that ? and is it not enough to make a
man butt his head against the wall? . . .

And when I asked the trombone-players In Paris and
Berlin why they did not play in that fatal measure, they
could only answer that they did not know why them-
selves; those two notes fascinated them.^

I must write to H. Romberg, who brought out this
work In St. Petersburg, to know whether the Russian
trombones were able to break the spell.

P^or the rest of the program the orchestra understood
and rendered my intentions in a superior manner.
Soon we were able to have a general rehearsal in the
opera-house, on an amphitheatre of seats built on the
stage, as for the concert. Symphony, overture, cantata,
all went satisfactorily ; but when the turn came for the

1 At the last two performances of the Reqiiicni in the Church of Saiut-
Eustache in Paris, this passage was at last given without a mistake.

17*

202 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY,

numbers from the Requiem, general panic; the choruses,
which I had not been able to drill myself, had rehearsed
in tempi different from mine, and when they suddenly
found themselves mixed up with the orchestra with the
true tempi, they no longer knew what they were about;
they came in wrong or without assurance; and in the
Lacrymosa the tenors did not sing at all. I did not
know what saint to call upon. Meyerbeer, who was not
at all well that day, had not been able to leave his bed;
the director of the chorus, Elssler, was also ill; the or-
chestra was becoming demoralized at the sight of the
chorus all topsy-turvey. . . I sat down for an instant,
broken down, annihilated, asking myself whether I had
not better throw up everything and leave Berlin that
very evening. And I thought of you in that evil mo-
ment, saying to myself:

''To persist is madness! Oh! if Desmarest were here,
he who is never satisfied with our rehearsals at the Con-
servatoire, and if he saw^ me decided to have the concert
announced for to-morrow, I know what he would do;
he would lock me up in my room, put the key in his
pocket, and bravely go and announce to the intendant
of the theatre that the concert cannot come off."

You would not have failed to do so, would you?
Well! you would have been in the wrong. Here is the
proof. After the first shock was over, the first cold
sweat wiped away, I took my decision, and said:

"This must go."

Ries and Ganz, the two Conzertmeistei's, were be-
side me, not quite knowing what to say to wind me up
again; I say to them sharply:

*'Are you sure of the orchestra?"

*'Yes! you have nothing to fear on that score, we are
very tired; but we have understood your music, and
you will be satisfied to-morrow."

''Then there is only one thing to be done: the cho-

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. 203

rus must be called together for to-morrow morning; I
must have a good accompanyist, as Elssler is ill, and
you, Ganz, or else you, Ries, will come with your vio-
lin, and we will rehearse the singing for three hours, if
need be."

"That is it; we will be there, the orders shall be
given."

So next morning there we are at our work. Ries,
the accompanyist and I ; we take in turn the boys, the
women, the first soprani, the second soprani, the first
tenors, the second tenors, the first and second basses ;
we have them sing by groups of ten, then by twenties,
after which we combine two parts, three, four, and at
last all the voices. And like Photon in the fable I at
last cry out :

QiLest-ce ccci? Mon char marche a souhait ! (What
is this ? My chariot goes as I wish !)

I make a little speech to the chorus, which Ries trans-
lates for them, sentence by sentence, into German ; and
there are all my people revived, full of courage, and de-
lighted not to have lost this great battle, where their
self-love and mine were at stake. It is needless to say
that, in the evening, the overture, the symphony and
the cantata of the FiftJi of May were royally performed.
With such an orchestra, and a singer like Boeticher, it
could not have been otherwise. But when the Requiem
came, every one being very attentive, very devoted and
desirous of seconding me, the orchestras and the chorus
being in perfect order, every one at his post, nothing
wanting, we began the Dies irce. Not a mistake, no
wavering; the chorus sustained the instrumental assault
without winking; the four-fold fanfare burst from the
four corners of the stage, which trembled under the rolls
of the ten drummers, under the tremolo of fifty un-
chained bows; the hundred and twenty voices, in the
midst of this cataclysm of sinister harmonies, of noises

204 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

from the other world, launched forth their terrible pre-
diction:

"Judex ergo cum sedebit
Quidquid latet apparebit! "

The audience covered the entry of the Liber scriptus
for a moment with their applause, and w^e reached the
last chords sotto voce of the Mors stitpebit, trembling,
but victorious. And what joy among the performers,
what glances exchanged from one end of the stage to
the other! As for me, I had the beating of a bell in my
breast, a mill-wheel in my head, my knees knocked to-
gether, I dug my nails into the wood of my desk, and
if, at the last measure, I had not forced myself to laugh,
and talk very loud and very fast to Ries, who held me
up, I am sure that, for the first time in my life, I should
have, as the soldiers say, shown the whites of my eyes in
a very ridiculous way. Having once stood fire, the rest
was but child's-play, and the Lacrymosa ended, entirely
to the satisfaction of the composer, this apocalyptic
evening.

At the end of the concert many people spoke to me,
congratulated me, and shook me by the hand; but I
stood there without understanding . . . without feeling
anything . . . the brain and nervous system had made
too great an effort ; I idiotised myself, so as to rest. It
was only Wiprecht, with his cuirassier's squeeze, who
had the talent to bring me to myself He really made
my ribs crack, the worthy man, mixing up his ejacula-
tions with Teutonic oaths, by the side of which those of
Guhr were but as many Ave Alarias.

He who had then thrown a sounding line into my
throbbing joy, would surely not have touched bottom.
So you will admit that it is sometimes wise to do a piece
of folly; for without my extravagant daring the concert
would not have taken place, the work at the theatre be-
ing laid out for a long time so as to prevent my recom-
mencing the study of the Requiem.

FIRS T JO URNE V TO GERMANY. 2 O 5

For the second concert I announced, as I have al-
ready said, five movements from Romeo ct Jnliette, the
Queen Mab being of the number. During the fifteen
days which separated the second concert from the first,
Ganz and Taubert had studied attentively the score of
this scJierzo, and when they saw me bent upon giving it,
it was their turn to be afraid:

"We shall not succeed," said they to me ; ''you know
that we can only have two rehearsals, and we ought to
have five or six; nothing is more difficult nor more dan-
gerous ; it is a musical spider's web, and without extra-
ordinary delicacy of touch, we shall tear it to shreds."

"Bah ! I bet that we shall come out with it yet; we
have only two rehearsals, it is true, but there are only
five new pieces to be learned, of which four do not pre-
sent any great difficulties. Besides, the orchestra al-
ready has some idea of this scJierzo from the first par-
tial trial that we made, and Meyerbeer has spoken about
it to the king who wishes to hear it, and I also wish the
artists to know what it is, and it will go."

And it did go almost as well as in Brunswick. Much
can be dared with such musicians, with musicians indeed
who, before being conducted by Meyerbeer, had for a
long time been under the sceptre of Spontini.

This second concert had the same result as the first.
The selections from Romeo were very well done. The
Queen Mab puzzled the audience not a little, even some
listeners who were learned in music, as the Princess of
Prussia, who positively wished to know how I had pro-
duced the effect in the accompaniment of the allegretto,
and did not suspect that it was done by harmonics on the
violins and harps in several parts. The king preferred
the Festival at the House of Capulet, and sent to ask me
for a copy; but I think the sympathies of the orchestra
were rather for the love seene (the adagio"). The musi-
cians of Berlin have, in that case, the same way of feel-
18

2o6 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

ing as those in Paris. Mademoiselle Hahnel had sung
the verses for contralto in the prologue very simply at
the rehearsals; but at the concert she thought that she
must embellish the hold at the end of these two lines:

" Oil se consume
Le rossignol en longs soupirs I "

(Where the nightingale pines away in long-drawn sighs !)
with a long trill to imitate the nightingale. Oh ! made-
moiselle! ! ! what treason! and you look so good and
innocent!

Well! to the Dies irce, the Ttiha mirum, the Lacry-
mosa, the Offertory of the Requiem, to the overtures to
Benveniito and King Lear, to Harold, his Serenade, his
Pilgrims and his Brigands, to Romeo et Juliette, to
Capulefs concert and ball, to the witcheries of Queen
Mab, to every thing that was given in Berlin, there are
some people who simply prefer the Fifth of May / . . .
Impressions are as various as physiognomies, I know ;
but when they told me that, I must have made a singu-
lar face. Happily I quote here wholly exceptional
opinions.

Good-bye, my dear Desmarest; you know that we
have an anthem to sing to the public in a few days at
the Conservatoire; bring me back your sixteen violon-
celli ; the great singers, I shall be very happy to hear
them again, and to see you at their head. It is so long
since we have sung together! And, to give them a
warm reception, tell them that I will conduct them with
Mendelssohn's bdto7i.

Ever yours.

TO M. G. OSBORNE.

TENTH LETTER.
HANOVER, DARMSTADT,

ALAS ! alas! my dear Osborne, here my journey draws
to a close! I am leaving Prussia, full of gratitude for
the welcome it has given me, for the warm sympathy of
its artists, for the indulgence of critics and public ; but
tired, used up, broken down by the fatigue of this life of
exorbitant activity, by these continual rehearsals with
new orchestras. So much so that I have given up go-
ing to Breslau, Vienna and Munich. I am returning to
France; and already, from a certain vague agitation,
from a sort of fever that disturbs my blood, from an
anxiety without an object, of which my head and heart
are full, I feel that I am in communication with the elec-
tric current of Paris. Paris! Paris! as our great mod-
ern poet, A. Barbier, has too faithfully painted it :

" Cette infernale cuve.

Cette fosse de pierre aux immenses contours,
Qu'une eau jaune et terreuse enfenne h. triples tours;
C'est un volcan fumeux et toujours en haleine
Qui remue a long flot de la matiere humaine.

La personne ne dort, la toujours le cerveau
Travaille, et, comme Tare, tend son rude cordeau."

(That infernal caldron. That stone ditch of immense

207

2o8 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

outlines, which a yellow and earthy water shuts in with
a thrice-turned key; a smoky volcano always in full

blast, which stirs up human lava in long waves

There no one sleeps, there the brain works without
stopping, and, like the bow, stretches its tough string.)

It is there that our art now dully sleeps and now
boils up; it is there that it is at once sublime and medi-
ocre, proud and crawling, beggar and king; it is there
that it is exalted and despised, adored and insulted; it
is in Paris that it has faithful, enthusiastic, intelligent
and devoted followers, it is in Paris that it too often
speaks to the deaf, to idiots and savages. Here it walks
onward and moves in liberty; there its sinewy limbs, im-
prisoned in the clinging bands of routine, that toothless
old hag, hardly allow it a slow and ungraceful crawl.
It is in Paris that it is crowned and worshiped like a
god, provided that only lean victims are to be sacrificed
on its altars. It is in Paris also that its temples are
flooded with splendid gifts, on condition that the god
shall become a man, and at times a merry-andrew. In
Paris the scrofulous and adulterine brother of art, trade,
covered with tinsel, parades its plebeian insolence before
all eyes, and art itself, the Pythian Apollo, in his divine
nudity, hardly deigns, it is true, to interrupt his lofty
contemplations, and let fall on trade a disdainful glance
and smile. But sometimes, oh shame! the bastard im-
portunes his brother to the point of obtaining from him
incredible favors; it is then that we see him glide into
the car of light, grasp the reins and try to make the im-
mortal quadriga back; until, astounded at so much stupid
audacity, the true driver tears him from his seat, hurls
him headlong, and forgets him. . .

It is money, then, that brings about this transitory
and horrible alliance; it is the love of sudden and
immediate lucre that sometimes thus poisons chosen
souls:

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. 20Q

*'L'argent, I'argent fatal, dernier dieu des humains,
Les prend par les clieveiix, les secoue a deux mains,
Les pousse dans le nial, et. pour un vil salaire
Leur niettrait les deux pieds sur le corps de leur pere."

(Money, fatal money, last god of the human race, takes
them by the hair, shakes them in both hands, thrusts
them into evil, and for a vile wages, would put both
their feet upon the body of their father.)

And those noble souls usually fall only from having
misunderstood these sad but incontestable truths: that
with our present morals, and our form of government,
the more of an artist an artist is, the more he must suf-
fer; the newer and greater his productions are, the more
severely must he be punished by the consequences his
work brings with it; the more lofty and swift the flight
of his thought, the farther will it be beyond the reach of
the weak eyes of the crowd.

The Medicis are dead. Our deputies are not the men
to take their place. You know the profound saying of
that provincial Lycurgus, who, when he heard one of
our great poets read some verses, the one who wrote
la CJiute d'un Ange, said, while opening his snuff-box
with a paternal air: "Yes, I've got a nephew who
writes little c . . . . nades^ like that!" Now go and ask
encouragement for art from that colleague of the poet.

You virtuosi who do not sway musical masses, who
only write for the orchestra of your own two hands,
who do without large halls and numerous choruses, you
have less to fear from the contact with bourgeois cus-
toms; and yet, you too feel their effects. Scribble some
brilliant futility, publishers will cover it with gold and
fight over it among themselves ; but if you have the
misfortune to develop a serious idea in a large form,
then you are sure of your bargain, your work remains
on your hands, or at the very least, if it is published,
nobody buys it.

^ In Italian cooUonerie.

2IO FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

It is true, and be it said for the justification of Paris
and constitutionalism, that it is' the same thing every-
where. In Vienna, as here, they pay looo francs for a
song or wahz by a fashionable maker, and Beethoven
was forced to let them have his Symphony in C -minor
for less than lOO crowns.

You have published in London trios and divers com-
positions for the piano-forte of a very broad make, in a
style full of elevation ; and even without going to your
grand repertory, your songs for a single voice, such as:
The beating of my ozvn heart, My lonely home, or yet
Such things zvere, which your sister, Mrs. Hampton,
sings so poetically, are charming things. Nothing ex-
cites the imagination more vividily, I own, in making it
fly to the green hills of Ireland, than these virginal mel-
odies of so naif 2iXidi original a cut that they seem to have
been wafted by the evening breeze over the rippling
waves of the lakes of Killarney, than these hymns of re-
signed love, to which we listen, touched we know not
why, dreaming of solitude, of great nature, of beloved
beings who are no more, of heroes of by- gone ages, of
our suffering country, of death even, death, dreamy and
calm as night, in the words of your national poet, Th.
Moore. Well ! place all these inspirations, all this po-
etry with a melancholy smile, in the scales with some
turbulent caprice without wit or heart, such as music
dealers often order of you on more or less vulgar themes
from new operas, in which notes skip about, pursue each
other, roll over each other like a handful of bells shaken
up in a bag, and you will see on which side the pecun-
iary success will be.

No, we must make up our minds to it ; except in cer-
tain circumstances brought about by chance, except in
certain associations with the inferior arts which always
lower it, our art is not productive in the commercial
sense of the term ; it appeals too exclusively to excep-

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. 21I

tional individuals in intelligent communities, it requires
too many preparations, too many means for its external
manifestation. So there must be a sort of honorable os-
tracism for the minds that cultivate it without being pre-
occupied with interests that are foreign to it. Even the
greatest peoples are, in their relation to pure artists, like
the deputy I spoke of just now : they always number, by
the side of the colossuses of human genius, some nephews
who also zvrite, etc.

We find in the archives of one of the theatres in Lon-
don a letter addressed to Queen Elizabeth by a troupe
of actors, and signed by twenty obscure names, among
which is found that of William Shakspere, with this col-
lective designation: Yoitr poor players. Shakspere was
one of those poor players. . . . Yet dramatic art was
more appreciable by the masses in Shakspere's day than
musical art is in our own time in countries where they
pretend to have some sentiment for it. Music is essen-
tially aristocratic ; it is a daughter of the blood, whom
only princes can endow to-day, and who should live
poor and a virgin rather than make a inesalliance. You
have, no doubt, often made these very reflections yourself,
and will thank me, I fancy, to stop them, and come to
the account of the last two concerts that I gave in Ger-
many after leaving Berlin.

This account will have, I fear, little interest for you,
as far as it concerns myself; I shall still have to mention
works of which I have already, perhaps, said too much
in rny former letters; always the eternal Fifth of May,
Harold, the selections from Romeo et JiUiette, etc. Al-
ways the same difficulty in finding certain instruments,
the same excellence in the other parts of the orchestra,
which constitute what I shall call the old orchestra, the
orchestra of Mozart ; and always the same faults invari-
ably coming up again and again at the first trial, at the
same places, in the same pieces, to disappear afterwards
after some attentive studies.

212

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

I did not stop at Magdeburg, where, however, a rath-
er original success awaited me." I was nearly insulted
for having the audacity to call myself by my own name;
and that too by one of the employes of the post, who,
while registering my luggage and examining the inscrip-
tion the various pieces bore, asked me with a suspicious
look :

" Berlioz ? Componist ? "

"Ja!"

Thereupon, immense rage of the worthy fellow, caused
by my impudence in trying to pass myself off as Berlioz
the composer. He had, without doubt, imagined that
that amazing musician only traveled on a hippogryph,
in the midst of fiery flames, or surrounded by sumptuous
paraphernalia and a respectable retinue of servants. So
that when he saw a man come, made and unmade like
any other man who has been at once frozen and smoked
in a railway carriage, a man who had his own trunk
weighed, who walked himself, who spoke French him-
self, and who only knew how to say Ja in German, he
at once concluded that I was an imposter. As you can
well imagine, his grumblings and shoulder-shruggings
enchanted me ; the more disdainful his pantomime and
his accents became, the higher I carried my head ; if he
had beaten me, I should have kissed him without a
shadow of a doubt. Another employe, who spoke my
language very well, showed himself more disposed to
allow me the right to be myself; but the polite things
he said to me flattered me infinitely less than the incre-
dulity of his simple comrade and his good bad humor.
Yet see, a half a million would have deprived me of that
success ! I shall take good care in the future not to car-
ry one about with me, but to always travel in the same
way. This is not, after all, the opinion of our witty and
jovial dramatic critic, Perpignan, who, on hearing of the
man whose life was saved in a duel by a five-franc piece

FIRST JO URNE Y TO GERM A N V. 2 I 3

in his waistcoat-pocket stopping his adversary's ball,
cried out: "Those rich folk are the only lucky ones!
Now I should have been killed on the spot!"

I arrive in Hanover ; A. Bohrer expected me there.
The intendant, M. de Meding, had had the kindness to
place the orchestra and theatre at my disposal, and I
was going to begin my rehearsals, when the death of
the Duke of Sussex, a relation of the King, threw the
Court into mourning, so that the concert had to be put
off for a week. So I had a little more time to make the
acquaintance of the principal artists, who were soon to
suffer from the bad character of my compositions.

I could not get much acquainted with the Kapelhncis-
ter, Marschner ; the difficulty he experienced in express-
ing himself in French made our conversations rather la-
borious ; besides, he is very busy. He is at present one
of the first composers in Germany, and you appreciate,
as we all do, the eminent merit of his scores of the
Vanipyr and the Tanplcr. As for A. Bohrer, I knew
him already; Beethoven's trios and quartettes had
drawn us together in Paris, and the enthusiasm with
Avhich we then burned had not grown cold since then.
A. Bohrer is one of the men who seem to me to have
best understood and felt those of Beethoven's works
which are reputed unintelligible and eccentric. I still
see him at the quartette rehearsals, in which his brother
Max (the famous violoncellist, now in America), Claudel,
the second violin, and Urhan, the viola, seconded him so
well. In listening to and studying this transcendent mu-
sic. Max used to smile with pride and joy; he seemed to
be in his native atmosphere and breathe it with ecstasy.
Urhan adored in silence, and cast down his eyes, as be-
fore the sun; he seemed to say: '*God has willed that
there should be a man as great as Beethoven, and that
we should be allowed to contemplate him ; God has
willed it ! ! ! " Claudel admired above all else these pro-
18*

214 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY,

found admirations. As for Anton Bohrer, the first
violin, he was passion at its apogee, he was ecstatic love.
One evening, in one of these superhuman adagios, in
which Beethoven's genius soars immense and solitary,
hke the colossal bird of the snowy peaks of Chimborazo,
Bohrer's violin, singing the sublime melody, seemed an-
imated by the epic afflatus ; its voice redoubled its ex-
pressive power, burst forth in accents unknown to itself;
inspiration radiated from the countenance of the virtu-
oso; we held our breath, our hearts swelled, when A.
Bohrer, stopping all of a sudden, put down his burning
bow and fled into the next room. Madame Bohrer
anxiously followed him, and Max, still smiling, said :

"It is nothing; he could not contain himself; let him
calm himself a little and we will begin again. You
must pardon him ! "

Pardon him .... dear artist !

Anton Bohrer fills the place of Conzertmcistcr in
Hanover ; he composes but little now ; his favorite oc-
cupation consists in directing the musical education of
his daughter, a charming child of twelve, whose prodig-
ious organization inspires all about her with alarms that
are easily conceivable. Her talent as a pianist is very
extraordinary, to begin with ; then her memory is such
that at the concerts which she gave last year in Vienna,
her father, instead of a program, presented the audience
with a list of seventy-two pieces, sonatas, concertos, fan-
tasias, fugues, variations, studies, by Beethoven, Weber,
Cramer, Bach, Handel, Liszt, Thalberg, Chopin, Doh-
ler, etc., which the little Sophie knows by heart; and
which she could, without hesitation, play from memory
as the audience asked for them. It is enough for her
to play a piece, of no matter what length or complicat-
ed structure, three or four times to retain it and not for-
get it again. That so many different combinations
should be engraved on that young brain ! Is it not

FIRST JOURNE Y TO GERMANY. 2 I 5

something monstrous, calculated as much to inspire
fright as admiration ?

It is to be hoped that the little Sophie, when she be-
comes Mademoiselle Bohrer, will come back to us in a
few years, and that the Parisian public can then acquaint
itself with that phenomenal talent, of which it has as
yet a very feeble idea.

The Hanover orchestra is good, but too poor in
stringed instruments. It has in all only seven first vio-
lions, seven second, three violas, four violoncelli, and
three double-basses. There are some infirm violins ;
the violoncelli are skillful ; the violas and basses good.
Only praises are to be given to the wind instruments,
especially to the first flute and first oboe (Edouard
Rose), who plays a superb pianissivio, and the first clar-
inet, whose tone is exquisite. The two bassoons (there
are but two) play true, which is cruelly rare. The
horns are not first-rate, but they will do ; the trombones
are firm, the plain trumpets good enough ; there is a
superlatively excellent trumpet with cylinders ; the
name of the artist who plays this instrument is, like that
of his rival in Weimar, Sachse ; I do not know to which
of them to give the palm. The first oboe plays the En-
glish-horn, but his mstrument is very false. There is
no ophicleide ; the bass-tubas of the military band can
be turned to good account. The kettle-drummer is
middling ; the imisiciaii who plays the big drum is no
musician; the man who plays the cymbals is not sure,
and the cymbals themselves are so broken that there is
not more than a third of either of them left.

There is a harp, pretty well played by one of the la-
dies of the chorus. She is no virtuoso, but has a good
command over her instrument, and forms, with the
harpists of Stuttgard, Berlin, and Hamburg, the only
exceptions that I met with in Germany, where the harp-
ists as a general rule do not know how to play on the

2i6 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

harp. Unfortunately she is very timid and not much
of a musician ; but when you give her some days to
study her part, you can trust her exactness. She forms
the harmonics very well ; her harp is w-ith double-ac-
tion, and a very good one.

The chorus is small ; it is a little group of forty voices,
but which has some value nevertheless ; they all sing
true ; the tenors are also precious from their quality of
voice. The singing troupe is mediocre ; with the excep-
tion of the bass, Steinmiiller, an excellent musician with
a fine voice, which he uses skillfully, forcing it a little
at times, I heard nothing that struck me as worthy of
mention.

We could only have two rehearsals ; even that was
found extraordinary, and some of the members of the
orchestra grumbled aloud. It was the only time that
this sort of thing happened to me in Germany, where
the artists constantly welcomed me like a brother, with-
out ever complaining of the time or the trouble that the
rehearsals for my concerts required of them. A. Boh-
rer was in despair ; he wished to have four rehearsals,
or at least three ; but it could not be brought about.
The performance was passable, however, but cold and
without power. Just imagine, three double-basses ! and
on each side six violins and a half! ! ! The public was
polite, that was all ; I fancy that it is still asking itself
what that devil of a concert meant.

Doctor Griepenkerl had come from Brunswick on pur-
pose to be present at it ; he must have found a notable
difference in the artistic spirit of the two cities. We
amused ourselves, he, some military Brunswickers and I,
by tormenting poor Bohrer, telling him about the mu-
sical yi?/^' they had given me in Brunswick three months
before ; these details cut him to the heart. Then M.
Griepenkerl made me a present of the work he had
written about me and asked in return for the baton with

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. 217

which I had just conducted the performance of the
Fifth of May.

Let us hope that these batons, thus planted in France
and Germany, will take root and grow to be trees, which
will some day give me a little shade

The Prince Royal of Hanover was present at the con-
cert. I had the honor to talk with him a few moments
before my departure, and I think myself fortunate to
have known his gracious affabilit)^ of manner, and dis-
tinction of mind, of which a frightful misfortune (loss of
sight) has not disturbed the serenity.

Let us now be off for Darmstadt. I pass through
Cassel at seven in the morning.

Spohr is asleep,^ it will not do to wake him.

Let us go on. I come to Frankfort for the fourth
time. I find Parish-Alvars there, who magnetizes me
by playing his fantasia in harmonics on the Chorus of
Naiads in Oberon. Decidedly that man is a magician ;
his harp is a siren with beautiful arched neck, long di-
sheveled hair, who exhales fascinating sounds of another
world, in the passionate embrace of his strong arms.
Here is Guhr, much disturbed by the workmen who are
restoring his theatre. Ah ! faith, pardon me for leaving
you, Osborne, to say a few words to that redoubtable
Kapellmeister, whose name comes again under my pen ;
I shall be back again in a moment.

"My Dear Guhr:

*'Do you know that several persons have made me
fear that you had taken in ill part the fun I allowed my-
self about you, in telling of our first interview ? I
doubted it strongly, knowing your wit, and yet the
doubt troubled me. Bravo ! I learn that, far from be-
ing angry at the dissonances I lent to the harmony of
your conversation, you were the first to laugh at them,
1 Spohr is Kapellmeister in Cassel.
19

2 1 8 ^^RS T JO URNE \ ' TO GERM A NY.

and that you had printed in one of the Frankfort papers
the German translation of the • letter which contained
them. That is right ! you can take a joke, and besides,
a man is not lost for swearing- a little. Vivat ! terque
qiiaterqiie vivat! S. N. T. T. Count me really and
truly among your best friends ; and accept a thousand
new compliments upon your orchestra in Frankfort ; it
is worthy of being conducted by an artist like yourself
** Good-bye, good-bye, S. N. T. T."

Here I am again !

Ah ! but come now ! let me see ; we w^ere talking
about Darmstadt. We shall find some friends there,
among others L. Schlosser, the Coiizertnicistcr, who
once studied with me under Lesueur during his stay in
Paris. I had brought, moreover, letters from M. de
Rothschild, of Frankfort, to the Prince Emile, who gave
me the most charming welcome, and obtained from the
Grand- Duke for my concert more than I had dared to
hope for. In most of the German cities that I had given
concerts in up to that time, my arrangements with the
inteiidants of theatres had been almost always the same :
the administration payed almost all the expenses, and
I received half of the gross receipts. (The theatre in
Weimar, alone, had the courtesy to leave me the whole
receipts. I have already said that Weimar is an artistic
city, and that the ducal family know how to honor the
arts).

Well ! in Darmstadt the Grand- Duke not only grant-
ed me the same favor, but wished to exempt me from
every sort of expense. One may be sure that this gen-
erous sovereign has no nephezvs who also write little^
etc., etc.

The concert was promptly organized, and the orches-
tra, far from having to be asked to rehearse, would have
liked to give another week to study. We had five re-

FIRST JO URNE V TO GERMANY. 2 1 0

hearsals. All went well, with the exception, however,
of the double chorus of Young Capitlcf s coming out from
the Festival in the beginning of the love-scene in Romeo
et Juliette. The execution of this piece was a veritable
vocal rout ; the tenors of the second chorus flatted
nearly half a tone, and those of the first chorus missed
their entry at the return of the theme. The chorus-
leader was in a state of fury, which was all the more
conceivable that he had taken infinite pains to teach the
chorus during eight days.

The Darmstadt orchestra is a little larger than that in
Hanover ; it has an excellent ophicleide, which is an ex-
ception. The harp part is given to a painter, who, in
spite of the most well-meant efforts, is never sure of giv-
ing much eolor to his execution. The rest of the instru-
mental body is well composed and spirited. There is
one remarkable virtuoso in it. His name is Miiller, but
he does not belong to the celebrated Miiller family of
Brunswick. His stature is almost colossal, which allows
him to play the true double-bass with four strings with
extraordinary ease. Without trying, as he might do,
to execute scales and arpeggi of useless difficulty and
grotesque effect, he sings gravely and nobly on the
enormous instrument, and can draw from it sounds of
great beauty, which he shades with a great deal of art
and sentiment. I heard him sing a very beautiful
adagio, composed by the younger Mangold, brother of
the Kapellmeister, in a way to profoundly move a se-
vere audience. It was at an evening party given by
Doctor Huth, the first music lover in Darmstadt, who,
in his sphere, does for art what M. Alsager does in Lon-
don in his, and whose influence upon the public music-
al spirit is consequently great. Miiller is a conquest to
tempt many composers and orchestra conductors ; but
the Grand-Duke will very certainly keep him with all
his migrht.

220 FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY.

The Kapellnteistcr, Mangold, clever and excellent
man, got a great part of his musical education in Paris,
where he was accounted one of the best pupils of Reicha.
So he was a school-mate of mine, and he treated me like
one. As for Schlosser, the Conzertiiieister already men-
tioned, he showed himself to be such a capital fellow,
he seconded m.e with such ardor, that it is really impos-
sible for me to speak as I ought of such of his composi-
tions as he allowed me to read ; I should seem to be ac-
knowledging his hospitality, when I should only be do-
ing him justice. A new proof of the truth of the anti-
proverb : A good deed is always lost !

There is a military band in Darmstadt of thirty musi-
cians; I really envied the Grand-Duke. They all play
true, have style, and a feeling for rhythm that makes
even the drum-parts interesting.

Reichel (the immense bass voice that was of such
use to me in Hamburg) had been for some time in
Darmstadt when I arrived, and had had a positive tri-
umph in the part of Ma7xel in the Huguenots. He
again had the kindness to sing in the FiftJi of May, but
with a talent and sensibility far beyond the qualities he
had shown in singing it the first time. He was espe-
cially admirable in the last verse, the most difficult of
all to give with the proper light and shade :

"Wie? Sterben cr ? o Ruhm, wie verwaist bist Dii! "
" Quoi ? lui mourir ? 6 gloire, quel veuvage ! "

(What ? He die ? Oh glory, what a widowhood !

Then the air from Mozart's Figaro, " Non piii andrai'*
which we had added to the program, showed the versa-
tility of his talent, and made it shine in another phase.
It got him an encore from the whole house, and a very
advantageous engagement at the Darmstadt theatre
next day. I shall dispense with telling you .... the
rest. If you go to those parts they will only tell you

FIRST JOURNEY TO GERMANY. 221

that I had the artless vanity to find both pubHc and art-
ists very intelligent.

So here we are, my dear Osborne, at the end of this
pilgrimage, perhaps the most difficult a musician ever
undertook, and the recollection of which, I feel, will
hover over the rest of my life. Like the religious men
of ancient Greece, I have just consulted the Oracle of
Delphi. Have I understood the meaning of its answer
aright ? May I believe what there is in it favorable to
my wishes ? . . . Are there not deceptive oracles ? . . . The
future, the future alone can decide. Be it as it may, I
must return to France and at last bid farewell to Ger-
many, that noble second mother to all sons of harmony.
But where shall I find expressions to equal my grati-
tude, my admiration and my regrets ? . . . What hymn
can I sing that shall be worthy of the greatness of her
glory ? . . . I can only bow down with respect, on leav-
ing her, and say to her in a voice full of emotion :
Vale, Germania, alma parens !

SELECTIONS FROM

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA

MY GOOD FRIENDS

THE ARTISTS OF THE ORCHESTRA

IN X*****

A CIVILIZED CITY

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

PROLOGUE.

THERE is a lyric theatre in the north of Europe in
which it is the custom for the musicians of the or-
chestra, of whom many are men of wit, to indulge in
reading and even in chit-chat of more or less musical
nature during the performance of mediocre operas.
That is to say, that a good deal of reading and talking
goes on. A book of some sort or another is conse-
quently to be found on the desks by the side of the
sheets of music ; so that the musician who seems the
most absorbed in the contemplation of his part, the
most taken up with counting his rests, or in following
his cue, is often deep in the marvelous scenes of Balzac,
the charming pictures of life of Dickens, or even the
study of some science. I know one who, during the
first fifteen performances of a famous opera, read, reread,
meditated upon and understood the three volumes of
Humboldt's Cosmos ; another who, during the protract-
ed success of a silly work, very obscure to-day, suc-
ceeded in learning English ; and still another who, gift-
ed with an exceptional memory, repeated to his neigh-
bors over ten volumes of tales, stories, anecdotes and
jokes.

19* 225

226 EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

One solitary individual in this orchestra does not al-
low himself to indulge in any amusement. Engrossed
in his business, active, indefatigable, his eyes riveted
upon the notes, his arm always in motion, he would
think himself dishonored if he omitted a single crotchet,
or earned a reproach for his quality of tone. At the
end of each act, red, perspiring, tired out, he hardly
breathes ; and yet he dare not profit by the few^ min-
utes the cessation of musical hostilities allows him, to
go and drink a glass of beer at the neighboring cafe.
The fear of missing the first measures of the next act
by being late is enough to nail him to his post. Touched
by his zeal, the director of the theatre at which he is
engaged sent him one day six bottles of wine as an en-
couragement. The artist, strong in the consciousness of
his worth, far from accepting this present gratefully,
sent it proudly back to the director, with these words :
*T have no need of encouragement!" You have
guessed that I mean the man who performs on the big-
drum.

His comrades, on the contrary, hardly ever pause in
their reading, story-telling, discussions or chit-chat, ex-
cept in favor of great masterpieces, or when, in common
operas, the composer has given them a leading and
prominent part, in which case their voluntary distrac-
tion would be too easily noticed and would compromise
them. But even then, as the whole orchestra is never
put in a prominent position at once, it results that, if the
conversation and literary studies languish in one part,
they revive in another, and that the good talkers take
the floor on the left when the others take up their in-
struments on the right.

My assiduity in frequenting this club as an amateur,
during my yearly stay in the town in which it is formed,
allowed me to hear quite a number of anecdotes and
short stories ; I even admit that I have often returned

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA. 22/

the politeness of the story-tellers by telling or reading
aloud something in my turn. The orchestra player is a
gossip by nature, and when he has interested his hearers,
or made them laugh by some pun or story, were it even
on the 25th of December, you may be very sure that
he will not wait for the end of the year before trying for
new success by the same means. So that by dint of
listening to these pretty things, I found at last that they
bored me almost as much as the flat scores to which
they were made to serve as an accompaniment ; and I
made up my mind to write them down, and even to
publish them, diversified by the episodic dialogue of the
hearers and narrators, so as to give a copy to each of
them, and have done with it.

It is agreed that the performer on the big-drum alone
will come in for no part of my bibliographic bounty :
so laborious and strong a man disdains the exercise of
wit.

SEVENTH EVENING.

AN HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL STUDY

De viris illustribus urbis Rom_^. — A Roman Woman. — Vocabu-
lary OF THE Language of the Romans.

AVERY flat modern Italian opera is played.
An Jiabitue of the parquet-stalls, who seemed
deeply interested in the readings and stories of the mu-
sicians on previous evenings, leans over into the orches-
tra and addresses me : "Sir, you commonly live in Paris,
do you not?" "Yes, sir, I even live there uncommon-
ly, and often more than I could wish." "In that case
you must be familiar with the singular dialect spoken
there, and which your papers also use sometimes. Will
you please explain to me what they mean when, in de-
scribing certain occurrences that seem to be pretty fre-
quent at dramatic performances, they talk about the
Romans ?" "Yes," say several musicians at once, "what
is meant by that word in France ?" "Why, gentlemen,
you ask me for no less than a course of Roman history."
" W^ell, why not?" "I fear that I have not the talent
of being brief." "Oh, if that is all, the opera is in four
acts, and we are with you up to eleven o'clock."

So, to bring myself at once into relations with the
great men of this history, I will not go back to the sons
of Mars, nor to Numa Pompilius ; I will jum.p with my
228

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

229

feet well under me over the kings, the dictators, and the
consuls ; and yet I must entitle the first chapter of my
history :

DE VIRIS ILLUSTRIBUS URBIS ROM^.

"NerO' — (you see that I pass without transition to the
time of the emperors), Nero having formed a corpora-
tion of men whose duty it was to applaud him when he
sang in public, the name of Romans is given in France
to-day to professional applauders, vulgarly called cla-
queurs^ or bouquet-throwers, and in general to all un-
dertakers of success and enthusiasm. There are several
kinds.

"The mother who courageously calls everybody's at-
tention to the wit and beauty of her daughter, who is
moderately beautiful and very silly ; that mother who,
in spite of her extreme love for her child, will make up
her mind at the soonest possible moment to a cruel sep-
aration and place her in the arms of a husband, is a Ro-
man.

"The author who, foreseeing the need he will be in
next year of the praise of a critic whom he detests, ve-
hemently sings the praises of that same critic on every
occasion, is a Roman.

"The critic who is little enough of a Spartan to be
caught in that clumsy trap becomes a Roman in his turn.

"The husband of the cantatrice who ..." "We un-
derstand." "But the vulgar Romans, the crowd, the
Roman people, in a word, is especially composed of
those men whom Nero was the first to enlist. They go
in the evening to the theatres, and even elsewhere, to
applaud, under the direction of a leader and his lieuten-
ants, the artists and works that that leader has pledged
himself to uphold.

"There are many ways of applauding.
20

230 EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

**The first, as you all know, consists in making as
much noise as possible by striking one hand against the
other. And in this first way there are varieties and dif-
ferent shades : the tip of the right hand struck against
the palm of the left produces a sharp, reverberating
sound that most artists prefer; both hands struck to-
gether, on the contrary, have a dull and vulgar sonori-
ty ; it is only pupil claqiLeiirs in their first year, or bar-
bers' apprentices that applaud so.

"The gloved claqiieiw, dressed like a dandy, stretches
his arms affectedly out of his box and claps slowly, al-
most without noise, and for the eye merely ; he thus
sa}'s to the whole house : * See ! I condescend to ap-
plaud.'

"The enthusiastic claqueur (for there are such) claps
quick, loud, and long; his head turns to the right and
left during this applause ; then, these demonstrations
not being enough, he stamps, he cries: 'Bravo ! bravo/*
(note well the circumflex accent over the o) or: ' Bravaf
(that ^ne is learned, he has frequented the Italiens, he
knows the difference between masculine and feminine)
and redoubles his clamor in the ratio that the cloud of
dust raised by his stamping increases in density.

"The claqiieiLr disguised as an old gentleman of prop-
erty, or as a colonel, strikes the floor with the end of his
cane with a paternal air, and in moderation.

"The violinist-<:/(;7^//^^/r, for we have many artists in
the Paris orchestras, who, either to pay their court to
the director of the theatre, or their conductor, or to
some beloved and powerful cantatrice, enlist for the
time being in the Roman army ; the v\oX\m^'i-claqueiir,
I say, taps the body of his violin with the back of his
bow. This applause, rarer than the other kinds, is con-
sequently more sought after. Unfortunately, cruel dis-
enchantments have taught the gods and goddesses that
they can hardly ever tell when the applause of the vio-

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA. 23 I

lins is ironical or serious. Hence the anxious smile of
the divinities when they receive this homage.

**The kettle-drummer applauds by beating his drums;
which does not happen once in fifteen years.

"The Roman ladies applaud sometimes with their
gloved hands, but their influence has its full effect only
when they cast their bouquets at the feet of the artist
they uphold. As this sort of applause is rather expen-
sive, it is commonly the nearest relation, the most inti-
mate friend of the artist, or the artist himself who bears
the expense. So much is given to the flower-throwers
for their flowers, and so much for their enthusiasm ; be-
sides, a man or a nimble boy must be paid to go behind
the scenes after the first shower of flowers, pick them
up and bring them back to the Roman ladies in the
stage-boxes, who use them a second and often a third
time.

"We have also the sensitive Roman, who weeps, has
nervous attacks, faints away. A very rare species,
nearly extinct, closely related to the family of giraffes.

"But to confine ourselves to the study of the Roman
people, properly so called, here is how and under what
conditions they work :

"Given a man who, either from the impulse of a nat-
ural vocation, or by long and arduous studies, has suc-
ceeded in acquiring a real talent as a Roman : he goes
to the director of a theatre and says to him pretty much
as follows: 'Sir, you are at the head of a dramatic en-
terprise, the strong and weak points of which are known
to me ; you have as yet nobody to direct the success ;
intrust me with that; I offer you 20,000 francs down,
and 10,000 francs per annum.' 'I want 30,000 francs
down,' the director usually answers. 'Ten thousand
francs ought not to stand in the way of our bargain ; I
will bring them to-morrow.' 'You have my word. I
shall require a hundred men for ordinary occasions, and

2.12

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

at least five hundred for first performances and impor-
tant first appearances.' *You shall have them, and
more too.' " **What !" said one of the musicians, inter-
rupting me, "is it the director that is payed! ... I al-
ways thought it was the other party !" "Yes, sir, those
offices are bought, like the business of an exchange-bro-
ker, or the practice of a lawyer or notary.

"When he once holds his coinmissiou, the head of the
bureau of success, the emperor of the Romans, easily re-
cruits his army among hair-dressers' apprentices, com-
mercial travelers, cab-drivers on foot,^ poor students, as-
pirants to the supernumerariat etc., etc., who have a
passion for the theatre. He chooses a place of meet-
ing for them, which is usually some obscure cafe, or
a drinking-shop near to the centre of operations. There
he counts them, gives them his instructions and tick-
ets to the pit, or the third gallery, for which the poor
devils pay thirty or forty sous, or less, according to the
round of the theatrical ladder their establishment is on.
The lieutenants alone always have free tickets. On great
days they are paid by their chief It even happens that,
when a new work is to be made to foam up fivm the
bottom, it costs the direction of the theatre a great deal
of money, and that the chief not only does not find
enough paying Romans, but cannot even find any de-
voted soldiers ready to give battle for the love of art.
He is then obliged to pay the complement of his troupe,
and to give each man as much as three francs and a
glass of brandy.

"But in that case the emperor, on his part, does not
only receive pit-tickets ; it is bank-notes that fall into
his pocket, and in almost incredible numbers. One of

' When a cab-driver has incurred the displeasure of the Prefect of Po-
lice, the latter forbids him to work at his trade of coachman for two or
three weeks, in which case the unlucky fellow does not make anything,
and does not, certainly, drive in a carriage. He is on foot. At such,
times he often enlists in the Roman infantry.

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

233

the artists who is to appear in the new piece wishes to
be snpportcd in an exceptional manner ; he offers a few
bills to the emperor. The latter puts on his coldest look,
and pulling a handful of square bits of paper from his
pocket : 'You see,' says he, 'that I do not want for them.
What I want this evening is men, and to get them I
must pay for them.' The artist takes the hint, and slips
a scrap of five hundred francs into Caesar's hand. The
superior of the actor who has thus looked out for him-
self is not long in hearing of this piece of generosity ;
then the fear of not being cared for in proportion to his
merit, considering the extraordinary care that is to be
taken of his second, makes him offer the undertaker of
successes a real note of 1,000 francs, and sometimes
more. And so on from the head to the foot of the di-a-
viatis personce. You understand now why and how the
director of the theatre is paid by the director of the
claque, and how easy it is for the latter to make money.
"The first great Roman that I knew at the Opera in
Paris was called Auguste : the name is a lucky one for
a Caesar. I have rarely seen more imposing majesty
than his. He was cool and dignified, speaking little,
wholly wrapped up in his meditations, his combinations
and calculations of deep strategy. He was a good
prince, nevertheless ; and an habitue of the pit, as I was
then, I was often the object of his benevolence. Be-
sides, my fervor in applauding spontaneously Gluck and
Spontini, Madame Branchu and Derivis, gained for me
his particular esteem. Having brought out at that time
my first score (a high-mass) at the church of Saint- Roch,
the old devotes, the leaser of chairs, the man who passes
around the holy water, the beadle and all the loungers
of the quarter showed themselves very well satisfied,
and I had the simplicity to think I had had a success.
But, alas ! it was but the quarter of a success at the very
most; I was not long in finding it out. Seeing me

234

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

again two days after that performance : * Well ! ' said the
emperor Auguste to me, 'so yoii came out at Saint-
Roch day before yesterday ? Why in the devil didn't
you let me know of it beforehand ? We should have
all been there.' 'Ah ! are you so fond of sacred music
as that?' 'Why no, what an idea ! but we would have
warmed yoiL 7tp zuelL' 'How so? but you cannot ap-
plaud in church.' 'You cannot applaud, no; but you
can cough, and blow your nose, and hitch your chair,
and scrape with your feet, and say: "Hm ! Hm !" and
raise your eyes to heaven ; all that sort of thing, hey !
we would have made you foam up a bit ; an entire suc-
cess, just like a fashionable preacher.'

"Two years later I again forgot to notify him when I
gave my first concert at the Conservatoire, but Auguste
came, notwithstanding, with two of his aids-de-camp ;
and in the evening when I re-appeared in the pit at the
Opera, he gave me his mighty hand, saying in paternal
accents that carried conviction w^ith them (in French of
course) : ' Tit ]\Iarcelliis eris ! ' "

(At this point Bacon, the viola, nudges his neighboi
with his elbow and asks him softly what those three words
mean. "I don't know," answers the other. "It is
from Virgil," says Corsino, the first violin, who has
heard the question and answer. " It means : 'You shall
be Marcellus !' " "Well .... what is the good of being
Marcellus?" "Not being a fool, be quiet!")

"But the masters of the claque are not very fond, in
general, of such ebullient amateurs as I was ; they pro-
fess a distrust that amounts to antipathy for such advent-
urers, condottieri, lost children of enthusiasm, who come,
in all giddiness and witJiout rehearsals, to applaud in
their ranks. One day of a first performance at which
there was to be, to use the Roman phrase, 2i famous pull,
that is to say, great difficulty for Auguste's soldiers in
conquering the public, I had happened to sit down on

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

235

a bench in the pit that the emperor had marked on his
plan of operations as belonging by rights exclusively to
himself. I had been there a good half hour under the
hostile glances of all my neighbors, who seemed to be
asking themselves how to get rid of me, and I was ask-
ing myself with a certain anxiety, in spite of the purity
of my conscience, what I could have done to those
officers, when the emperor Auguste, rushing into the
midst of his staff, came to tell me, speaking with a cer-
tain sharpness but without violence (I have already said
that he was my patron) : 'My dear sir, I am obliged to
disturb you; you cannot stay there.' 'Why not?'
'Well because ! ... it is impossible ; you are in the mid-
dle of my first line, and you cut vie in tzuoJ I hastened,
you may believe, to leave the field free for this great
tactician.

"Any other stranger, mistaking the urgencies of the
position, would have resisted the emperor, and thus
compromised the success of his combinations. Hence
the opinion, founded on a long series of learned observa-
tions, an opinion openly professed by Auguste and his
whole army : The public is of no nse in a theatre ; it is
not only of no use, but it spoils everything. As long as
the public conies to the Opera, the Opera ivill not get on.
The directors in those days called him a madman when
he uttered these proud words. Great Auguste ! He did
not dream that, a few years after his death, such brill-
iant justice would be done to his doctrines ! His lot
was that of all men of genius, to be misunderstood by
their contemporaries, and taken at an advantage by
their successors.

"No, never did a more intelligent and worthy dis-
penser of glory sit enthroned under the chandelier of a
theatre.

"In comparison with Auguste, he who now reigns at
the Opera is but a Vespasian or a Claudius. His name

236

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

is David. And who would give him the title of emper-
or ? Nobody. His flatterers dare to call him king at
the very most, on account of his name solely.

"The illustrious chief of the Romans at the Opera-
Comique is Albert ; but in speaking of him, as of his
old namesake, they call him Albert the Great.

"He was the first to put Auguste's daring theory in
practice, by pitilessly excluding the public from first per-
formances. On those days, if we except critics, who
also for the most part belong in one way or another
viris illustribus 7irbis RomcE, the house is now filled
from top to bottom with claqueurs.

"It is to Albert the Great that we owe the touching
custom of recalling all the actors at the end of a new
piece. King David was quick to imitate him in this ;
and, emboldened by the success of this first improve-
ment, he added that of recalling the tenor as many as
three times in an evening. A god who should be re-
called like a simple mortal only once at the end of a
state performance, would get into an oven. Hence it
followed that if David, in spite of all his efforts, could
not obtain more than this slim result for a generous ten-
or, his rivals of the Theatre- Franfais and the Opera-
Comique would laugh at him the next day, saying:
'David ivarnied up the oven yesterday.' I will give an
explanation of these Roman technicalities by and by.
Unfortunately, Albert the Great, tired of power, no
doubt, saw fit to lay down his sceptre. In giving it
into the hands of his obscure successor, he would will-
ingly have said, like Sulla in M. de Jouy's tragedy :

* J'ai gouverne sans peur et j'abdique sans crainte '

(I have ruled without fear, and I abdicate without
dread), if the verse had only been better. But Albert
is a man of wit, he execrates mediocre literature ; which
might in the end explain his anxiety to leave the Opera-
Comique.

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

237

** Another great man whom I did not know, but
whose reputation in Paris is immense, ruled, and I be-
Heve still rules, at the Gymnase-Dramatique. His name
is Sauton. He has furthered the progress of art on a
broad and new path. He has established friendly rela-
tions of equality and fraternity between the Romans
and authors ; a system which David too, that plagiarist,
was quick to adopt. You now find the chief of the
claque seated familiarly at the table, not only of Melpo-
mene, or Thalia, or Terpsichore, but even of Apollo and
Orpheus. He pledges his signature for them, he helps
them from his own purse in their secret embarassments,
he protects them, he loves them from his heart.

**The following admirable speech of the emperor
Sauton to one of our cleverest authors, and one of the
least inclined to save up money, is quoted :

''At the end of a cordial breakfast, at which the cor-
dials had not been spared, Sauton, red with emotion,
twisting up his napkin, at last found enough courage to
say, without too much stuttering, to his amphytrion :
'My dear D***, I have a great favor to ask of you . . .*
'What is that? speak out!' 'Allow me to . . . Uttoyer
you ... let us tutoyer each other !' 'Willingly. Sau-
ton, lend me (pretc-\\\o\) a thousand crowns.' 'Ah!
my dear friend, you (tiL) enchant me!' And, pulling
out his pocket-book : ' Here they are ! '

"I cannot draw for you, gentlemen, the portrait of
all the illustrious men of the city of Rome ; I have nei-
ther the time nor the biographical knowledge. I will
only add to what I have said of the three heroes I have
just had the honor to entertain you with, that Auguste,
Albert, and Sauton, though rivals, were always united.
They did not imitate, during their triumvirate, the wars
and perfidy that dishonor that of Anthony, Octavius
and Lepidus. Far from it ; whenever there was at the
opera one of those terrible performances at which a
20*

238

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

shining, formidable, epic victory must positively be won,
a victory that Pindar and Homer would be powerless
to sing, Auguste, disdaining raw recruits, would make
an appeal to his triumvirs. They, proud to rush into
hand to hand conflict by the side of so great a man,
would consent to acknowledge him as leader, and bring
him, Albert his indomitable phalanx, Sauton his light
troops, all filled with that ardor that nothing can resist,
and which begets prodigies. These three select bodies
were united in a single army, on the eve of the perform-
ance, in the pit of the Opera. Auguste, with his plan,
libretto and notes in his hand, would put his troops
through a laborious rehearsal, profiting at times by the
remarks of Anthony and Lepidus, who had but few to
make ; so rapid and sure was the glance of Auguste, such
penetration had he to divine the enemy's intentions, such
genius to thwart them, such judgment not to attempt
the impossible. And then, what a triumph on the mor-
row ! what acclamations, what spolia opima! which in-
deed were not offered to Jupiter Stator, but came from
him, on the contrary, and from twenty other gods.

''Such are the priceless services rendered to art and
artists by the Roman Nation.

"Would you believe, gentlemen, that there has been
some talk of dismissing them from the opera ? Several
newspapers announce this reform, which we shall not
believe in, even if we are ourselves witnesses to it. The
claque in fact has become a necessity of the times ; it
has introduced itself everywhere, under all forms, under
all masks, under every pretext. It reigns and governs
at the theatres, in the concert- room, in the National As-
sembly, at the clubs, in church, in industrial societies,
in the press, even in the drawing-room. As soon as
twenty assembled individuals are called to decide upon
the deeds, actions or ideas of any one individual who
attitudinizes before them, you may be sure that at least

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

239

one-quarter of the areopagus is put by the side of the
remaining three-quarters to set fire to them, if they are
inflammable, and to show its ardor alone if they are not.
In the latter very frequent case, this isolated and already
determined upon enthusiasm is still enough to flatter
most self-loves. Some succeed in deceiving themselves
about the real value of a suffrage so obtained ; others
do not in the least, and desire it notwithstanding.
These have got to the point that, if they had no live
men at command to applaud them, would yet be happy
at the applause of a troupe of manikins, even at the sight
of a clapping machine; they would turn the crank
themselves.

*'The claqueurs at our theatres have become learned
practitioners ; their trade has raised itself to an art.

"People have often admired, but never enough, as I
think, the marvelous talent with which Auguste used to
direct the great works of the modern repertoire, and the
excellence of the advice he often gave their authors.
Hidden in his parquet-box, he was present at every re-
hearsal of the artists, before having his own with his
army. Then, when the inaestro said to him: 'Here
you will give three rounds, there you will call out en-
core,' he would answer with imperturbable assurance,
as the case might be : 'Sir, it is dangerous,' or else : 'It
shall be done,' or: H will think about it, my mind is not
yet quite made up on that point. Have some amateurs
to attack with, and I will follow them if it takes.' It
even happened sometimes that Auguste would nobly
resist an author who tried to get dangerous applause
from him, and answer him with: 'Sir, I cannot do it.
You would compromise me in the eyes of the public, in
the eyes of the artists, and those of my people, who
know very well that that ought not to be done. I have
my reputation to guard ; I, too, have some self-love.
Your work is very difficult to direct; I will take all
possible pains, but I do not want to get hissed.'

240 EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

**By the side of the claqtieurs by profession, well-
taught, sagacious, prudent, inspired, in a word, artists,
we also have the occasional claqueur, the claqiieiLV from
friendship or interest ; and these will not be banished
from the opera. They are : simple friends, who admire
in good faith all that is to be done on the stage before
the lamps are ligJited (it is true that this species of friend
is daily becoming more rare ; those, on the other hand,
who disparage everything beforehand, at the time and
afterwards, multiply enormously) ; relations, those cla-
qiieurs given by nature ; editors, ferocious elaqneurs ;
and especially lovers and husbands. That is why wom-
en, besides the host of other advantages they have over
men, have still one more chance of success than they.
For a woman can hardly applaud her husband or lover
to any purpose in a theatre or a concert-room ; be-
sides, she always has something else to do ; while the
husband or lover, provided he has the least natural ca-
pacity or some elementary notions of the art, can
often, by a clever stroke, bring about a success of re-
newal at the theatre, that is to say, a decided success
capable of forcing the director to renew an engagement.
Husbands are better than lovers for this sort of opera-
tion. The latter usually stand in fear of ridicule ; they
also fear in petto that a too brilliant success may make
too many rivals ; they no longer have any pecuniary
interest in the triumphs of their mistresses ; but the
husband, who holds the purse-strings, who knows what
can be done by a well-thrown bouquet, a well taken- up
salvo, a well-communicated emotion, a well-carried re-
call, he alone dares to turn to account what faculties he
has. He has the gift of ventriloquism and of ubiquity.
He applauds for an instant from the amphitheatre, cry-
ing out: Brava! in a tenor voice, in chest tones;
thence he flies to the lobby of the first boxes, and
sticking his head through the opening cut in the door,

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

241

he throws out an Admirable ! in a voice of basso pro-
fundo while passing by, and then bounds breathless up
to the third tier, from whence he makes the house re-
sound with exclamations : * Delicious ! ravishing ! Heav-
ens ! what talent! it is too much!' in a soprano voice,
in shrill feminine tones stifled with emotion. There is
a model husband for you, and a hard-working and in-
telligent father of a family. As for the husband who is
a man of taste, reserved, staying in his seat through a
whole act, not daring to applaud even the most superb
eflbrts of his better-half, it may be said without fear of
mistake that he is a . . . lost husband, or that his wife
is an angel.

"Was it not a husband who invented the hiss of suc-
cess; the hiss of enthusiasm, the hiss at high pressure ?
which is done in the following manner :

" If the public, having become too familiar with the
talent of a woman who appears before them every day,
seems to fall into the apathetic indifference that is
brought on by satiety, a devoted and little-known man
is stationed in the house to wake them up. At the pre-
cise moment when the diva has just given manifest
proof of her talent, and when the artistic claqueurs are
doing their best together in the centre of the pit, a
shrill and insulting noise starts out from some obscure
corner. Then the audience rises like one man, a prey
to indignation, and the avenging plaudits burst forth with
indescribable frenzy. 'What infamy!' is shrieked on
every hand. 'What a shameful cabal ! Brava! bra-
vissimaf charming! intoxicating! etc., etc' But this
daring feat has to be skillfully performed ; there are,
moreover, very few women who consent to submit to
the fictitious affront of a hiss, however productive it
may be afterwards.

"Such is the impression that approving or disapprov-
ing noises make upon almost all artists, even when
these noises express neither admiration nor blame.

242

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

Habit, their imagination and a little weakness of mind
maKe them feel joy or pain, according as the air in a
theatre is set in vibration in one or the other way.
The physical phenomenon is enough, independently of
any idea of glory or shame. I am certain that there
are actors who are childish enough to suffer when they
travel on the railway, on account of the locomotive-
whistle.

"The art of the claque even reacts upon musical com-
position. It is the numerous varieties of Italian cla-
quciirs, either amateurs or artists, that have brought
composers to finish all their pieces by that redundant,
trivial, ridiculous period that is called cabalctta, little ca-
bal, which provokes applause, and is always the same.
When the cabalctta was no longer enough for them,
they introduced the big-drum, the big cabal, which at
the present day destroys both music and singers.
When they got biases with the big-drum and found
themselves powerless to carry the success by the old
means, they at last demanded of the poor maestri duets,
trios and choruses in unison. In some passages they
even had to put both voices and orchestra in unison,
thus producing an ensemble piece in one single part, but
in which the enormous sonority seems preferable to all
harmony, to all instrumentation, to every musical idea,
in a word, for carryiiig aiuay the public, and making it
believe itself electrified.

"Analogous examples abound in the manufacture of
literary works.

"As for the dancers, their business is perfectly simple ;
it is agreed upon with the impressario : ' You will give
me so many thousand francs per month, so xVi?iV\.y passes^
per performance, and the claque wull give me a reccptioii
and exit^ and two rounds at each of my echos.''

1 Tickets ta which the actor has a right on the days of his performances.
* Echos are the solo.-^ of a dancer during an ense»ible piece of the ballet.

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

243

"By means of the claque, directors make or unmake
at will what is still called a success. A single word to
the chief of the parterre is enough to undo an artist-
who has not a talent out of the common run. I re-
member hearing Auguste say, one evening at the Op-
era, passing through the ranks of his army before the
curtain rose: 'Nothing for M. Derivis ! nothing for M.
Derivis ! ' The order went round, and during the whole
evening Derivis did not get a single bit of applause.
When the director wishes to get rid of a member of his
company for some reason or other, he employs this in-
genious method, and, after two or three performances
at which there has been nothing for M. **** or Madame
**** : 'You see,' says he to the artist, *I cannot keep
you ; your talent is not sympathetic to the public' It
happens, on the other hand, that these tactics mis-
carry sometimes in the case of an artist of the first
rank. 'Nothing for him ! ' has been said at the official
centre. But the public, astonished at first at the silence
of the Romans, soon begins to see where the shoe
pinches, and sets itself to work most officiously, and with
all the more warmth that it has a hostile cabal to thwart.
The artist then has an exceptional success, a circular
success, the centre of the pit having no hand in it. But
I should not dare to say whether he is more proud of
this spontaneous enthusiasm of the public, or angry at
the inaction of the claque.

"To dream of suddenly destroying such an institu-
tion in the largest of our theatres, seems to me to be as
impossible and insane, as to try to annihilate a religion
between this evening and to-morrow.

"Can people imagine the disarray of the Opera? the
discouragement, the melancholy, the atrophy, the spleen
into which the whole dancing, singing, walking, running,
painting and composing people would fall ? the disgust
of life that would seize hold upon the gods and demi-

2AA EVE XIX GS IX THE ORCHESTRA.

gods, if a frightful silence should follow every cabaletta
that was not irreproachably sung or danced ? Do
people think of the rage of all mediocrity at the sight
of true talent getting some applause, while it, that al-
ways used to be applauded, cannot now get a hand ?
It would be as much as recognizing the principle of in-
equality, and giving a palpable proof of it ; and we are
a Republic ; the word Equality is written upon the ped-
iment of the Opera ! Besides, who would recall the
leading artist after the third and the fifth acts ? Who
would cry out: All I all I at the end of a perform-
ance ? Who would laugh when some character said
something silly ? Who would cover up the bad note
of a bass or tenor with obliging applause, and thus pre-
vent the public from hearing it ? It is fit to make a
man shudder. Besides, the manoeuvres of the claque
add interest to the spectacle ; people enjoy seeing them
at work. This is so true that, if the claqueurs were ex-
pelled at certain performances, not a person would re-
main in the house.

**No, the suppression of the Romans in France is
fortunately a mad dream. The heavens and the earth
shall pass away, but Rome is immortal, and the claque
shall not pass away.

"Just listen ! . . . . our prima-donna has taken it into
her head to sing with soul, simplicity and good taste the
only distinguished melody that is to be found in this poor
opera. You will see, she will not get any applause. . . .
Ah ! I was wrong ; yes, they are applauding her ; but
how ? How badly it is done ! What an abortion of a sal-
vo, badly attacked, and badly taken up ! There is good
will enough in the audience, but no science, no ejisernble,
and consequently no effect. If Auguste had had that
woman to cat^e for, he would have carried the whole
house in a trice, and you yourselves, who have no notion
of applauding, would have been drawn into his enthusi-
asm willy-nilly.

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

!45

"I have not yet drawn for you the portrait of a Ro-
man woman ; I will do that during the last act of our
opera, which will begin soon. Let us have a short
entracte; I am tired."

(The musicians go off a few steps, talking over their
reflections in a low voice, while the curtain falls. But
three raps of the conductor's baton upon his desk an-
nouncing the continuation of the performance, my audi-
ence groups itself attentively about me).

MADAME ROSENHAIN.

Another Fragment of Roman History.

"An opera in five acts was ordered some years ago
of a French composer, whom you do not know, by M.
Duponchel.^ While the last rehearsals were going on,
I was reflecting, at my fireside, upon the anguish the
unfortunate composer of this opera was then occupied in
experiencing. I thought of the ever-renewed torments
of every description that no one escapes in Paris in such
cases, neither the great nor the small, the patient nor
the irritable, the humble nor the proud, neither German,
Frenchman, nor even Italian. I pictured to myself the
atrociously slow, rehearsals at which everybody takes up
the time with nonsense, when every hour lost may lead
to the failure of the work ; the puns of the tenor and the
prima-donna, at which the sad composer thinks himself
bound to laugh heartily while death is in his soul, ridic-
ulous sallies which he bestirs himself to answer with the
heaviest and dullest stupidities he can think of, that
those of the singers may have more point and so seem
something akin to wit. I heard the director's voice
reprimanding him, treating him like a child, reminding
him of the extreme honor they did his work in troubling
themselves about it so long ; threatening him with its

^ Director of Uic Oi)era. — Trans.

246

EVEXIXGS IX THE ORCHESTRA.

utter and complete abandonment if all were not ready
on the fixed day; I saw the -slave paralyzed with fear,
and blushing at the eccentric reflections of his master
(the director) upon music and musicians, at his nonsens-
ical theories of melody, rhythm, instrumentation and
style ; theories in the exposition of which the director,
as usual, treated the great masters like idiots, and idiots
like great masters, and mistook the Piraeus for a man.
Then the mezzo-soprano s leave of absence, and the ill-
ness of the bass were announced ; they proposed a new
beginner to take the part of the artist, and to have a
chorus-singer rehearse the leading role. And the com-
poser felt himself choking, but took care not to complain.
Oh ! the hail, the rain, the icy wind, the woods stripped
of their foliage by the winter's breeze, the dark squalls,
the muddy sloughs, the ditches covered over by a treach-
erous crust, the gnawings of hunger, the frights of soli-
tude and night, how sweet it is to think of them in some
lodging-place, were it even as poor as that of the hare
in the fable, in the repose of luke-warm inaction ; to
feel one's sense of comfort redouble at the far-off noise
of the tempest, and to repeat, while stroking one's beard
and luxuriously closing one's eyes like a priest's cat,
that prayer of the German poet, Henri Heine, a prayer,
alas ! that is so seldom heard : ' O Lord ! thou knowest
that I have an excellent heart, that I am full of pity and
sympathy for the woes of others ; grant then, if it please
thee, that my neighbor may have my ills to endure ; I
will surround him with such care, such delicate atten-
tions ; my pity will be so active, so ingenious, that he
will bless thy right hand, Lord, while receiving such re-
lief, such sweet consolation. But to load me with the
weight of my own sufferings ! to make me suffer my-
self] Oh ! it would be frightful ! take away from my
lips, great God, this cup of bitterness ! '

"I was thus plunged in pious meditations, when some-

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

247

body rapped lightly at the door of my oratory. My
valct-de-chambre being on a mission to a foreign court,
I asked myself if I were at home, and, on my reply in
the affirmative, I opened the door. A lady appeared,
very well dressed and, faith, not too young ; she was in
all the bloom of her forty- fifth year. I saw at once
that she was an artist ; there are infallible signs by
which these unhappy victims of inspiration are to be
known. 'Sir, you have lately conducted a grand con-
cert at Versailles, and, up to the last day, I hoped to
take part in it . . . ; but what is done is done.' ' Mad-
am, the program was drawn up by the committee of
the Association of Musicians ; I am not to blame for it.
Besides, Madame Dorus-Gras and Madame Wide-
mann . . . ' 'Oh ! those ladies, no doubt, said nothing;
but it is no less true that they were probably very much
displeased.' 'With what, if you please?' 'That I was
not engaged.' 'You think so ? ' 'I am sure of it. But
let us not recriminate on that head. I came, sir, to beg
you to be kind enough to recommend me to MM.
Roqueplan and Duponchel ; my intention is to get an
engagement at the Opera. I was attached to the The-
atre-Italien until last season, and, certainly, I can only
be proud of the excellent behavior of M. Vatel ; but
since the revolution of February . . . , you understand
that such a theatre cannot do for me.' 'Madam has,
no doubt, good reasons for being severe in her choice of
partners ; but if I might express an opinion . . . ' ' Use-
less, sir, my mind is made up, irrevocably made up ; it
is impossible for me to remain at the Theatre-Italieii
under any conditions whatever. Everything there is
profoundly antipathetic to me — the public that comes
there, and the public that does not come there ; and, al-
though the present condition of the Opera is hardly
brilliant, as my son and both my daughters were en-
gaged there last year by the new direction, I should be

248

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

very glad to be admitted there, and shall not haggle
about the appointments.' 'You forget, I see, that as
the directors of the Opera have an excessively superfi-
cial knowledge, and a very vague sentiment for music,
they naturally have fixed ideas concerning our art, and
consequently attach very little value to recommend-
ations, to mine especially. But still, be so good as to
tell me what your voice is.' 'I do not sing.' 'Then I
shall have still less credit, since it concerns the ballet.'
'I do not dance.' 'Then it is only among the walking
ladies that you wish to gain admittance?' 'I do not
walk, sir ; you strangely misunderstand me' (smiling
ivith a touch of irony). 'I am Madame Rosenhain.'
'Any relation to the pianist?' 'No, but Mesdames
Persiani, Grisi, Alboni, MM. Mario and Tamburini must
have spoken to you about me, seeing that I have, for
six years, played a prominent part in their triumphs.
I had thought for an instant of going to London to give
lessons, as they tell me that they are very moderately
advanced over there ; but, I repeat, as my children are
at the Opera . . . , and then the size of the theatre
thrown open to my ambition . . . ' 'Excuse my want
of sagacity, madam, and be so good as to tell me at
last what your special talent is.' 'Sir, I am an artist
who has made M. Vatel make more money than Rubini
himself, and I flatter myself that I can bring about the
most favorable reaction in the receipts of the Opera, if
my two daughters, who have already attracted attention
there, profit by my example. I am, sir, a flower-
tJu'oiver' 'Ah! very well! you are in the Enthusi-
asm?' 'Precisely. This branch of musical art has
hardly begun to flourish. Formerly it was the ladies of
the upper circles who practiced it, and that nearly gra-
tuitously. You may remember the concerts of M.
Liszt and the first appearances of M. Duprez. What
volleys of bouquets ! What applause ! You saw young

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA. 24O

girls, and even married women, become enthusiastic
without regard for modesty ; several among them grave-
ly compromised themselves more than once. But what
a tumult ! what disorder ! what quantities of beautiful
flowers lost ! it was a fearful pity ! To-day, as the
public no longer put their finger into the pie at all,
thanks to heaven and the artists, we have regulated all
ovations according to my system, and it is quite another
thing. Under the last direction of the Opera our art
came near being lost, or, at the very least, going back-
ward. They intrusted the part of Enthusiasm to four
young, inexperienced dancers, who were personally
known to all the habitues into the bargain ; these
children, new to the business, as girls are at that age,
took their stations in the house always in the same
places, and always threw the same bouquets at the same
moment to the same cantatrice ; so that at last people
began to turn the eloquence of their flowers to derision.
My daughters, profiting by my lessons, have reformed
that, and I think that now the administration has reason
to be entirely satisfied.' 'Is your son also in the flower
business ? ' *Oh ! as for my son, he excites enthusiasm
in another way : he has a superb voice.' 'Then why
is his name not known to me ?' 'He is never down on
the posters.' 'But he sings?' 'No, sir, he screams.'
'That is what I meant.' 'Yes, he screams, and in diffi-
cult cases his voice has often sufliced to carry away the
most recalcitrant masses; my son, sir, is for the recalls'
'What! can he be a countryman of O'Connell?' 'I
do not know that actor. My son is for the recall of the
leading artists when the audience remains cold and does
not recall anybody. You see that he has no sinecure,
and that he earns his money well. He had the good
fortune, when he made his first appearances at the The-
atre-Frangais, to find a tragedian there whose name be-
gins with an excellent syllable, the syllable Ra!^ God
» Rachel.

2;0

EVEXIXGS LV THE ORCHESTRA.

knows all the account this Ra can be turned to! 1
should have been very anxious about his success at the
Opera when I heard of the retirement of the famous
cantatrice whose single o ^ resounded so well, in spite of
the five Teutonic consonants that surround it, if there
had not come d.no'&s.^x prima- donna, whose still more ad-
vantageous syllable, the syllable JMai,^ placed my son up-
on the very pinnacle of success at the first dash. Now
you know all.' 'Completely. I will tell you, madam,
that your talent is the best of all recommendations ;
that the direction of the Opera will know how to ap-
preciate it, but that you must present yourself as soon
as possible, for they are on the lookout for artists like
yourself, and for eight days they have been engaged in
the composition of a grand enthusiasm for a third act,
in which they take a lively interest.' 'Thank you, sir,
thank you ; I fly to the Opera.' And the young art-
ist vanished. I have not heard of -her since, but I got
a proof of the entire success of her application, and
the certainty of her making an excellent engagement
with the direction of the Opera. At the first perform-
ance of the new work which M. Duponchel had ordered,
a perfect avalanche of flowers fell after the third act,
and it was easily to be seen by all that they fell from a
practiced hand. Unfortunately this gracious ovation
did not prevent both piece and music from doing as
much." "From doing. . . what?" said Bacon, the
simple asker of questions. "From falling flat, you
idiot," answered Corsino, roughly. " Come now ! your
wit is enormously more obtuse than usual this ev^ening !
Go to bed, Basilio."

"I have now, gentlemen, to explain to you the tech-
nical terms most frequently used in the Roman lan-
guage, terms which only Parisians understand :

"To GET INTO AN OVEN (fair€ four) means to pro-
' Stoltz. « Malibran.

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

251

duce no effect, to fall flat on the indifference o{ the au-
dience.

"To HEAT AN OVEN (chauffer im four) is to applaud
to no purpose an artist whose talent is powerless to
move an audience ; this expression is the pendant to
that of: Beating the air.

"To BE COMFORTABLE (avoir de ragraneiit) is to
be applauded both by the claque and by part of the
public. Duprez was extraordinarily comfortable the day
of his first appearance in Guillauvie Tell.

"To CHEER UP (cgayer) anybody is to hiss him.
This irony is cruel, but it has a hidden meaning that
gives it still more edge. No doubt the unlucky artist
who gets hissed only experiences a very questionable
cheerfulness from the fact, but his rival in the business
is cheered up by hearing him hissed, and many other
people laugh in petto at the accident. So that, taken
all in all, when any one is hissed, there is always some
one cheered up too.

"A PULL (tirage) means, in the Roman language,
difficulty, work, trouble. Thus the Roman says : 'It is
a fine work, but we shall have a pull to make it go.
Which means that, in spite of all its merit, the work is
tiresome, and that it will be only by great efforts that
the claque can give it the semblance of a success.

'*To GIVE A RECEPTION (faire une entree) is to ap-
plaud an actor as soon as he comes upon the stage, be-
fore he has opened his mouth.

"To GIVE AN EXIT (faij'e une sortie) is to pursue
him with plaudits and bravos when he leaves the stage,
no matter what his last gesture, his last word or scream
may have been.

"To SHELTER (inettrc a convert) a singer is to ap-
plaud him with violent acclamations at the exact mo-
ment when he is about to give out a false or cracked
note, that the bad note may be thus covered up by the
noise of the claque and that the public may not hear it.

252 EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

"To SHOW CONSIDERATION [avoir des e'gards) for an
artist is to applaud him moderately, even when he has
not been able to give any money to the claque. It
means to encourage him from friendship, ox for love (a
rceil). These last two expressions are equivalent to
gratis.

"To MAKE FOAM UP WELL, or FROM THE BOTTOM
[faii'c inonsser solidenient ou a fojtd) is to applaud with
frenzy, with hands, feet, voice and speech. During the
ejitractes, in such cases, the work or artist must be ex-
tolled in the lobbies, in the refreshment rooms, at the
neighboring cafe, at the cigar-shop, everywhere. One
must say : ' It is a masterpiece ; he has an unique tal-
ent, perfectly bewildering ! an unrivaled voice ! nothing
like it has ever been heard ! ' There is a well-known
professor whom the directors of the Paris Opera always
have come from abroad on solemn occasions, to make
great works foam up from the bottom, by kindling the
lobbies in a masterly manner. The talent of this Roman
master is serious ; his seriousness is admirable.

*'Both these last operations combined are expressed
by the words CARE, to CARE FOR {soijis, soigner).

"To GET .... LAID HOLD OF { faire cmpoigncr) is to
applaud a weak thing or artist at the wrong time, which
provokes the anger of the public. It sometimes hap-
pens that a mediocre cantatrice, but one who has power
over the director's heart, sings most deplorably. Seat-
ed in the centre of the pit, with a sad, overpowered air,
the emperor bows his head, thus indicating to his prae-
torians that they must keep silence, give no sign of sat-
isfaction, unite, in a word, in his sorrowful reflections !
But the diva does not at all appreciate this prudent re-
serve ; she leaves the stage in a fury, and runs to com-
plain to the director of the stupidity or treason of the
chief of the claque. The director then gives the order
that the Roman army shall work vigorously in the next

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA. 253

act. To his great regret Csesar sees himself forced to
obey. The second act begins, the angry goddess sings
more false than before ; three hundred pairs of devoted
hands applaud her all the same ; the public, in a fury,
answer these manifestations by a symphony of hisses
and Kentish fire, instrumented in the modern style, and
of the most ear-splitting sonority.

"I think that the use of this expression only goes
back to the reign of Charles X, and the memorable se-
ance of the Chamber of Deputies, at which a parlia-
mentary thunder-storm broke out, when Manuel allowed
himself to say that France had seen the return of the
Bourbons with repugnance, and M. de Foucault called
his gendarmes and said to them, pointing out Manuel :
'Lay hold of that man there! {^Einpoignez-rnoi cet
honime-la !)

"They also say, to denote this disastrous calling forth
of hisses, GET AZOR CALLED {/aire appeler Azor) ;
from the custom of old ladies whistling when they call
their dog, who always bears the name of Azor.

**I have seen Auguste, in despair after one of these
catastrophes, ready to kill himself, like Brutus at Phi-
lippi. . . . One consideration alone restrained him : he
was necessary to his art and country ; he must live for
them.

"To CONDUCT {conduire) a work, is to direct the op-
erations of the Roman army during the performances of
such work,

"Brrrrrr ! ! This noise, which the emperor makes
with his mouth in directing certain movements of his
troops, and which all his lieutenants can hear, is a signal
for them to give extraordinary rapidity to their clapping
and to accompany it with stamping. It is the com-
mand to make foam ttp well.

"The motion from right to left and from left to right
of the imperial head, illumined with a smile, is the sig-
nal for moderate laughter.

2 54 EVEXIXGS IX THE ORCHESTRA.

** Caesar's two hands clapped together vigorously and
raised for a moment in the air, .command a sudden burst
of laughter.

"If the hands stay in the air longer than usual, the
laugh must be prolonged and followed by a round of
applause.

*'Hm! thrown out in a certain way, provokes emo-
tion in Caesar's soldiers ; they must at such times put
on a mollified look, and let fall, with some tears, a mur-
mur of approbation.

"There, gentlemen, is all that I can tell you about the
illustrious men and women of the city of Rome. I
have not lived long enough among them to know more.
Excuse the short-comings of the historian."

The amateur in the stalls thanks me most overwhelm-
ingly ; he has not lost a word of my story, and I have
noticed him furtively taking notes. The gas is put out,
and we go away. In coming down stairs: "You do
not know who the inquisitive old boy is who asked you
about the Romans ? " said Dimsky, the first double-bass,
with an air of mystery. "No." " He is the director of
the theatre in **** ; you may be sure that he will profit
by all he has heard this evening, and will found an in-
stitution in his own town similar to that in Paris." "All
right ! in that case I am sorry that I did not call his at-
tention to rather an important fact. The directors of
the Opera, those of the Opera- Comique and of the
Theatre-Fran9ais, have gone into partnership to found
a Conservatoire of Claque, and our curious friend might
engage the student who has just got the first prize at
that Conservatoire, so as to have an experienced man,
a real Caesar, or, at the very least, a young Octavius at
the head of his institution." "I will write him that; I
know him." "You had better, my dear Dimsky."
"Let us ca7'e for our art, and watch over the safety of
the empire. Good-night ! "

EIGHTH EVENING.

Romans of the New World.— Mr. Barnum. — Jenny Lind's Trib
TO America.

AVERY, etc., modern Italian opera is played. -
The amateur in the stalls, whom Dimsky pointed
out as the director o( the theatre in ****, does not ap-
pear. He must have really gone away to turn to ac-
count his newly-acquired knowledge of Roman history.
•'With the ingenious system, the operation of which
you explained to us yesterday," says Corsino to me,
••and the absence of the public from first performances,
every theatrical work must succeed in Paris." "The
fact is that they all do succeed. Old works, modern
works, moderately good, detestable or even excellent
pieces and scores obtain in these days an equal success.
Unfortunately, as was easy to foresee, these obstinate
plaudits detract somewhat from the importance of the
incessant productiveness of our theatres. The directors
make some money, they let the authors gain a liveli-
hood ; but the latter, very moderately flattered by suc-
ceeding there where nobody fails, work accordingly, and
the literary and musical life o( Paris receives no impulse
either forwards or backwards, from the fact of there be-
ing so many workers. On the other hand, there is no
longer any real success possible for singers and actors.
By dint of being all recalled, this ovation has lost all its

255

256

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA,

value, by becoming so common ; one might even say
that it begins to excite the contemptuous laughter of
the public. The one-eyed men, those kings in the land
of the blind, cannot reign in a country where every one
is king. . . . Seeing the results of this continuous flow
of enthusiasm, people begin to doubt the truth of the
new proverb : Excess in everything is a virtue. It
might indeed be a fault, on the contrary, and even one
of the most repulsive of vices. While in doubt, they
will not give it up ; so much the better. It is the means
of sooner or later obtaining some strange results, and
the experiment is well worth pushing to the end. But
do what we may in Europe, we shall yet be distanced
by the enthusiasts in the New World, who are to ours
as the Mississippi is to the Seine." "How is that ? "
says Winter, the American, who belongs to this orches-
tra, nobody knows exactly how, and plays second bas-
soon ; "can my countrymen have become dilettanti? ''
"Certainly they are, and most mad dilettanti too,
if we may believe what the papers said of Mr. Bar-
num, Jenny Lind's undertaker of success. See what
they said, two years ago, about the arrival of the great
cantatrice upon the new continent: 'At her landing in
New York, the crowd threw itself in her way in such a
transport of excitement, that immense numbers of peo-
ple were crushed. There were, however, enough sur-
vivors left to prevent her horses from advancing ; it was
-then that, seeing her coachman lift his arm to make way
among these indiscreet enthusiasts with his whip, Jenny
Lind pronounced those sublime words, which are now
repeated from the farthest borders of Canada to Mexico,
and which bring tears into the eyes of all who hear
them quoted: Do not strike, do not strike! They are
my friends, they have come to see me I One does not
know which to admire more in this memorable sentence
— the outburst from the heart that suggested the thought,

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

257

or the genius that clothed this thought with so beauti-
ful and poetic a form. It was greeted with frantic hur-
rahs. The director of the Transatlantic Line, M. Colini,
waited to receive Jenny on the wharf, armed with an
immense bouquet. A triumphal arch made of ever-
greens rose up in the middle of the quay, surmounted
by a stuffed eagle, who seemed waiting to bid her wel-
come. At midnight the orchestra of the Philharmonic
Society gave Mademoiselle Lind a serenade, and for
two hours the illustrious cantatrice was obliged to stay
at her window, in spite of the coolness of the night.
The next day, Mr. Barnum, the clever bird-catcher who
had succeeded in caging the Swedish nightingale for a
few months, took her to the Museum, where he showed
her all the curiosities, without omitting a cockatoo or an
orang-outang ; at last, placing a mirror before the eyes
of the goddess : Here, madam, said he, with exquisite
gallantry, is the most rare and ravisJiing thing that we
have to shozv yon at present. On coming out of the
Museum, a chorus of young and beautiful girls, dressed
in white, walked before the immortal one as a virginal
escort, singing hymns and strewing her path with flow-
ers. Not far off a striking scene of an entirely novel
character touched the heart of the famous being : dol-
phins and whales, which for eight hundred leagues (oth-
ers say nine hundred) had taken part in the triumph of
this new Galatea, and had followed her vessel spouting
jets of scented water from their blow-holes, tossed about
convulsively in the harbor, a prey to despair at not be-
ing able to accompany her ashore ; sea-calves, shedding
great tears, gave themselves up to the most lamentable
sobbing. Then were seen (a spectacle sweeter to her
heart) sea-gulls, frigate-birds and loons, wild birds that
inhabit the vast solitudes of the ocean, flying more
happily and without fear about the adorable one, perch-
ing upon her white shoulders, soaring aloft above her

258

EVEXIXGS IX THE ORCHESTRA.

Olympian head, holding in their bills pearls of mon-
strous size, which they offered. her in the most graceful
fashion and with soft cooings. The cannons thundered,
the bells sang Hosaniia! and magnificent claps of thun-
der made the cloudless heavens resound at intervals in
all their radiant immensity.' All this, as incontestably
true as the prodigies once performed by Amphion and
Orpheus, is only doubted by us old Europeans, used up,
biases, without a flame, or love for art.

"But Mr. Barnum, not thinking this spontaneous out-
break of the creatures of the sky, the earth and the
waters sufficient for his purpose, and wishing to give it
still more energy by means of a little innocent charlatan-
ism, tried, they tell us, to make use of a new means of
exeitement, which might be called, were it not for the
vulgarity of the expression, the death-claque. This
great agitator, informed of the profound destitution in
which several families in New York were plunged, con-
ceived the idea of generously coming to their assistance,
being desirous of associating with the date of Jenny
Lind's arrival the recollection of benefactions worthy of
mention. So he took aside the heads of those unfortu-
nate families, and said to them : 'When a man has lost
all, and there is no hope left, life becomes a burden, and
you know what remains to be done. Well, I will give
)'ou an opportunity to do it in a way that shall be use-
ful to your poor children and your unfortunate wives,
Avho will owe you eternal gratitude. SJie has come ! ! ! '
'She???' 'Yes, sJie, herself! So I will insure to your
heirs two thousand dollars, which will be religiously paid
out to them on the day on which the deed you now
meditate is performed, but performed in the way I now
tell you. This is a delicate homage that is to be paid
to her. We shall easily succeed if you second me.
Listen : Some of you will only have to go up to the
top stories of houses in the neighborhood of the con-

EVENIXGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

cert-hall, to throw yourselves down upon the pavement
when she passes by, crying out : Long live Liud ! Oth-
ers will throw themselves, but without disorderly move-
ments, without cries, with gravity, with grace if possi-
ble, under the feet of her horses or the wheels of her
carriage ; the rest will be admitted gratis to the hall it-
self; these must hear part of the concert.' 'They will
hear her???' 'They will hear her. At the end of the
second eavatina, sung by her, they will declare aloud
that their prosaic existence is no longer endurable after
such delights ; then they will stab themselves to the
heart with the daggers I have here. No pistols ; the
pistol is an instrument in which there is nothing noble,
and besides, its noise might be disagreeable to her.'
The bargain was struck, and these conditions would, no
doubt, have been honestly fulfilled by the parties, if the
American police, a mischief-making and unintelligent
police, if the truth must be told, had not interfered to
prevent it. Which goes to prove that, even in artistic
nations, there are always a certain number of narrow
minds, cold hearts, coarse and, to use the right word,
envious men. So the system of the death-claqiie could
not be put in practice, and a number of poor people
were deprived of a new means of earning a living.

"This is not all; it was generally believed in New
York (indeed, could it be doubted ?) that, on the day of
her landing, a Te deam laiidamus would be sung in the
Catholic churches of the city. But after long consulta-
tion, the officiating clergy of the various parishes came
to the conclusion that such a demonstration was incom-
patible with the dignity of religion, even qualifying the
little variation introduced into the sacred text with the
epithets of blasphemous and impious. So that not a
single Te deam was intoned in the churches in the Un-
ion. I give you this fact without comment, in all its
brutal simplicity.

26o EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

**Here is another grave error of which, an amateur
has told me, the board of public- works in that strange
country was guilty : The papers have often told us of
the immense railway which was undertaken in order to
establish a direct communication between the Atlantic
Ocean and California, across the American continent.
We simple Europeans supposed it was only for the pur-
pose of facilitating by these means the journey of the ex-
plorers of the new Eldorado. A mistake. The object was,
on the contrary, more artistic than philanthropic and com-
mercial. These hundreds of leagues of rail were voted by
the States, so as to allow the pioneers wandering among
the Rocky Mountains and along the banks of the Sac-
ramento, to come and hear Jenny Lind, without giving
up too much of their time to this indispensable pilgrim-
age. But in consequence of an odious cabal, the works,
far from being completed, were hardly begun when sJie
arrived. The carelessness of the American government
is beyond the power of language, and it is conceivable
that sJic, so humane and kind, must have complained
bitterly. The result was that these poor gold-seekers
of every age and sex, already worn out by their hard
work, had to make this long and dangerous continental
journey on foot, or on mule-back, amid unheard-of suf-
ferings. The surveys were abandoned, the diggings
were left gaping open, the buildings in San Francisco
unfinished, and God knows when those works can have
been taken up again. This may bring about the most
terrible perturbations in the commerce of the whole
world." "Oh! come now !" says Bacon, "you mean
to make us believe . . . ?" "No, I stop here; you
would have a right to think that I am now giving Mr.
Barnum a retroactive puff, when, in the simplicity of
my heart, I am only translating into vile prose the po-
etic rumors that have come from too happy America."
"Why do you say retroactive puff? Is not Mr. Bar-

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA. 26 1

num still going?" "I cannot positively assert it, al-
though the inaction of such a man is hardly probable ;
but he does not make Jenny Lind foam tip any more.
Do you not know that the admirable artist (I am
speaking seriously this time), tired, no doubt, of being
compulsorily mixed up with the eccentric exploits of
the Romans who made money out of her, suddenly re-
tired from the world to get married, and now lives hap-
ily out of the reach of puffing ! She has just been
married in Boston to M. Goldschmidt, a young pianist
and composer from Hamburg, whom we applauded in
Paris some years ago. An artistic marriage which got
the diva the beautiful encomium of a French gramma-
rian in Philadelphia: 'She saw at her feet princes and
archbishops, and did not want to be one' It is a catas-
trophe for the directors of lyric theatres in both worlds.
It explains the promptness with which the London ijn-
pressarii have just sent out confidential agents on bnsi-
^ness to Italy and Germany, to capture there all the so-
prani and contralti they can lay hands on. Unfortunate-
ly, the quantity of these prizes can never be made to com-
pensate for the quality. Besides, even if the contrary
were true, there are not enough mediocre cantatrices in
the world to make change for Jenny Lind." " So it is
all over!" says Winter to me, with a piteous face, squeez-
ing his bassoon, which has not uttered a single note the
whole evening; *' we shall not hear her any more ! . . . "
"I fear so. It will be the emperor Barnum's fault, and
a decisive proof of the sense of the proverb :

^^ Excess in everything is a vice'*
22*

NINTH EVENING.

The Opera in Paris.— The Lyric Theatres in London.

A STUDY OF MORALS.

AVERY, etc., French comic opera is played ; fol-
lowed by a ballet equally, etc.
The musicians are still preoccupied with the course
of Roman history we have been through together.
They are making the most singular comments on the
subject. But Dimsky, more eager than his comrades to
know all that pertains to the musical customs of Paris,
draws me out again: "Now," says he, "that you have
described the customs of the Romans, do tell us some-
thing about the principal theatre of their operations.
You must have some curious revelations to make on
that head." "Revelations? the word may perhaps ap-
ply to you, but to you alone ; for I assure you the mys-
teries of the Paris Opera have been revealed long since."
"We are not up with the times here, and do not know
what you say is known to everybody. So tell us."
The other musicians: "Yes, tell us about the Opera."
''Si tan t lis amor casus cogiwsccre nostras . . . . "
"What does he say?" asks Bacon, while the circle is
forming about me. "He says," answers Corsino, "that
if we have such a desire to know the misfortunes of the
Parisians, . . . we must be quiet, and beg our big-drum-
mer not to hit so hard." "Is that from Virgil too?"
262

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA. 263

''Exactly." "What makes him talk Greek so every
now and then?" "Because it has a learned look that
impresses people. It is a little nonsense that we must
excuse in him." "He is beginning, sh-sh !"

"Gentlemen, do you know the fable of our la Fon-
taine that begins with these two lines ?

' Un jour sur ses longs pied allait je ne sais ou
Le heron au long bee emmanche d'un long cou !

(One day — no matter when or where —
A long-legged heron chanced to fare). ' "

"Yes, yes! who doesn't know that? Do you take
us for Botocudoes !" "Well, the Opera, that great the-
atre with its great orchestra, its great chorus, its great
subvention from the government, its great company, its
immense scenery, imitates the little bird of the fable in
more than one point. Now you see it motionless, asleep
on one leg ; then it goes its way with an anxious air and
gets nobody knows where, looking for prey in the nar-
rowest brooks, not turning up its nose at the gudgeon
it usually despises, and the very name of which is
enough to irritate its gastronomic pride.

"But the poor bird is wounded in the wing, it has to
walk and cannot fly, and its strides, however hurried
they may be, will take it all the less to its journey's
goal, that it does not know itself to what point in the
horizon to direct its steps.

"The Opera would like, as all theatres would, money
and honors ; it would like glory and fortune. Great
successes bring the one and the other ; great works
sometimes obtain great successes ; great composers and
clever authors alone create great works. These works,
radiant with intelligence and genius, only seem alive
and beautiful through the agency of as lifelike and beau-
tiful renderings, through warm, delicate, faithful, grand,
brilliant and animated performances. The excellence
of the performance depends not only upon the choice

264

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA

of executants, but upon the spirit that animates them.
Thus this spirit might be good, if they aU had not long
ago made a discovery which discouraged them, brought
indifference in among them, to be foUowed by eiinui
and disgust. They discovered that a deeply-rooted
passion ruled all the predilections, chained all the ambi-
tions and absorbed all the thoughts of the Opera ; that
the Opera, in a word, was madly in love with mediocri-
ty. In order to possess, establish within its walls, nurse,
honor and glorify mediocrity, there is nothing it will
not do, no sacrifice it will recoil from, no labor it will
not undertake with transport. With the best intentions,
w^ith the best faith in the world, it is animated even to
enthusiasm for platitude, it blushes with admiration for
paleness, it burns and boils for tepidity ; it would turn
poet to sing the praises of prose. As it has noticed,
moreover, that the public, falling from emmi into indif-
ference, has long since become resigned to anything that
is offered it, without approving or blaming anything,
the Opera has rightly concluded that it is master in its
own house, and that it can give itself up without fear to
all the ecstasies of its impetuous passion, and adore me-
diocrity on the pedestal at which it burns incense.

"To obtain so beautiful a result, aided by those of its
ministers whose happy disposition only asks to be left to
itself to work in the same direction, it has so wearied,
sickened, shackled, and cramped all its artists, that many
of them have hung their harps upon the willows of its
banks, and have stopped and wept. 'What could we
do,' they now say, 'illic stetinms et fleviimtsl'

"Others were indignant, and took a disgust to their
task ; many fell asleep ; the philosophers took their pay,
and laughingly parodied Mazarin's saying: 'The Op-
era does not sing, but it pays.' The orchestra alone
gave the Opera great trouble to break its spirit. Most
of its members, being virtuosi of the first rank, belong

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

265

to the famous orchestra of the Conservatoire ; they thus
find themselves in contact with the purest art, and a
choice pubhc ; hence the ideas they have held by, and
the resistance they make to ah efforts to subdue them.
But with time and bad works you can succeed in break-
ing the spirit, quenching the fire, destroying the vigor
and curbing the proud carriage of any musical organi-
zation that ever existed. * Ah ! you laugh at my sing-
ers,' the Opera often says to them, 'you make fun of
my new scores, my clever gentlemen ! I will find a
way to bring you to reason ; here is a work in no end
of acts, and you shall taste its beauties. Three general
rehearsals would be enough to get it up, it is in the
true servants'-hall style, you will have twelve or fifteen ;
I like my people to hurry slowly. You will play it a
dozen times, that is to say, until it does not draw any
longer, and then we shall pass on to another of the same
sort and of equal merit. Ah ! you find it dull, vulgar,
cold and flat ! I have the honor to present to you an
opera full of galops made at post-haste, which you will
have the goodness to study with the same love that you
did the preceding one, and by and by you will have an-
other by a composer who has never composed anything
at all, and which w^ill displease you, I hope, still more.
You complain that the singers get out of time and tune ;
they complain too of the stiffness of your accompani-
ments ; you must in future dawdle a bit in your rhythm,
and wait on no matter what note, until they have done
swelling their favorite tone, and then allow them some
supplementary beats for breathing-time. Now, here is
a ballet that is to last from nine o'clock till midnight.
I must have the big-drum going all through ; I mean
that you shall wrestle against that, and make yourselves
heard all the same. By heavens, gentlemen, there is no
talk of accompaniments here, and I do not pay you to
count your rests.' And so on, and so on, until the poor,
23

2(35 KVEX/XGS IX THE ORCHESTRA,

noble orchestra will, I much fear, end by falling into
surliness, then into morbid somnolence, then into atro-
phy and languor, and at last into mediocrity, that chasm
into which the Opera casts all that comes within its
gates.

"The chorus is brought up in another fashion ; not to
have to apply to it the troublesome system employed
w4th the orchestra, and with so little success as yet, the
Opera seeks to replace the old chorus by ready-formed
singers, that is to say, by wholly mediocre ones. But
here it overshoots its mark, for, after a very little w^hile,
they grow worse, and so abandon the specialty for which
they w^ere engaged. Hence the miraculous hodge-
podge of sounds we frequently hear, especially in
Meyerbeer's scores, and which are alone able to awaken
the public out of its lethargy, and call forth cries of
reprobation and those gestures of horror which do not
make a mediocre effect, and must, in this respect at least,
greatly displease the Opera.

** And yet the poor public has by this time been com-
pletely subdued and humbled, as I have said ; it is sub-
missive, timid and gentle as a charming child. For-
merly they gave it wdiole masterpieces, operas in which
every number was fine, in which the recitatives were
true and admirable, the ballets ravishing ; in which noth-
ing brutalized the ear, in w^hich even language was

treated with respect, and it was bored by them

Then stronger means of shaking up its drowsiness were
tried ; they gave it chest Cs of every description, big-
drums, snare-drums, organs, military bands, antique
trumpets, tubas as big as locomotive funnels, bells, can-
nons, horses, cardinals under a canopy, emperors cov-
ered with gold, queens bearing their diadems, weddings,
feasts, funeral processions, and still again the canopy,
and always the famous canopy, the magnificent canopy,
the beplumed canopy, covered with feathers and borne,

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

267

like Malbrook, by four-r-r-r-officers,^ jugglers, skaters,
choir-boys, censers, monstrances, crosses, banners, pro-
cessions, orgies of priests and naked women, the bull
Apis, a host of calves, owls, bats, the five hundred devils
of hell, — would you like some? here they are, the univer-
sal earthquake, the end of the world .... intermingled
here and there with some flat cavatinas and no end of
claqueurs. And the poor public, dumfoundered in the
midst of such a cataclysm, at last opened a pair of star-
ing eyes, and a mo.uth of immense gape, and kept
awake ; but it was dumb, looked upon itself as conquer-
ed, without hope of revenge, and submissively threw up
the sponge.

"And at present, worn out, broken down, crushed
after such a scrimmage, like Sancho after the siege of
Barataria, it expands with joy as soon as the Opera
seems willing to give it the least bit of quiet pleasure.
It drinks in a piece of refreshing music with rapture, it
delights in it, it inhales it. Yes, it has been humbled so
far, that it does not even dream of complaining of the
terrible diet it has been put on. You might serve up
to it at a feast soap-soup, live prawns, roast crow, gin-
ger ice-cream, and if among so many atrocious ragouts
it found but a poor little stick of barley-candy to suck,
it would delight in it, and say while licking its chaps :
'Our host is magnificent, bravo ! I am more than con-
tented ! ' Now, here is the good side of the matter : the
submission of the public being evident, as it is, its errors
of judgment being no longer to be feared, since it no
longer judges at all, they say that the authors and com-
posers have all decided to run the risk of no longer pro-
ducing anything but masterpieces." "Good idea!"
cries out Corsino ; "we have long since called that coup
d'etat the ..." "Summit of all our desires ! Never-
theless it would be a pity to give too many masterpieces

1 Quatre-z-officicrs.

268 EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

at the Opera ; we must hope that the authors and com-
posers will be reasonable, and will fix equitable limits tc
their inspired fecundity. Enough fine scores have been
spoiled already at that theatre. After the first four or
five performances, when the composer's influence has
ceased to act directly upon his interpreters, the execu-
tion often goes from mediocre to worse, especially in the
case of well cared for works. It is not that time is
often spared in learning them ; for here is how they
have gone to work up to the present time, and how they
in all probability still go to work upon the study of a
new composition.

"To start with, they do not think about it at all;
then, when they have begun to think that it might not
perhaps be irrelevant to reflect on it a little, they rest
themselves ; and they are right. The deuce ! man
must not expose himself, by an excess of work, to pre-
mature exhaustion of the intellect ! By a series of
pretty wisely calculated efforts, they get as far as an-
nouncing a rehearsal. On that day the director gets up
early, shaves very close, bullies several of his servants
for their laziness, drinks a cup of coffee in a hurry, and
. . . sets out for the country. Several actors have the
kindness to come to this rehearsal ; little by little as
many as five get together. The announced time being
half-past twelve, they very calmly talk politics, industry,
railways, fashions, the stock-exchange, dancing, philos-
ophy till two o'clock. Then the accompanyist makes
bold to call the attention of the gentlemen and ladies to
the fact that he has been waiting for some time, and
begs them to have the goodness to open their parts and
look them over. Upon this observation each one makes
up his or her mind to ask for his or her part, turns over
the leaves a minute, shakes off" the sand with a few exe-
crations for the benefit of the copyist, and begins to . . .
talk rather less. 'But what shall we do about singing ?

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

269

The first number is a sextet, and we are only five !
That is, we were only five just now, for L*** has just
gone away; his lawyer sent for him on important busi-
ness. Now we can't rehearse a sextet with only four.
Suppose we put it off for another time?' And they all
go away slowly, as they came. There can be no rehearsal
on the next day, because it is Sunday ; nor on the day
after, because it is Monday and a day of performance.
There is usually nothing done at the Opera on such
days ; even the actors who are not in the piece that is
to be given in the evening rest with all their might,
thinking of the trouble their comrades will have. Tues-
day then ! One o'clock strikes ; enter two actors who
missed the first rehearsal ; but not one of the others ap-
pears. It is too fair; they were kept waiting the first
day ; the absentees made them lose their time, their dig-
nity requires them to give tit for tat At a quarter be-
fore three every one is there, with the exception of the
second tenor and the first bass. The ladies are charm-
ing, in the best of humor, and one of them proposes to
try the sextet without any bass. * Never mind ! we
shall at least see what each part has to do.' * One mo-
ment more, gentlemen,' says the accompanyist, T am
trying to understand . . . this . . . chord ; I can hardly
make out the notes. Good heavens ! you cannot ac-
company a score of twenty staves at first sight.' 'Ah !
you don't know what is in the score, and you come
here to teach us our parts,' says Madame S***, who has
a way of speaking her mind. *My dear sir, if you
would take the trouble to study it a bit at home before
coming.' *As you did not do as much for your own
numbers, although you are no reader, I can give you
the same advice, madam.' 'Come, no personalities!'
*Let us begin, for goodness' sake,' cries out D***, im-
patiently. ' Ritornello, recitative for D***, vocal ensem-
ble on the chord oi F-niajor' *Wa ! wa ! d^n A-flat I

ono EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

It is you, M***, you are the culprit ! ' *I ! how should
I sing A-flat, when I did not open my lips ? I am ill ;
I can't go on. I must go to bed.' 'Good! our four-
part sextet is reduced to a trio now, but a real trio this
time, a trio for three voices. That is still something.
Let us go on : La Grece doit eufiii .... La Grece doit
(Greece must at last) . . . ' ' Ha ! ha ! ha ! La graisse
d'oie (goose-fat) ! You stole that from Odry ! Fa-
mous ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! ' * Gracious ! what a laughing
body that Madame S*** is,' says Madame G***, break-
ing her needle in the handkerchief she is embroidering.
' Oh ! we witty folks, let us not beget melancholy. You
seem picpiec, madam ! ' You must not be piqued at a
pun ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! the old boy is at it again ! ' 'Bo-
na sera a tuttil' says D***, rising. * My little lambs,
you are deliciously witty, but too studious ! And it is
quarter past three ; we must never rehearse after three
o'clock. To-day is Tuesday; it is just possible that I
may sing in Ics Huguenots next Friday ; so I must take
care of myself Besides, I am hoarse, and it was only
from an excess of zeal that I appeared at the rehearsal
to-day. Hm ! hm ! ' Everybody goes away. The
eisfht or ten other trials more or less resemble the first
two. A month is thus taken up, after wliich they begin
to rehearse in earnest for about an hour three times a
week ; that makes strictly twelve hours of study a
month. The director always takes the greatest care to
stimulate the artists by his absence ; and if a little opera
in one act, announced for the first of May, can at last
be performed by the end of August, he will not be far
wrong to say, holding his head high: 'Pooh! good
Lord ! it is a trifle ; we got that up in forty-eight hours! '
"Give me the London managers for turning time to
account; the English have brought the art of hurried
musical studies to a pitch of splendor unknown among

» Pique x\\(t7ms piqued, pricked, and larded. — Trans.

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA. 271

other nations. I can give the method they pursue no
more pompous praise than to say that it is the inverse of
that adopted in Paris. On one side of the channel they
need ten months to learn an opera in five acts, and put
it upon the stage ; on the other they need ten days.
The important point for the manager of a lyric theatre
in London is the posters. If he has only covered them
with famous names, if he has announced famous works,
or declared famous the obscure works of f;imous com-
posers, bringing the whole strength of the press to bear
upon that epithet . . . , the trick is done. But, as the
public has an insatiable appetite for novelties, and as it
is principally guided by curiosity, the player who wishes
to win must shuffle his cards very often. Consequent-
ly the. work must be done quickly, rather than well,
extraordinarily quickly, even if rapidity is carried to
absurdity. The manager knows that the audience will
not notice mistakes in the execution, if they are adroitly
covered up ; that it will never take it into its head to
detect the ravages made in a new score by a want of e7i-
sanble and a wavering in the masses, by their coldness,
by missed effects of light and shade, by wrong tempi, by
slurred passages or by ideas comprehended upside down.
He counts sufficiently upon the self-love of his singers,
to whom the parts are assigned, to be sure that they at
least, in their prominent position, will make superhuman
efforts to make an honorable appearance before the pub-
lic, in spite of the short time that has been allowed
them to prepare themselves in. That is, in fact, just
how it turns out, and that is enough. Nevertheless,
there are occasions on which the most zealous actors
cannot succeed, with all their good will. The first per-
formance of the Prophete at Covent- Garden will be long
remembered, in which Mario stopped short more than
once, from not having had the time to learn his part.
But people might cry out as much as they pleased about

272 EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

the first performance of a new work: *It is not learned,
nothing goes well, we must have three more weeks*
study!' 'Three weeks!' the manager would say, 'you
will not have three days ; you will play it day after to-
morrow.' 'But, sir, there is a grand ensemble piece,
the most considerable one in the opera, of which the
chorus have not seen a note yet ; they cannot guess at
it, and improvise it on the stage ! ' 'Then cut the en-
semble piece, there will still be enough music left' 'Sir,
there is a small part that has been forgotten, and we
have nobody to take it.' ' Give it to Madame X*** and
let her learn it this evening.' 'Madame X*** is already
cast for another part.' 'Well, she can change dress and
play both. Do you suppose that I am going to stop my
theatre for such reasons ? ' ' Sir, the orchestra has not
been able to rehearse the ballet-music yet.' 'Let them
play it without rehearsal ! Come, let me alone. The
new opera is advertised for day after to-morrow ; the
house is let, and it is all right.'

"It is the fear of being distanced by their rivals, add-
ed to the daily necessity of covering an immense out-
lay, that brings on this fever among managers, this de-
lirium fiirens, from which art and artists have so much
to suffer. The manager of a lyric theatre in London is
a man who carries about with him a keg of powder,
Avithout being able to get rid of it, and is pursued with
burnnig torches. The unhappy man runs as fast as his
legs can carry him, tumbles down, gets up again, clears
ravines, fences, brooks and bogs, overturns all that he
meets, and would walk over the bodies of his father and
children if they were in his way.

"Such I recognize to be the sad necessities of the po-
sition ; but what is most to be deplored, is that this
brutal precipitation in all preparations for musical per-
formances has become a habit in English theatres, and
has been transformed by some people into a special tal-

EVENINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA. 273

ent, worthy of admiration. *We got up this opera in
fifteen days,' is said on one side. 'And we in ten! ' is
answered from the other. 'And you have made a pret-
ty piece of work of it ! ' the composer would say, if he
were present. The examples that are quoted of certain
successes of this nature, show, moreover, that managers
stick at nothing, and that contempt for those qualities
in a performance which can alone constitute a good one,
that contempt even for the necessities of art is steadily
increasing. During the brief existence of the Grand
English Opera at Drury Lane, in 1848, the manager,
whose repertory had given out, not knowing what saint
to call upon, said one day in perfect seriousness to the
conductor of the orchestra: 'Only one thing is to be
done, that is to give Robert le Diable next Wednesday.
So we must get it up in six days!' 'All right,' an-
swered the conductor, 'and we will rest on the seventh.
You have got the English translation of the opera ? '
*No, but it will be done in a twinkling.' 'The copy?'
'No, but . . . ' 'The dresses?' 'No.' 'Do the actors
know the music of their parts ? do the chorus know
theirs?' 'No! no! no! nobody knows anything, I
have not got anything, but it must be done ! ' And
the conductor kept his countenance ; he saw that the
poor man was losing his mind, or rather, that he had
lost it already ; at least, if he had only lost that ! An-
other time, this same manager having conceived the idea
of putting Donizetti's Linda di Chanionnix upon the
stage, although he had not thought of getting the trans-
lation made, the actors and chorus having, as an extra-
ordinary exception, had the time necessary to learn their
parts, a general rehearsal was announced. The orches-
tra was assembled, the chorus in their places, but they
still waited for something. 'Well, why don't you be-
gin?' said the manager. 'I ask no better than to be-
gin,' answered the conductor of the orchestra, 'but there
23*

274 EVEXIKGS m THE ORCHESTRA.

is no music on the desks.' 'What! I cannot beheve it!
I will go and fetch it.' He calls the head of the copy-
ing department : 'Ah! but look here! hand round the
music!' 'What music?. . .' 'Oh! good God! the
music of Linda di Chamounix' 'But I have not got
it. Nobody ever ordered me to copy the orchestra
parts of that work.' Thereupon the musicians got up
with great shouts of laughter, and asked leave to go, as
the only thing that had been neglected for that opera

was the music, which had not been got Excuse

me, gentlemen,, let me interrupt myself a minute. This
story oppresses me, humiliates me, and calls up sad

memories Besides, hear this delicious air which

has lost its way and got amongst the balderdash of your
Italian ballet." . . . "Oh! oh! yes," cry all the violins,
seizing their instruments, "we must play that like mas-
ters ; it is masterly ! " And the whole orchestra plays
with irreproachable unanimity of expression, and deli-
cacy of light and shade, this admirable andante which
breathes forth all the voluptuous poetry of Eastern fairy-
land. It is hardly concluded, when most of the musi-
cians hasten to leave their desks, leaving two violins, a
bass, the trombones and the big- drum to go on with the
remainder of the ballet. "We had noticed that bit be-
fore," says Winter, "and we counted on playing it con
amove, only you nearly made us miss it." "But where
does it come from, who wrote it, where have you heard
it?" asks Corsino. "It comes from Paris; I heard it
in the ballet of la Peri, the music of which was written
by a German artist, whose merit is equaled by his mod-
esty, and whose name is Burgmiiller." "It is very beau-
tiful ! There is a divine languor about it ! " "It makes
you dream of Mahomet's houris ! This music comes at
the entry of the Peri. If you could hear it with the
inisc-cn-sccne for which it is written, you would admire it
still more. It is simply a masterpiece." The musicians

£VEXIXGS IN THE ORCHESTRA.

^7S

go to their desks, without any previous agreement, and
write the name of Burgmiiller in pencil on that page of
the orchestral parts on which the andante is.

I take up my sad tale :

"The directors of our Paris Opera, among whose
number have been men of intelligence and wit, have at
all times been chosen from among those who loved
music least and knew least about it. We have even had
some who execrated it thoroughly. One of them said
to me, to my face, that every score tivcnty years old was
fit to burn ; that Beethoven was an old fool, whose works
a handful of madmen affect to admire, but who, in re-
ality never ivrote anything that zvas cndnrabky

The musicians, explosively : "....! . . . . ! ..,.!"
(and other unprintable exclamations). *' 'Well- written
music,' said another, 'is that which does not spoil any-
thing in an opera.' So it is not astonishing that such
directors do not know how to set to work to make their
immense musical machine go, and that they take every
opportunity to treat those composers so cavalierly
whom they think they do not need, or need no longer.
Spontini, whose two masterpieces, la Vestale and Cortez\
sufficed to keep up the repertoire for twenty-five years,
was, at the end of his life, actually laid upon the shelf in
that theatre, and could not succeed in obtaining an andi-
enee from the director. Rossini would have the pleasure,
if he were to come back to France, of seeing his score of
Guillanme Tell completely topsy-turvied, and reduced
by a third. For a long time they played a half of the
fourth act of Moise to his very face, as a prelude be-
fore a ballet. Hence came the charming bit of repartee
that is attributed to him. Meeting the director of the
Opera one day, the latter addressed him in these words:
•Well, my dear maestro, we are to play the fourth act
of your yJ/<9^jr^ to-morrow.' 'What! the whole of it ? '
replied Rossini.

2;r6 EVEXINGS IN THE ORCHESTRA,

*' The performances and the mutilations inflicted from
time to time upon the Freyscliiits at the Opera have
caused a veritable scandal, if not in Paris, where nobody
is indignant at anything, at least in the rest of Europe,
where Weber's masterpiece is admired.

"It is known with what insolent contempt Mozart
was treated, towards the end of the last century, by the
great men who then ruled over the Academic royale de
niusique. After showing the little harpsichord-player,
who had the audacity to propose writing something for
their theatre, out of the room in a jiffy, they yet prom-
ised him, as an indemnification and a special favor, to
admit a short instrumental piece of his composition on
the program of one of the sacred concerts at the Opera,
and asked him to write it Mozart soon finished his
work and made haste to bring it to the director.

*'Some days afterwards, when the concert at which
he was to have been heard was advertised, Mozart, not
seeing his name on the program, comes back anxiously
to the administration ; they make him wait a long while,
as they always do, in the anteroom, where, fumbling
about idly among a lot of old papers which were heaped
up on the table, he finds . . . what ? his manuscript,
which the director had thrown down there. When he
sees his Mecaenas, Mozart demands an explanation.
'Your little symphony?' answers the director; *yes,
that is it. There is no longer any time to give it to the
copyist; I Jiad forgotten it'

"Ten or twelve years after, when Mozart had died
immortal, the Paris Opera felt itself called upon to give
Don Juan and the Magic Flute, but mutilated, begrim-
ed, disfigured, travestied into infamous pasticcios, by
wretches whose name it ought to be forbidden to pro-
nounce. Such is our Opera, such it has been, and such
it will be."

SELECTIONS FROM
MUSICAL GROTESQUES

MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

PROLOGUE.

LETTER TO THE AUTHOR FROM THE CHORUS OF THE

OPERA.

DEAR MASTER: You have dedicated a book
(Evenings in the Orchestra) to your good friends
the artists of X^**, a eivilised city. That city (in Ger-
many, as we know,) is very probably no more civiHzed
than many others, nothwithstanding the mahcious in-
tention with which you gave it that epithet. We may
be allowed to doubt that its artists are superior to those
in Paris, and as for their affection for you, it cannot
surely be either so lively or so old as ours. The Paris-
ian chorus'singers in general, and those of the Opera
in particular, are devoted to you, body and soul ; they
have given you proof of it many times in every way.
Have they murmured at the length of the rehearsals,
at the severity of your musical requirements, at your
violent speeches, or even at your fits of fury, during the
rehearsals of the Requiem, the Te Denm, of Romeo et
Juliette, of the Damnation de Faust, of the Enfance du
Christ, etc. ? . . . Never, never. They have, on the
contrary, always done their task with unshaken zeal

279

28o MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

and patience. And you are not flattering to the men,
nor gallant to the ladies, in those terrible rehearsals.

When the time to begin draws near, if the chorus is
not in full force, if any one is missing, you walk round
the piano-forte like the lion in the Jardin des Plantes in
his cage, you scold under your breath, biting your un-
der lip, your eyes dart fierce lightning; you turn away
your head when any one bows to you ; you bang out
from time to time on the keyboard dissonant chords
that show your internal wrath, and tell us very clearly
that you would like to tear the late comers, or the ab-
sentees in pieces ... if they were present.

Then you always reproach us with not singing piano
enough in the soft passages, and with not attacking the
fortes together ; you want to have us pronounce both
the ss in angoisse (anguish), and the r in the second syl-
lable of traitre (traitor). And if one unfortunate illit-
erate mortal, only a single one, lost in our ranks, for-
gets your grammatical observation, and takes it into his
head to still say angoise or traite, you scold everybody,
you overwhelm us all with cruel jokes, calling us porters,
box-openers, etc. ! ! Well, we endure all that notwith-
standing, and we love you all the same, because you
love us, as any one can see, and you adore music, as
any one can feel.

Only the French custom of giving precedence to for-
eigners, even when there is flagrant injustice in doing
so, can have led you to dedicate your Evenings in the
Orchestra to German musicians.

It is done, let us say no more about it.

But why could you not write now, for our benefit, a
book of the same sort, less philosophical perhaps, but
more lively, to drive away the ennni that gnaws us at
the Opera ?

You know that during the acts or parts of acts that
do not contain choruses, we are prisoners, in the green-

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. 28 1

rooms. It is as dark there as it is between decks on
board ship, it smells of lamp-oil, and there is no good
place to sit down ; we hear musty old stories told there
in bad language, and rank words spoken ; or else silence
and inaction crush our spirits, until the call-boy comes
to send us upon the stage. . . . Ah ! you may believe
that the trade is no sweet one. To go through rehears-
als by the fifty to drive the almost unsingable chorus-
parts of new compositions into our heads ! to learn op-
eras by heart that last from seven o'clock till midnight !
to change dress as many as six times in an evening ! to
stand penned up like sheep when there is nothing to be
sung, and not have five minutes comfort during those
interminable performances ! ! . . . For we do not imitate
your artists in Germany, who play works they do not
care about with half an orchestra. We sing everything
in everything. We are sure that if we took the liberty
of only giving voice in the scores that pleased us, cases
of quinsy would be rare among the chorus-singers at
the Opera. What is more, we sing standing, we are al-
ways on our feet, whereas the musicians in the orches-
tra play sitting down in their music cellar. It is fit to
make one wish to be an oyster !

Come, be good, write us a volume of true stories, of
fabulous tales, even of nonsense, like those you often
write when you are in bad humor ; we will read it in
our places between decks, by the light of our lamps ;
we shall owe to you the forgetfulness of some dreary
hours, and you will have a right to all the gratitude of
our hearts.

Your Faithful Soprani, Contralti, Ten-
ors AND Basses of the Opera.

Paris ^ December 22^ i8j8.

THE author's reply TO THE CHORUS OF THE OPERA.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: You call me : dear
master ! I was on the point of answering : dear
slaves ! for I know how you are deprived of leisure and
liberty. Was I not once a chorus-singer myself? and
then in what a theatre \ God preserve you from ever
entering it !

I well know the hard work you do, the number of
dreary hours you count upon your fingers, and the still
sadder rate of your appointments. Alas ! I am no
more master, nor happier, nor freer than you. You
work, I work, we work to live ; and you live, I live, we
live to work. The Saint-Simonians have pretended to
know of an attractive sort of work ; they have kept the
secret well ; I can assure you that that work is as un-
known to me as it is to you. I no longer count my dreary
hours ; they fall, one upon the other, cold and monoto-
nous as the drops of frozen snow that add dullness to
the winter nights in Paris.

As for my appointments, let us say nothing. . . .

I recognize the justice of your reproach about the
dedication of Evcni7igs m the OrcJiestra ; I ought to
have inscribed it to my friends the artists of Paris, since
it was a book on musical matters and musicians. But
I had just come from Germany when I took the fancy
to write that volume ; the memory of the warm and
282

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. 283

cordial welcome that the orchestra in the civilized city
liad given me was still fresh, and I had so little expect-
ation of finding- the least sympathy for my Evenings
among the public, that dedicating them to any one
would have been, as I thought, putting them under a
patronage and not paying a homage by which any one
could have felt flattered. Your regrets on that head
seem to show that you think otherwise. If I may be-
lieve you, there are some readers of my prose ! . . . Can
I have been mistaken ! . . . Can it be that I am a fool !
It fills me with joy.

You joke me on my observations on grammar. Yet
I hardly flatter myself that I know French ; no, I know
very well that every one knows that I do not know it.
But a fair number of words, very much used, are, as I
am well aware, barbarous terms, and I have a horror of
hearing them. The word angoise is one of these ; it is
often used by the most richly appointed singers and can-
tatrices of our lyric theatres. A crowned pupil of the
Conservatoire once persisted in saying: 'Aiortelle an-
goise I " in spite of all I could say. I at last succeeded
in correcting him, by telling him that there were three
ss in that word, in the hope that he would pronounce at
least two of them. So he sang at last: '' Mortelle an-
goisse'' (mortal anguish).

You seem to envy the instrumental musicians, who
play sitting down in their mnsic cellar, instead of stand-
ing, for long hours. But be just. They are seated, I
admit, in that cellar in which they can hardly earn
drinking-water, but they play all the time, without res-
pite, without truce or mercy, and do not imitate the
carelessness of my friends in the civilized city any more
than you do. The directors only allow them to count
their rests, when by any chance the composer gives
them some to count. They play in the overtures, in the
airs, duets, trios, quartets, ensemble pieces, they accom-

284 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

pany your choruses ; an . administrator of the Opera
even wished to make them play in the choruses zvitJioiit
accoinpanimciit, saying that they were not paid to fold
their arms.

And you know how they are paid ! ! . . .

They do not change dress every half hour, that is
true too ; but they have been recently required to pre-
sent themselves in the orchestra in white cravats, which
is ruinous to them. Some of our poor musical breth-
ren of the Opera earn, they tell me, about 66fr. 65c.
per month. At fourteen performances a month, that
does not make 5fr. per performance of five hours length ;
it is rather less than twenty sous per hour, less than an
hour's cab fare. And now they are encumbered with
toilet expenses. They need at least seven white cra-
vats a month, supposing that they can carefully turn
some and wear them several times. And these wash-
ing bills will amount in time to quite a round sum. How
much, indeed, do the washing and ironing of a starched
white cravat cost (without reckoning the price of the cra-
vat) ? Fifteen centimes. We will suppose that the artist
goes without having it starched, from economy, and only
has it ironed for state occasions. His expenses will be
thus reduced from fifteen centimes to two sous. Well,
see, at the end of the month he must write down in his
book of expenses, the following account :

sous.

Cravat for les Huguenots,

" {ox le Prop he te,

*' for Robert le Diable, .

** for le Clieval de Bronze, .

" for Guillaume Tell,

" for la Favorite, when Mme. Borghi-

Mamo does not sing, .

" for la Juive, ....

" for la Sylphide, ....

MUSICAL GROTESQUES, 285

Cravat for le Violon die Diabic, . . 2 sous.

** for the first two acts of Litcia when

Roger does not sing, . . 2 **

** for Fraiifois Villon, . . . 2 **

•' for la Xacarilla, . . . . 2 '*

" for le Rossignol (cravat worn three

times), . . . . O "

" iox la Rose de Florence (worn four

times), . . . . O "

Total for fourteen performances and seven

cravats, . . . . . . ifr. 55 c.

For one year,. . • . . . i8fr. 60c.

For ten years, . . . . .1 86fr.

Which i86fr. drawn from the budget of an unfortu-
nate viohnist, father of a family, may reduce him to the
atrocious necessity of having recourse to his last cravat
to hang himself with.

The existence of the orchestral musicians is accord-
ingly strewn with about as many roses as that of the
artists of the chorus ; they can both shake hands over it.

Be it as it may, I swear I should be happy (to use
Oronte's words, in Moliere) to rock your eniuii azvhile ;
but the gayety of my anecdotes is highly problematical,
and I should not dare to give way to your friendly urg-
ing, if the saddest things had not often their comical
side. You know how the man who was condemned to
death, said in a hoarse voice to his weeping wife who
had come to bid him a last farewell, and follow him to
the place of punishment: '*So you did not bring the
young one with you ? " **Oh ! my God ! what an idea!
could I show him his father on the scaffold?" "You
ought to have brought him, it would have amused the
child."

286 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

So, here is a little work, the character of which I can-
not very well designate ; I will call it at random : *' Mu-
sical Grotesques," although there are here and there
some grotesques that are foreign to musical art. Ac-
cording to the disposition of the reader, it may strike
him as laughable or lamentable. Try to find some
pleasure in reading it ; as for myself, I was amused by
writing it, very much as the condemned man's child
would have been by his father's execution.

Good-bye, ladies and gentlemen ; I kiss the fair hands,
and cordially squeeze the others, and I beg you to be-
lieve in the sincere, lively and constant affection of your
very devoted comrade.

Hector Berlioz.
Paris, January 21 ^ i8sg.

MY GOOD FRIENDS

THE

ARTISTS OF THE CHORUS OF THE OPERA
IN PARIS

A BARBAROUS CITY.

THE art of music is undeniably the one of all others
which gives rise to the strangest passions, the ab-
surdest ambitions, I will even say, to the most peculiar
monomanias. Of the people who are shut up in in-
sane asylums, those who think themselves Neptune or
Jupiter are easily recognized as monomaniacs; but
there are many others who enjoy entire freedom, whose
relations have never dreamed of having recourse to the
science of phrenology on their account, but whose mad-
ness is evident. Music has unsettled their brain. I
will not speak of those men of letters who write, either
in verse or prose, upon questions of musical theory, of
which they have not the most elementary knowledge ;
who use words, the meaning of which they do not un-
derstand ; who rave in cold blood about old masters,
of whom they have never heard a note ; who generous-
ly ascribe to them expressive and melodic ideas which
those masters never had, since melody and expression
did not exist at the time in which they lived ; who ad-
mire by the wholesale, and with the same heartfelt en-
thusiasm, two pieces signed by the same name, of which
one is indeed beautiful, and the other absurd ; who say
and write those astonishing buffooneries which no musi-
cian can hear quoted without laughing. It is agreed
that everybody has the right to speak and write about
music; it is a trivial art, made for everybody ; the phrase
is consecrated. Yet, between ourselves, this aphorism
might very well be the expression of a prejudice. If
25 289

200 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

the art of music is at once an art and a science; if one
must go through complex and quite long studies to be
a thorough master of it ; if one must have a cultivated
mind and practiced ear to feel the emotions it calls forth;
if, to judge of the value of musical works, one must
have a well-furnished memory, in order to be able to
make comparisons, and must know many things one is
necessarily ignorant of before learning them ; it is very
evident that those people who ascribe to themselves the
right of ramblingly discoursing on music without know-
ing anything about it, and who would yet be very care-
ful not to give an opinion on architecture or sculpture,
or any other art that is unfamiliar to them, are cases of
monomania. They think themselves musicians, just as
the other monomaniacs I have just mentioned think
themselves Neptune or Jupiter. There is not the slight-
est di'fference.

When Balzac wrote his Gambara and attempted a
technical analysis of Rossini's Mo'ise, when Gustave
Planche had the audacity to print his strange criticism
on Beethoven's Heroic Symphony, they were both of
them mad. Only Balzac's madness was touching; he
admired without understanding or feeling, he believed
himself enthusiastic. The insanity of Planche, on the
contrary, was irritating and impudent ; without either
comprehension, or feeling, or knowledge, he traduced
Beethoven, and had the pretension to teach him how a
symphony should be written.

I could name a host of other writers who, for the
misfortune of art and the torment of artists, publish
their ideas upon music, constantly mistaking the Piraeus
for a man, like the monkey in the fable. But I will con-
fine myself to quoting divers examples of inoffensive,
and consequently essentially ludicrous, monomania,
which modern historv furnishes.

THE RIGHT OF PLAYING IN /^ IN A SYMPHONY IN D.

AT the time when, after eight or ten years of study, I
began to catch a ghmpse of the power of our great,
profaned art, a student of my acquaintance was sent to
me by the members of an amateur philharmonic soci-
ety, recently formed in the hall of the Prado, to beg me to
be their conductor. I had as yet only conducted a sin-
gle musical performance, that of my first mass in the
church of Saint-Eustache. I had great misgivings
about those amateurs ; their orchestra must be, and in-
deed was, execrable. The idea however of getting
practice in the direction of instrumental masses by thus
experimenting in ajiima vili, decided me, and I ac-
cepted.

When the day for rehearsal comes, I go to the Prado ;
I find there some sixty players, tuning with that irritat-
ing noise that is peculiar to amateur orchestras. We
were to perform what ? . . . A symphony in D^ by Gyro-
wetz. I do not believe that ever tinker, rabbit-skin
vendor, Roman grocer or Neapolitan barber dreamed
of such platitudes. I resign myself, and we begin, I
hear a frightful discord, made by the clarinets. I inter-
rupt the orchestra, and turning to the clarinet players :
"You have no doubt mistaken one piece for another,
gentlemen; we are playing in D, and you have just
played in F\ " " No, sir, it is the symphony you men-
tioned ! " " Let us begin again." New discord, new

291

292

MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

Stoppage. *'But it is impossible; send me your part.'*
Tlie clarinet parts are passed to me. " Oh ! now the
cacophony is explained. Your part is written in F, it
is true, but for clarinets in A, in which case your F is
in unison with our D. You have taken the wrong in-
struments." "We have only got clarinets in C, sir."
"Well then, transpose a third lower." "We do not
know how to transpose." "Then in heaven's name,
stop playing." "Ah! we like that! we are members
of the society, and have a right to play as well as the
rest."

At these incredible words I drop my baton and run
away as if the devil were after me, and I have never
heard of those pJiilharinonics since.

A CROWNED VIRTUOSO.

A king of Spain, imagining himself very fond of mu-
sic, used to like to play his part in Boccherini quar-
tets; but he could never follow the movement of a
piece. One day, when he had stayed further behind
the other players than usual, they were on the point of
stopping, frightened at the disorder made by the royal
bow, which was three or four measures behind time :
"Go on," cried the enthusiastic monarch, "I will catch
up with you ! " .

A NEW MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.

A musician, whom all Paris knew fifteen or twenty
years ago, came to see me one morning with something
carefully wrapped up in paper under his arm : "I have
found it ! I have found it ! " cried he, like Archimedes,
coming into my room. " I have been a long while on
the scent of this invention, which cannot fail to create
an immense revolution in art. See this instrument, a

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. 203

simple tin box, pierced with holes, and fastened to the
end of a string ; I will swing it round rapidly, like a
sling, and you will hear something marvelous. See,
just listen : Hooh ! hooh ! hooh ! Such an imitation of
the wind knocks in azvfully the famous chromatic scales
in Beethoven's Pastoral. It is nature caught in the
act ! It is fine, it is new ! It would be in bad taste to
play the modest fool here. Beethoven was wrong, we
must admit it, and I am right. Oh ! my dear fellow,
what an invention ! and what an article you will write
about it for me in the Jonrnal des Debats! It will
do you extraordinary honor ; you will be translated into
all languages. How glad I am ; go it, old boy ! And,
believe me, it is as much for you as for me. Yet, I con-
fess that I should like to be the first to employ my in-
strument; I have reserved it for an overture I have be-
gun, and of which the title will be: The Island of Aio-
lus ; you will hear about it. After which you are free
to make use of my invention for your symphonies. I
am not one of those people who would sacrifice the
present and future of music to their own personal inter-
ests, no ; everytJiing for art is my motto."

THE REGIMENT OF COLONELS.

A gentleman, who is a rich land-owner, deigns to
present his son, twenty- two years old, and not as yet
able to read music, to me.

"I have come, sir," says he, "to beg you to have the
kindness to give lessons in Jiigh composition to this
young man, who will, I hope, soon do you credit. He
thought at first of being a colonel, but notwithstanding
the brilliancy of military glory, the arts have proved
decisively seductive to him ; he prefers to be a great
composer."

294 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

'*0h! sir, what a mistake! If you only knew the
vexations of that career ! The great composers mutu-
ally devour each other; there are so man\^ of them!
. . . Besides, I cannot undertake to lead him to the goal
of his noble ambition. To my mind he had better fol-
low his first impulse, and enlist in the regiment you
have just mentioned."

"What regiment ? "

"Why, the regiment of colonels, of course."

"Sir, your pleasantry is vastly out of place; I will
importune you no longer. Fortunately you are not the
only master in the world, and my son can be a great
composer without you. We have the honor to bid you
good-morning." .......

A CANTATA.

A little while after the ashes of the Emperor Napo-
leon I were brought to Paris, funeral marches were or-
dered of MM. Auber, Adam and Halevy, for the pro-
cession that was to escort the immortal dead to the
church of the Invalides.

I had been engaged in 1840 to compose a symphony
for the transfer of the remains of the victims of the rev-
olution of Jul}', and the inauguration of the Bastille
column ; so that several papers, persuaded that that
style of music was my specialty, announced me as the
composer who was honored a second time with the
minister's confidence on this solemn occasion.

A Belgian amateur, misled like many others, then
sent me a package containing a letter, some verses and
music.

The letter was couched in the following terms :
"Sir:

"I learn through the papers that you are engaged to
compose a symphony for the ceremony of the transfer

M USICAL GRO TESQ UES.

295

of the imperial ashes to the Pantheon. I send you a
cantata, which, woven into your work, and sung by
seven or eight hundred voices, must have a certain ef-
fect.

"You win notice a gap in the poetry after the Hne :

" Noics voHs rendons votre Empereiir.
*' (We bring you back your Emperor).

"I have only been able to completely finish the mu-
sic, for I am not much of a poet. But you can easilv
procure what is wanting ; Hugo or Lamartine will do
that for you. I am married and have three kids (three
children) ; if this should bring in a few crowns, you will
be good enough to send them on to me ; I leave the
glor}^ to you."

Here is the cantata :

^Allegro.

Fran - Qils,
French- men

:=^

— ^-

ren - dons an Pan - the ■
now bear to the Pan - the

les cen - dres
the ash - es

Fran^ais, ren-
Freuchmeu, now

He left the glory to me

I ! f

THE EVANGELIST OF THE DRUM.

I have often asked myself: Is it because certain per-
sons are mad, that they interest themselves in music, or

2q6 musical grotesques.

is it that music has driven .them mad ? . . . The most
impartial obser\'ation has led me to this conclusion :
Music is a violent passion, like love ; it can, without
doubt, apparently deprive individuals who are possessed
by it of their reason. But this derangement of the
brain is only accidental, the reason of those persons
soon regains its seat ; it remains yet to be proved that
this pretended derangement is not a sublime exaltation,
an exceptional development of the intellect and sensi-
bility.

As for the others, the real grotesques, music has evi-
dently not contributed to the disorder of their mental
faculties, and if they have taken it into their heads to
devote themselves to the practice of the art, it is be-
cause they are wanting in common sense. Music is in-
nocent of their monomania.

Yet God knows what harm they would do, if it de-
pejided upon themselves, and if people possessed with
the desire of demonstrating to every comer, in every
country and in every way, that they are Jupiter, were
not at once recognized by public common sense as mo-
nomaniacs.

Beside?, there are individuals who are much honored
by being classed as deranged intellects ; they never had
any mind ; their skulls are hollow, or at least empty on
one side ; the right or left lobe of their brain is want-
ing, when both lobes are not wanting at the same time.
The reader will have no trouble in classifying the ex-
amples we are about to cite, and will know how to dis-
tinguish the madmen from those that are simply simple.

There was once an honest musician who played the
drum extremely well. Persuaded of the superiority of
the snarc-druin over all other organs of music, he wrote
a method for that instrument, ten or twelve years ago,
and dedicated his work to Rossini. As I was invited

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. 297

to pronounce upon the merit and importance of this
method, I addressed a letter to the author, in which I
took occasion to comphment him highly upon his talent
as an executant.

"You are the king of drummers," said I, "and will
in time become the drummer of kings. Never did any
one in any French, Italian, English, German or Swed-
ish regiment have a quality of tone comparable to yours.
The mechanism, properly so called, the Jiandliiig 0/ the
drum-sticks, makes those who do not know you take you
for a magician. Your rub is so mellow, so seductive,
so sweet ! it is like honey ! Your dub is cutting, like a
sabre. And as for your roll, it is the voice of the Eter-
nal, it is the thunder, it is the lightning that falls upon a
poplar, eighty feet high, and cleaves it from top to bot-
tom."

This letter intoxicated our virtuoso with joy; he
would have lost his mind, had that been possible. He
ran about to all the orchestras in Paris and the banlieue,
showing his letter of glory to all his comrades.

But one day he comes to my lodgings in a state of
indescribable fury: "Sir! they had the insolence yes-
terday, at the head-quarters of the National Guard, to
insinuate that your letter was a joke, and that you had
been making (if I may so express myself) a . . . fool of
me. I am not ugly, no, everybody knows that. But
the first man that dares to tell me that positively to my
face, devil burn me if I don't run my sabre through his
body ! . . . "

Poor man ! he was the evangelist of the drum ; his
name was St. John.

THE APOSTLE OF THE FLAGEOLET.

Another, the apostle of the flageolet, was full of zeal ;
you could not prevent him from playing in the orches-

25*

^n3 MUSICAL CKOTESQCES.

tra, of which he was the fairest ornament, even when
there was nothing for the flageolet to do.

At such times he would double either the flute, or
the oboe, or the clarinet ; he would have doubled the
double-bass part rather than stay idle. One of his.
fellow-players, taking it into his head to find it strange
that he allowed himself to play in one of Beethoven's
symphonies: "You lower my instrument to a inachinc,
and seem to despise it ! Fools ! If Beethoven had had
me, his works would be full of flageolet solos, and he
would have made his fortune.

''But he did not know me ; Jie died in the hospital^

THE PROPHET OF THE TROMBONE.

A third passionately admired the trombone. The
trombone, according to him, would sooner or later de-
throne and replace all other instruments. He is its
prophet Isaiah. St. John would have played it in the
desert; our friend, to prove the immense superiority of
the trombone, boasts of having played it in stage-
coaches, in the railway, on steamboats, and even zvJiile
sivinuning in a pond tivcnty metres deep. His method
contains, beside such exercises as are proper to teach
the use of the trombone while swimming in ponds, sev-
eral jovial songs for parties and fetes. xA.t the bottom
of one of these masterpieces is a note in the following
terms: "When this piece is sung at a party, a pile of
plates must be let fall at the measure marked X ; it
produces an excellent effect." .....

ORCHESTRA CONDUCTORS.

A famous conductor, rehearsing a new overture, an-

swcred the composer, who asked for a shade of /

lano

MUSIC A L GRO TESQ UES.

?99

in an important passage: ''Piano, sir? a mere chirncera
of the chajuber ! "

I once saw another, who fancied he was conducting
eighty performers, zvkose backs were all turned toivards
him.

A third, who conducted with his head bowed down,
and his nose among the notes of the score, no more
knew what the players were doing than if he had con-
ducted the orchestra of the Paris Opera from London.

Once, when a rehearsal of Beethoven's Symphony in
A was going on under his direction, the whole orchestra
got out ; when the ejiseinble was once destroyed, a ter-
rible cacophony was quick to follow, and the musicians
soon stopped playing. He did not stop waving the
baton, with which he imagined he was beating- time,
over his head, until repeated cries of: "Eh! dear
master, stop, stop a bit! we have lost our place !" sus-
pended at last the motions of his untiring arm. He
then raises his head, and says with an astonished look :
"What is the matter ? What do you want ? "

"The matter is that we don't know where we are,
and that everything has been in confusion for some
time."

"Ah! ah!"

He had not noticed it

This worthy man was, like the preceeding one,
honored with the special confidence of a king, who
loaded him with honors, and he still passes in his
country for one of the illustrious in art. When that is
said in the presence of musicians, some of them, the
flatterers, keep their countenance.

300 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

APPRECIATORS OF BEETHOVEN.

A famous critic, theorist, talker, decomposer, cor-
rector of the great masters, had made an opera out of
the text of two dramatic authors, and the music of four
composers. He finds me one day in the Hbrary of the
Conservatoire, reading the storm in Beethoven's pastoral
symphony.

'*Ah! ah I" says he, recognizing the music, "I have
introduced that into my opera la Foret de Scnart^ and
I have put in some trombones, which make the devil of
an effect ! "

"-What was the use oi putting any in, seeing that
there are some there already?"

"No, there are not!"

"You don't say so! and this" (showing him two
staves of trombones), "what do you call this?"

"Ah ! by Jove ! I did not see them''

A great theorist, learned, etc., printed somewhere
that Beethoven knew little about innsie.

A director of the fine arts (which deplore his loss)
once admitted in my presence that this same Beethoven
was not witJiout tale?if.

SONTAG'S VERSION.

An admirable cantatrice, the much-lamented Sontag,
had invented a phrase, and substituted it for the orig-
inal one at the end of the trio of maskers in Don Gio-
vanni. Her example was soon followed ; it was too
fine not to be, and all cantatrices in Europe adopted
Madame Sontag's invention for the part of Donna
Anna.

One day at a general rehearsal in London, an orches-
tra conductor of my acquaintance, hearing this auda-

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. 3OI

cious change at the end of the trio, stopped the orches-
tra, and turning to the prima-donna :

"Well, what is the matter? have you forgotten your
part, madam ? "

"No, sir, I am singing Sontag' s version^

"Ah ! very well; but might I take the liberty to ask
you why you prefer Sontag's version to Mozart's, which
is yet the only one we have to do with here ? "

"Because hers is better,"
I I I I I I I ! ! !

NOT TO BE DANCED IN E.

A dancer, who had raised himself to the clouds In
Italy, comes to make his first appearance in Paris ; he
wishes a step, which brought him avalanches of flowers
in Milan and Naples, to be introduced in the ballet in
which he is to appear. He is obeyed. The general
rehearsal takes place; but this dance air, for some rea-
son or other, has been copied a tone higher than in the
original score.

They begin ; the dancer starts for the empyrean,
flutters about for a moment, and then, coming down to
earth: "In what key are you playing, gentlemen?"
says he, suspending his flight. "It seems as if my piece
fatigued me more than usual."

"We are playing in E''

"I am no longer astonished. Please to transpose
this allegi'o and lower it a tone. / can only dance it
in D."

A KISS FROM ROSSINI.

An amateur violoncello had the honor to play before
Rossini.

"The great master," said our man, ten years after-
26

302 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

wards, "was so enchanted with my playing that he in-
terrupted me in the mJddle of a cantabile, and came
and gave me a kiss on the forehead. Since then, to
preserve the illustrious imprint, / have never ivashed my
face''

A CLARINET-CONCERTO.

Dohler had just announced a concert in one of the
large cities of Germany, when a stranger presented
himself at his room.

"Sir," said he to Dohler, '*my name is W***, I ant a
great clarinet, and I have comie to H*** with the inten-
tion of making my talent appreciated. But I am little
known here, and you would render me an eminent ser-
vice if you would permit me to play a solo at the con-
cert you are getting up. The effect that I hope to
make there will draw the attention and favor of the
public to me, and I shall thus owe the success of my
own first concert to you."

"What would you like to play at my concert?" an-
swers the obliging Dohler.

"A grand clarinet-^r^'/^r^r/*?."

"Well sir, I accept your offer; I will put you on my
program ; come to the rehearsal this evening ; I am en-
chanted to be of service to you."

Wlien the evening came, our man presents himself,
and they begin to rehearse his concei^to. After the
fashionable manner of some virtuosos^ he does not play
his own part, but confines himself to rehearsing the
orchestra, and giving the tempi. The principal tictti,
rather like the Peasants March in the Freyschiits, struck
all present as very grotesque, and made Dohler rather
anxious. "But," said he in going out, "the solo part
will make up for it ; this gentleman is probably a clever
virtuoso ; we cannot expect a great clarinet to be a
great composer at the same time."

MUSICAL GROTESQUES, 303

The next day, at the concert, the clarinetist comes
upon the stage in his turn, rather intimidated by Doh-
ler's briUiant triumph.

The orchestra plays the tutti, which ended with a
hold on the chord of the dominant, after which the first
solo began. *'Tram, pam, pam, tire-lire-la~re-la," as in
the march in the Freyschiltz. On coming to the chord
of the dominant, the orchestra stops, the virtuoso stands
with his left hip well out, advances his right leg, puts
his instrument to his lips, stretches out both elbows
horizontally, and seems about to begin. His cheeks
swell, he blows, puffs, grows red in the face ; vain
efforts, nothing comes out from the rebellious instru-
ment. He then places the bell opposite his right eye,
and looks into it as if it were a telescope ; discover-
ing nothing there, he tries again, he blows with fury ;
not a sound. In despair, he orders the musicians to
begin the tutti over again : "Tram, pam, pam, tire-lire-
la-re-la," and, while the orchestra is fencing away, the
virtuoso places his clarinet with the bell against his
stomach and the reed sticking out in front, and begins
to hurriedly unscrew the mouthpiece and pass the swab
through the tube. . . .

All this took a certain time, and the pitiless orchestra,
having finished its tutti, had come again to its hold on
the chord of the dominant.

"Again! again! begin over again! begin over
again!" cries the palpitating artist to the musicians.
The musicians obey: "Tram, pam, pam, tire-lire-la-re-
la." And for the third time here they are again, after
a few moments, at the inexorable measure which an-
nounces the entry of the solo. But the clarinet is not
ready: '' Da capo ! again! again!" And the orchestra
goes off gayly again: "Tram, pam, pam, tire-lire-la-re-
la."

During this last repetition, the virtuoso having reartic-

204 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

ulated the various pieces of the unlucky instrument, and
placing it under his left arm, draws a knife from his
pocket and begins to hurriedly scrape the reed of the
clarinet.

Laughter and giggling is heard ail over the hall ; ex-
clamations and little stifled screams come from every
part of the house, and the desperate virtuoso keeps on
scraping his reed.

At last he thinks it in condition ; the orchestra has
come for the fourth time to the stopping place of the
tntti, the soloist again puts his instrument to his lips,
spreads out and raises his elbows, blows, sweats, grows
red in the face, fidgets, and nothing comes out ! When
at last a supreme effort shoots forth, like a flash of so-
norous lightning, the most piercing, ear-splitting quack
that ever was heard. It was like a hundred pieces of
satin torn at the same time ; the scream of a flight of
vampyres, of a ghoul in labor, cannot approach the vio-
lence of that frightful quack !

The hall rings with an exclamation of joyful horror,
applause bursts forth, and the dismayed virtuoso, coming
forward to the edge of the platform, stammers out :
"Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know . . . an ac . . ci-
dent ... to my cla . . rinet . . . but I will have it re . . -
paired . . . and I beg you to have the condscen . . sion
to come to my con . . cert, next Monday, to he . . he . .
hear the end of my concerto ^ . . . . .

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AT THE UNIVERSAL EXPOSITION.

I shall certainly not write here a preamble on indus-
try and universal expositions. Arguing on certain
questions exposes the logician to rather serious dangers ;
it is sometimes even real condescension to discuss them.
I am so conscious of being far from possessing the
Olympian coolness necessary in such cases, that instead

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. oqc

of combating systems that shock me, I often, in furious
despair for which sufficient causes are not wanting, go
so tar as to seem to accept them, even to approve them
with my head if not with my pen. . . . And this reminds
me of a question I once asked an amateur in chemistry.
. . . (Perhaps my amateur, hke amateurs in music, in
philosophy, hke many other amateurs in short, believed
in the absurd. This behef is very widely spread. Per-
haps, also, the absurd is true after all ; for if the ab-
surd were not true, why should God have been so cruel
as to have placed so great a love for the absurd in the
heart of man ? But here is what I asked my chemist,
and his reply) :

"If we could place," said I, "a certain number of
kilogrammes, say a hundred or a thousand kilogrammes
of gunpowder at the central point of one of the most
enormous mountains on the face of the globe, of one of
the Himalayas, or Chimborazo, for instance, and then,
by some of the processes we have at command to-day,
set fire to them, what would happen ? Do you think
that an explosion could take place, and that its force
would be sufficient to blast and blow up a mass that of-
fers so extraordinary a resistance, by its density, its co-
hesion and its weight ? " The amateur in chemistr\%
embarrassed, reflected a moment, a thing that amateurs
in music or philosophy rarely do, and answered, hesi-
tatingly : "It is probable that the force of the powder
would be insufficient ; that its ignition would take place,
nevertheless, and produce gases of which the expansion
Vv^ould be checked by the resistance of the mountain ;
these gases would be condensed to a liquid condition,
but would always tend to retake a gaseous form, and
make a terriffic explosion as soon as the superior force
stopped compressing them." I do not know how far
the opinion of my chemical dilettante is founded upon
fact, but I have perhaps quoted the proposition I sub-
mitted to him pertinently.

3o6 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

There are people, I know some, who, being forced to
wrestle with a mountain of absurdities, experience an
incalculable wrath at the centre of their hearts, which
is }^et insufficient to explode the mountain, but first take
fire, and, almost simultaneously submitting without
noise, even with smiles, to the law of unreason, see the
lightnings of their volcanoes liquefy until further orders.

These liquids, thus formed, are usually black and ex-
tremely bitter ; yet there are some which are insipid,
colorless, even sweet to the eye and taste, such is their
diversity. These are the most dangerous. Be it as it
may, many mines have been fired, many kilogrammes
of powder liquefied, during the laborious session of the
various juries, called to give, or rather to offer their
opinions on the products of industry.

The special jury, called together to examine musical
instruments at the last Universal Exposition, was com-
posed of seven members, composers, virtuosos, acousti-
cians, savants, amateurs and makers. Persuaded that
they were consulted about musical instruments to find
out the musical value of those instruments, they soon
agreed upon the means to be employed to appreciate as
well as possible their excellences of sonority and make,
so as to do justice to ingenious and useful inventions,
and put intelligent makers in their proper rank. Con-
sequently, not to be interrupted in this arduous work,
which is more difficult than people imagine, and ex-
tremely tedious and even painful, they had carried to
the concert-room of the Conservatoire these thousands
of instruments of all sorts, harmonious, cacophonous,
sonorous, noisy, magnificent, admirable, useless, gro-
tesque, ridiculous, harsh, frightful, fit to charm angels,

MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

307

to make demons gnash their teeth, to make birds sing,
and dogs bark.

They began by examining the piano-fortes. The
piano-forte ! At the bare thought of this terrible in-
strument I feel a shudder run through my scalp ; my
feet burn; in writing its name, I come upon volcanic
ground. You see, you do not know what pianos are,
or piano-dealers, piano-makers, piano-players, the pro-
tectors and protectresses of piano-makers. God pre-
serve you from ever knowing it ! Dealers and makers
of other instruments are much less to be feared. You
can say to them about what you please, without their
complaining too bitterly. You can give the first place
to the most meritorious, without the others having, all
at once, the idea of assassinating you. You can even
go so far as to put the worst one in the last rank, with-
out any opposition from the good ones. You can even
say to the friend of a pretended inventor: "Your friend
has invented nothing, this is nothing new, the Chinese
have used his invention for centuries !" and see the dis-
appointed friend of the inventor retire almost in silence,
as the illustrious Columbus would no doubt have done,
if he had been told that Scandinavian navigators had
discovered the American continent long before him.

But the piano! Ah! the piano! *'My pianos, sir!
you do not dream of such a thing. The second rank
to me ! A silver medal to me ! To me, who invented
the use of the screw to fasten the peg near the mortice
of the quadruple escapement ! I have not fallen off,
sir ! I employ six hundred workmen, sir ; my house
is still my house ; I still send my goods not only to
Batavia, to Victoria, to Melbourne, to San Francisco,
but to New Caledonia, to the Island of Mounin-Sima,
sir, to Manilla, to Tinian, to the Island of Ascension, to
Hawai ; my pianos are the only pianos used at the
court of King Kamehameha III, the mandarins of Pekin

2o8 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

only esteem my pianos, sir . . ". and to Saint- Germain-
en-Laye; }'es, sir. And you come and talk to me
about a silver medal, when the gold medal would be a
very moderate distinction for me ! and you have not
even proposed me for the grand cordon of the Legion
of Honor ! This is a pretty go ! But we shall see, sir,
this shall not go on so, I protest, I w ill protest ; I will
go and get the Emperor, I will appeal to all the courts
of Europe, to all the Presidencies of the New World,
I will publish a pamphlet ! Ah ! yes ! a silver medal
to the inventor of the escapement of the peg that fast-
ens the screw of the quadruple mortice ! ! !"

This sets fire, as you may imagine, to the thousand
kilogrammes of powder in the mountain. But as it is
absolutely impossible to answer such exclamations as
one would like to, and so blow up . . . the mountain,
the condensation of gas goes on, and there remains at
the bottom of the mine only a little insipid water.

Or else: **Alas! sir, so I have not got the first med-
al ? ... So it is true ? can such iniquity have been ac-
complished ? . . . But you will reconsider it, and I make
bold to ask for your vote, for }'Our energetic interven-
tion ! . . . You refuse it ? . . . Oh ! it is incredible ! My
pianos, however, have not fallen off; I still make excel-
lent pianos, v/hich can keep up the contest with any
other pianos. A musician like you, sir, cannot deceive
himself on that head. ... I am ruined, sir. . . . Sir, I
beg you, give me }'our vote. . . . Oh ! but this is fright-
ful ! Sir, I conjure you . , . see my tears. ... I have
no refuge left but . . . the Seine ... I fly thither. . . .
Ah ! this is sheer ferocity ! I should never have thought
it of you. . . . My poor children ! . . . "

You cannot blow up anything yet.

Lavender-zvater !

Or else: *T have just come from Germany, where
they laugh at your jury. What! the first piano-maker

MUSIC A L GRO TESQ UES.

309

does not stand first ? So he has got to be the second ?
So he has fallen off? Is that common sense ? So the
second one has got to be first ? Was ever anything like
it seen ? You are going to do this all over again, I
hope, for your sake, at least. I am sure I don't know
the marvelous piano you have crowned ; I have neither
seen nor heard it ; but it is all the same, such a decision
covers you all with ridicule."

Cologne-zvatcr !

Or else: "I have come, sir, on a little business . . .
on business. It is, no doubt, by mistake that the pianos
of my house have been set down ; for everybody knows
that my house has not fallen off. Public opinion has
already done justice to this . . . mistake, and you will
begin the examination of pianos over again. So, that
no new blunder shall be made, I take the liberty of en-
lightening the members of the jury upon the strength
of my house. I do a large and important business . . .
and neither my partners nor I will stick at . . . sacrifices

. . . necessary in certain . . . circumstances It is

only necessary to understand ..." From a certain
knitting of the eyebrows of the jury, the business man
sees that they do not . . . understand, and withdraws.

CainpJwrated spirits !

Or else : "I have come, sir ..."

"You have come about your pianos?"

"Undoubtedly, sir."

"Your house has not fallen off, is it not so ? We are
to begin the examination over again ; you want the first
medal?"

"Certainly, sir !"

"Fire and thunder! . . ."

The jury leaves the room, slams the door behind its
back, and bursts the lock off.

Aquafortis ! Hydrocyanic acid !

Such were the scenes the makers, players, and pro-
26*

3IO MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

tectors of makers of piano-fortes used to Inflict upon
poor juries; according to the account of some old lib-
erated juryman, a rubbishing old fellow no doubt, with
an evil tongue in his head, for we see nothing of the
S3rt now-a-days.

I continue my story.

The jurors, at the time of the last Exposition, were
seven in number. A mysterious, cabalistic and pro-
phetic number ! . . . The seven sages of Greece, the
seven branches of the holy candlestick, the seven pri-
mary colors, the seven notes of the scale, the seven
capital sins, the seven canonical virtues ... ah ! I beg
pardon, there are only three of those, at least there
only used to be three, for I do not know whether Hope
still exists.

But I will swear that we were seven jurymen: a
Scotchman, an Austrian, a Belgian, and four French-
men ; which would seem to prove that France is more
rich in jurymen than Scotland, Belgium and Austria
put together.

This areopagus constituted what is called a class.
The class, after a detailed and attentive examination of
all questions that came within its province, had to take
part afterwards in an assembly of five or six other
classes, which were united to form a group. And this
group had to pronounce, by a majority of votes, upon
the validity of the decisions made by each class sepa-
rately. Thus the class whose business it was to exam-
ine silk or woolen tissues, or the one which had to study
the merit of the goldsmiths, carvers, cabinet-makers,
and several other classes, had the goodness to ask us
musicians whether the prizes had been justly awarded
to such and such manufacturers of tissues, to such and
such dealers in bronzes, etc., questions which my col-
leagues In the class of music seemed rather at a loss
how to answer, In the first few days. These judgments

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. ^U

ex ahrtipto struck them as singular ; they were not ac-
customed to it, none of them having been called upon
to vote in the same way four years before at the Uni-
versal Exposition in London, where this custom had al-
ready been admitted, and where I served my appren-
ticeship.

I had, it is true, a moment of rather distressing an-
guish, in 185 I, the day of the first meeting of our group,
when the English jurymen, seeing that I kept aloof, ap-
pealed to me to vote upon the prizes proposed for man-
ufacturers of surgical instruments. I thought at once
of all the arms and legs those terrible instruments would
have to cut off, of the skulls they would have to trepan,
of the polypi they would have to extract, of the arteries
and nervous filaments they would have to seize hold
of ! ! ! And I, who know neither A nor B about sur-
gery, and still less about mechanics and cutlery, and
who have, moreover, never examined a single one of
the dangerous implements in question, were I even an
Amussat and a Charriere in one, I am about to say de-
cisively and officially, that those instruments are far bet-
ter than these, and that such and such a man and no
other deserves the first prize. I had sweat upon my
brow, and icicles down my back at the very thought.
God forgive me, if by my vote I have been the cause
of the death of some hundreds of English, French,
Piedmontese, or even Russian wounded, badly operated
upon in the Crimea, in consequence of the prize having
been given to bad surgical instruments ! . . .

Little by little, however, these twinges of conscience
grew calmer; the mine caught fire, but the mountain
was not blown up, as always happens, and the mine only
contains at present a small quantity of piire zuater. I
have lately given in Paris a prize to an invention of
Garengeot's for extracting teeth without feeling any
pain whatever. Besides, the system of groups having

312

MUSI CA L GRO TESQ L ^ES.

been adopted in England and France, and nobody hav-
ing complained of it, it must be that it is good, useful,
and moral, and I have only to confess with shame to
the weakness of intellect which makes it impossible for
me to understand its why and wherefore. "There is
a little irony in your humility," you will say ; " no doubt
the group, of which you were a part, annoyed the class
of musicians by invalidating some of its decisions, and
you owe it a grudge." Ah ! surely not. The group
hardly tried twice or thrice to say that we w^ere wrong,
and on all other occasions our unmusical colleagues
raised their right hands for the affirmative vote, with an
unanimity that showed them to be worthy of being so.
No, these are simple, unphilosophical reflections on hu-
man institutions, that I give you for what they are
worth, that is to say, for nothing.

So there were seven of us in the official box in the
hall of the Conservatoire, and every day a batch of at
least ninety piano-fortes made the planking of the stage
groan under their weight, opposite us. Three skillful
professors played, each one a different piece, on the
same instrument, each one always repeating the same
piece ; we thus heard these three airs ninety times a
day, or, adding up, two hundred and seventy airs on the
piano-forte from seven o'clock in the morning till four
o'clock in the afternoon. There were intermittences in
our condition. At certain moments a sort of drowsiness
took the place of pain, and as, after all, two of the three
pieces were very beautiful, one by Pergolese, and the
other by Rossini, we listened to them at such times with
pleasure ; they plunged us into a sweet reverie. Soon
afterwards the tribute had to be paid to human weak-
ness; we felt ourselves seized with spasms in the stomach
and positive nausea. But this is not the place to ex-
amine into this physiological phenomenon.

So as to be influenced in no way by the names of the

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. ^j^

makers of those terrible pianos, we decided to study the
instruments, without knowing whose they were, nor by
whom they were made. The maker's name was con-
sequently covered up by a broad sheet of card-board
bearing a number. The pianists who tried them called
out from the stage: No. '})J , or No. 20, etc., before be-
ginning operations. Each of the jurymen took his
notes after this designation. When the two hundred
and seventy airs had been played, the jury, not content
with this trial, went down to the stage, examined the
mechanism of each instrument near to, touched the key-
board themselves, and thus modified their opinion, if
necessary. The first day we heard a considerable num-
ber of grands. The seven jurymen picked out six from
the very first, and in the following order :

No. 9 got an unanimous vote for the first rank ;

No. 19 got also an unanimous vote for the second;

No. 5 had 6 votes out of 7 for the third ;

No. 11,4 votes out of 7 for the fourth;

No. 1 7, 6 votes for the fifth ;

No. 22, 5 votes for the sixth.

The jury, thinking that the position of the pianos on
the stage, a position more or less near to certain reflect-
ors of Sbund, might make the conditions of sonority un-
equal, decided to hear these six instruments a second
time in another order, and after having changed the
position of all. In addition to this, so as not to be in-
fluenced by their first impression, they turned their
backs to the stage during this re-arrangement of the in-
struments, wishing not to know where they were to be
stationed, as they knew their color, shape and position.
They heard them so, without turning round, without
knowing which was played first, second, etc. ; and then,
on consulting their notes, and the numbers being made
to agree with the new number of the order in which
they were just played, it turned out at the end of the
27

214 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

calculation that the votes were distributed in the same
way, and on the same instruments as at the first trial,
so distinct were the qualities of each one. The fact is
one of the most curious of its kind that can be cited ; it
proves, moreover, the minute care with which the jury
performed its task.

After each meeting, the result of the voting was set
down in an official report; a member of the jury went
and ascertained the names which were hidden under the
sheets of card-board, wrote down these names with the
corresponding numbers, and his declaration, together
with the report, was put into a sealed envelope, stamped
with the seal of the Conservatory.

That is the reason why, during the long weeks given
up to examining the piano-fortes, nobody, not even the
members of the jury (with one exception) knew the
names of the classified makers, and none of the latter
could object, nor complain, nor come and tell you :
"Sir, I have not fallen off, etc."

The same process was gone through with for parlor-
grands, for square pianos and for uprights. We have
the satisfaction to announce that not a single juror suc-
cumbed in consequence of this trial, and that most of
them are convalescent at present.

A RIVAL OF ERARD.

Certain amateur mechanics indulge at times in the
manufacture of musical instruments with the greatest
success. They even make astounding discoveries in
that art. . . . These men, as ingenious as they are
modest, disdain, how^ever, to send their works to uni-
versal expositions, and do not claim for them either
patent, or gold medal, or the least cordon of the Legion
of Honor.

One of them came one day, in Provence, to make a

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. 315

Visit at the house of his country neighbor, M. d'O***,
a celebrated critic and distinguished musician. Coming
into his drawing-room : "Ah ! you have a piano ?" said
he to him.

"Yes, a capital Erard."

"I have got one too."

"An Erard piano ?"

"What are you thinking of! my own, if you please.
I made it myself, upon an entirely new system. If you
would like to see it, I will have it put on my cart to-
morrow, and will bring it here."

"I should like to see it above all things."

The next day, the rustic amateur comes with his cart ;
the piano-forte is brought in, opened, and M. d'O*** is
much astonished at seeing the key-board composed ex-
clusively of white keys. "Well! but the black keys?"
said he.

"The black keys? Ah! yes, for the sharps and
flats ; an absurdity of the old piano-forte. I don't use
any."

PRUDENCE AND SAGACITY OF A PROVINCIAL —ALEXANDRE'S
MELODIUM-ORGAN.

An amateur, w^ho had often heard Alexandre's melo-
dium-organs praised, wished to present one to the church
in the village in which he lived. "They say," said he
to himself, "that these instruments have a delicious tone,
the dreamy and mysterious character of which adapts
them especially to the expression of religious emotions;
they are also very moderate in price ; any one who can
play the piano- forte can play them without difficulty.
That will suit me exactly. But as we must never buy
a pig in a poke, let us go to Paris and judge for our-
selves how much the praises lavished upon Alexandre's
instruments by the whole European and American press
are worth. Let us see, hear, and try them, and then
buy, if we see fit."

2i5 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

The prudent amateur comes to Paris, has Alexandre's
shop pointed out to him, and goes there forthwith.

To understand the ludicrous part of his attempting to
examine the organs, you must know that in Alexandre's
instruments, in addition to the bellows which set the
brass reeds in vibration by a current of air, there is a
system of hammers which strike the reeds, and give
them a shock at the moment when they begin to feel
the current of air. The shock caused by the stroke of
the hammer renders the action of the bellows upon the
reed more prompt, and thus prevents the little hesitation
that would otherwise exist in the emission of the tone.
The striking of the hammers upon the brass reeds also
makes a little ticking noise, which is imperceptible when
the bellows are in action, but which can be distinctly
enough heard when one only moves the keys of the
key-board.

Having explained this, let us follow our amateur into
Alexandre's great room, in the midst of the harmonious
population of instruments that are on show there.

"Sir, I want to buy an organ."

"We will let you hear several, and then you can
choose."

"No, no, I do not want to have them played to me.
The brilliant execution of your virtuosos can and must
deceive the listener about the faults of the instruments,
and sometimes even make those faults pass for ex-
cellences. I wish to try them myself, without being in-
fluenced by any observations. Permit me to be alone in
your shop for a moment."

" If that is all, sir, we will withdraw ; all the melodi-
ums are open ; examine them."

Whereupon, M. Alexandre goes away; the amateur
goes up to an organ, and, without suspecting that it
must be set agoing by the feet pressing upon the bel-
lows, which are under the case, he runs his hands up

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. ^I?

and down the key-board, as if he were trying a piano-
forte.

He is astonished at not hearing anything at first, but
almost immediately his attention is drawn to the little
ticking noise of the mechanism of percussion I have
just mentioned: "Click, clack, pick, pack, tong, ting;"
nothing more. He strikes the keys with redoubled
vigor; still: ''Click, clack, pick, pack, tong, ting." "It
is not to be believed," says he, "it is ridiculous! how
would you make this wretched instrument heard in a
church, no matter how small you suppose it to be ?
And such machines as these are praised on all hands,
and M. Alexandre has made a fortune out of them !
There we see how far the audacity of puffs and the dis-
honesty of newspaper editors can go."

Yet the indignant amateur goes up to another organ, to
two others, to three others, to go through with the busi-
ness conscientiously ; but, as he each time employs the
same means of trying them, he still gets the same result.
Still: "Click, clack, pick, pack, tong, ting." At last he
gets up, thoroughly edified, takes his hat, and stalks
towards the door, when M. Alexandre, who had seen
all from another part of the shop, runs up to him :

"Well, sir, have you made your choice ?"

"My choice! Gad, your advertisements and puffs,
and medals and prizes play a pretty game with us pro-
vincials ! you must thinK us very green, to dare to offer
us such ridiculous instruments ! The first law of being
of music is to be able to make itself heard ! So your
pretended organs, which I have, very luckily, tried my-
self, are inferior to the most nimminy- pimminy little
spinet of the last century, and have literally no tone,
no, sir, no tone at all. I am neither deaf, nor a fool."

" Good-morning ! "

3i8 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

PRUDENT MATCHES.

In the last act of one of M. Scribe's operas (Jenny
Bell), we see an enchanting young girl submit to the
paternal will, and marry a fat old fool of a goldsmith,
virtuously passing herself off as a flirt, to send away a
young man she loves, and who tenderly loves her. This
catastrophe struck me as frightful ; it put me in a pas-
sion. Yes, when I see this stupid devotion, these inso-
lent requirements of parents, these infamous cruelties,
this crushing out of beautiful passions, these brutal tear-
ings of the heart, I should like to put all prudent people,
all heroines of virtue, all enlightened fathers, in a bag,
with a hundred thousand kilos of wisdom at the bottom,
and throw them into the sea, accompanied by my bitter-
est curses. ........

You think I am joking ! well, you are wrong. I was
furious just now ; I am filled with such hatred for the
old Capulets and Countys Paris who want Juliets, that
the least dramatic spark sets fire to me and provokes an
explosion. Jenny Bell's grotesque virtue really exas-
perated me. There are, moreover, so many kinds of old
Capulets and Countys Paris, and so few Juliets ! Great
love and great art are so much alike ! The beautiful is
so beautiful ! Epic passions are so rare ! Every day's
sun is so pale ! . Life is so short, and death so sure ! . . .
Hundredfold idiots, inventors of self-immolation, of the
combat against sublime instincts, of prudent matches
between women and apes, between art and base indus-
try, between poetry and trade, be ye accursed, be ye
damned ! May you argue among yourself, and only
hear your own rattling voices, and see your own wan
faces through the coldest eternity ! . . .

GREAT NEWS.

It has just been discovered that the English national
anthem, *' Gael save the King^' attributed to LuUi, who

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. ^jO

was supposed to have composed it on a French text for
the Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr, is not by Lulli. British
pride spurns this origin. '* God save the' King'' is now
by Handel ; he wrote it for the English, on the conse-
crated English text.

There are patent discoverers of these musical mares'
nests.

They have proved long ago that : Orpheus is not by
Gluck, le Devin du Village is not by Rousseau, la Ves-
tale is not by Spontini, la Marseillaise is not by Rouget
de risle, in fact certain folk go so far as to hint that the
FreyscJiiitz is not by M. Castil-Blaze ! ! 1

BARLEY-CANDY.— SEVERE MUSIC.

The elegant world imagines that the theatres which
have been recently opened, and in which buffoonery is
taken in earnest, are unwholesome places, ill-furnished,
ill-lighted, ill-haunted, and consequently ill-famed ; and
people are generally right in thinking so. Yet there are
all kinds. Some are indeed ill-haunted, but others are
not haunted at all. This one is ill-famed, that other one
is famished. This one, at last I am speaking of the
theatre of the Folies-Nouvelles, is a coquettish little re-
sort, clean, charming, lighted up a giomOy and always
peopled by an audience, both well dressed and of urbane
manners. The custom has been established there (and
it is, no doubt, this custom that the sweetness of man-
ners of its habitues is owing to) of consuming a great
many sticks of barley-candy between the acts. As soon
as the curtain falls, the young lions in the pit rise, make
an amicable sign to the gazelles in the gallery, and stick
long objects of various colors into their mouths, which
they suck and resuck with the most remarkable gravity.
When I say that these sweet objects are of various
colors, I am wrong ; there is one color adopted for each

320 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

entractc, and it is only changed after the next act. Af-
ter the first act, they suck yellow ; when the action be-
gins to develop itself, pink is on all lips, and when the
catastrophe comes, green is triumphant, and the whole
house sucks green. Why this sweet custom exists at
the Folies-Nouvelles, how it was established there, what
keeps it up there . . . — threefold question, which the
true savants are reduced to answering, as they answer
so many other simple questions :

Nobody knows.
And see how ignorant people are in Paris, even about
the most essential things ; I did not know, fifteen days
ago, where the theatre of the Folies-Nouvelles was, and
it was only by saying, all along the boulevard, to per-
sons whose physiognomy promised some good will on
their part: ''Sir, may I beg you to be so good as to
have the kindness to show me where the theatre of the
Folies-Nouvelles is?" that I succeeded. And this charm-
ing theatre, I repeat, makes music. It has a pretty little
orchestra, well conducted by a clever virtuoso, M. Ber-
nardin, and several singers who are not bad. I went
that evening, on the strength of one of my colleagues
telling me that there was to be an attempt at serious
music in the new opera, entitled /e Calf at. Serious
music at the Folies-Nouvelles! said I to myself, all along
the boulevard, that is rather strange! After all, it is, no
doubt, a means of justifying the name of the pretty little
theatre. We shall see. We did see, and our terrors
were quickly dissipated. The directors of the Folies are
men of too much wit and good sense to fall into so grave
an error, and one so prejudicial to their interests. What
could my colleague have been thinking of, when he talked
seriously about the serious music of the Calf at I But if
the composer had taken it into his head to play such a
prank, all the sticks of barley-candy, yellow, red, and
green, would have vanished, to make way for ignoble

MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

321

black sticks of licorice, the young lions of the pit would
have roared in fury, and the gazelles in the balcony
would have veiled their noses.

Ah ! serious music ! without being forced to it ! that
would have been a good joke ! These words : serious
music, or severe music, which mean exactly the same
thing, in the sense certain people attribute to them, give
me a chill in the spine. They recall to me the hard,
cruel and severe trials I have been forced to undergo on
my travels ! . . . Only the last one had no evil conse-
quences for me ; it ended very well, having never begun.
It was in a large city in the North, of which the inhab-
itants have a passion for ennui that amounts to frenzy.
There is an immense hall there, where the public rushes,
piles itself up, crushes itself, without being paid, paying
money itself, whenever it is sure of being severely treat-
ed. They have forgotten to inscribe on the wall of this
temple the famous motto which glistens in letters of gold
in the concert room of another large city in the North :

" AVj- severa esl venini gnjidiuni,''''

and which a bad joker of my acquaintance translated
by:

'^ Entiui IS the only true delight.''''

So I thought it my duty to go one day and hear the
most severe and celebrated things in the musical ir-
pertoire of that great city. Every place was taken, so
I went in search of those merchants who sell tickets at
an exorbitant price at the door of the hall. I was ne-
gotiating with one of these merchants, when one of the
artists of the orchestra that was going to perform rem
severam, saw me, and said: "What are you about
there?"

"I am bargaining for a ticket, having never heard the
masterpiece announced for to-day."

"And what is the need of your hearing it?"

322

MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

** There is more than one : for propriety's sake . . .
the wish to experimentahze ..."

"What! did I not see you a fortnight ago in our
hall staying through the performance of our young
masterpiece from beginning to end ?"

"Yes ; well ?"

"Well, you can appreciate the old masterpiece we are
going to sing by comparing it with the other. It is
exactly the same thing ; only the old masterpiece is as
long again as the modern one, and seven times as tire-
some."

"Seven times ?"

"At least."

"That will do."

And I put my purse back into my pocket and went
away, much edified.

That is why the severities of musical art inspire me
me sometimes with so lively a fear. But my terror was
panic this time, very panic indeed ; and nothing but my
colleague's letter could justify it. Le Calfat is a thor-
oughly jovial little opera, that sings good, big, jolly
waltzes, nice, bright, wide-awake, sprightly little airs,
and the composer of this amiable score, M. Cahen,
would not for the world have shown himself severe upon
the good people who came to applaud it. And what a
success too ! how his work was received ! At the catas-
trophe the young lions and gazelles showed positive en-
thusiasm, and the Ifttle green sticks went in and out of
every mouth like the pistons of a steam-engine.

THE DILETTANTI IN BLOUSES AND SERIOUS MUSIC

There was noticed, some time since, in the faubourg
du Temple, on the banks of the canal de I'Ourcq, in the
neighborhood of the rue Chariot, and even on the place
de la Bastille, a strange sadness among the inhabitants

MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

323

of those parts, both young ahi old, good people com-
monly so jovial.

" L'oeil morne chaque jour et la lete L::issde,
lis s'en allaient plonges dans leur triste pens^e."

(With gloomy eye and bowed head, they went away
each day, plunged in their sad thoughts).

No more corks flying, no more pipes steaming away.
The ends of cigars lay upon the asphalt, and not a single
lover of tobacco deigned to pick them up. At mid-
night not a soul at the cake-vendor's, whose wares were
drying up, his knife rusting and his oven-fire extin-
guished. Neither cocottes nor claqueui^s sought their easy
and alluring prey. No more love, and so no more joy.
The flower-girls were shunned. The notables of the
rue Saint-Louis, assembled in council with those of the
faubourg du Temple and the quartier Saint-Antoine, had
decreed that a circumstantial report of the progress of
the disease should be drawn up, and sent by a nimble
estafette to the commissary of police, who did not receive
the news, as may be imagined, without heart-burning.
The hearts of the mayors whom he immediately notified
were still more cruelly smitten. There was, it must be
admitted, a little precipitancy in the manner in which
this sad news was told them. The hearts of ma\'ors
must be treated considerately. Nevertheless the anxiety
was conquered by the serious affection that the mayors
of all the districts of Paris have always felt for these un-
happy children of the faubourg du Temple, and they
rntt hurriedly in council in their turn. The sitting was
hardly opened, when other cstafcttes arrived with incom-
parably more consternation in their looks than the first,
announcing quite numerous gatherings at various points
in the capital, gatherings which bore the appearance of
profound melancholy and unfathomable discouragement.
These gatherings, absolutely inoffensive by the way,

224 MUSICAL GROTESQUES,

were presided over by young men in caps, lean, pale
and hollow-cheeked. One was stationed on the boule-
vard du Temple, opposite the house No. 35, where live
the beloved actors of the Theatre Lyrique, M. and Mme.
Meillet ; a second filled the rue Blanche from the rue
Saint- Lazare up to No. I i, where breathes the diva ad-
oi^ata, Mme. Cabel ; a third gathering, fourteen times as
large as both the others together, surrounded the palace
of M. Perrin, the director of the Opera-Comique and
the Theatre- Lyrique.^

The assembled cro\vds stood there, with their eyes
upon the windows of the monuments I have just men-
tioned ; their looks expressed a mournful reproach, and
the crowd, surrounding the young leader whom they
had chosen, imitated his silence. This news capped the
climax of the mayors' agitation, and greatly increased
the anxiety of their president. Several voices arose
almost simultaneously from the bosom of the council,
asking for the floor. The floor was given to all the
speakers, who all, as by common consent, immediately
held their tongues : vox faucibiis kaesit. Such was the
emotion of each one. But the president, who had still
kept sufficiently cool, had the bearers of this new news
shown in, and questioned them, one after the other :

"What is the cause," said he, quickly, "of this sad-
ness, this melancholy, this dumb despair, these sorrow-
ful looks, of these gatherings, of this inert agitation ?
Have fresh symptoms of cholera broken out in the fau-
bourg du Temple ?"

"No, Monsieur le President"

"Can the dealers in alcoholic drinks have put less
wine than usual into their water?"

"No, sir, all colicky drinks are the same as ever."

' One can see see that I. am not writing contemporary history. Every-
thing is completely changed in the direction of this theatre, and the cus-
toms of its habitues at present.

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. 325

"Has some false report been circulated about the
siege of Sebastopol?"

"No."

"Then what is it ? . . . and why have you chosen
precisely these three monuments for rallying-points, and
places of meeting? This frightens me enormously."

"Monsieur le President, we could not find out ... at
first, but at last we did find it out. It would seem,
saving the respect due to you, that these people are
liabituc's of the Theatre- Lyrique."

"Well!"

"Well, sir, they are passionate lovers of music, but
only of one kind of music, of light music, of gentle
music, even as their manners and customs are gentle.
They had heard, and were persuaded that the Theatre-
Lyrique was created and had come into the world for
their benefit, to satisfy the need of aesthetic emotions
that has tormented them for so long a time. They had
even kept up this hope until the last opening of the
Theatre- Lyrique ; an opening after which this hope
suddenly left them. They assure us that they have
been deceived."

"We see the whole matter clearly, now," they say;
"it is not a theatre for sweet music, a theatre for simple
melody, a theatre fit for the most naif people in the
world. Far from that, only complicated works, called
learned, have been given there up to this time, works
that we cannot understand in the least. And we see
clearly, by the obstinate revival of the whole of lasc
year's repertoire, that the intention of the artists and
director is to persist in this path, by only putting upon
the stage severe operas, beyond our comprehension,
and consequently without any real charm for us. W^e
might as well, were it not for the price of seats, go to
the Grand Opera at once."

The result was, that the president sent for M. Perrin,
2^

^25 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

and soon came to an understanding with that skillful
administrator about the means of warding off, if not of
conquering, the difficulty. It was agreed that, in view
of the averred impossibility of forcing composers to
abandon the lofty style, and leave the poetic regions of
art to put themselves within reach of the artless minds
of the largest and poorest class, they should have re-
course to lively librettists, and order of them such gay,
piquant and droll pieces, that the popular sadness must,
in the course of nature, melt before them, like ice in the
sun, in spite of the severities of learned music. And
they began with the opera Schahabaham II. And its
success exceeded all expectation. And the people
laughed like mad ; its glance sparkles with gayety at
the present hour ; its gatherings have become rarer and
rarer, the palace of M. Perrin has become accessible,
the people has reconceived the hope of having its The-
atre-Lyrique ; and, we can say, at last, it is there !

LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH.

Too wretched critics ! for them winter has no fire,
and summer no ice. Benumbed and burning forever.
Ever listening, ever enduring. Ceaselessly to dance on
egg-shells, trembling lest they break some, either with
the foot of blame, or with the foot of praise, while they
would like to stamp with both feet upon that heap of
screech-owls' and tyrkeys' eggs, without any great
danger to those of nightingales, so rare are they to-day.
. . . And not to be able at last to hang their weary pen
upon the willows by the waters of Babylon, and sit
down upon the banks, and weep at leisure ! . . .

There is a lithograph of most sad aspect which I
cannot keep myself from contemplating a while, every
time I pass by the shop-window in which it is displayed.
It represents a troop of poor, hapless devils, covered

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. ^27

with damp and muddy rags, with Macaire hats upon
their heads, walking in filthy boot-legs, tied to the soles
of their feet with wisps of straw ; most of them have
a swollen cheek, all have a hollow belly ; they suffer
from toothache, and are dying of hunger; no cold in
the head, no affliction has spared them ; their scanty
hair hangs glued to their thin temples'; they carry
shovels and brooms, or rather, pieces of shovels and
mere broomsticks, ht tools for such ragged laborers. It
rains cats and dogs, they wade with doleful step in the
black cess-pool of Paris ; and before them stalks a sort
of convict-keeper, armed with a formidable stick, which
he stretches out like Napoleon showing his soldiers the
sun of Austerlitz, and screams out to them, with eyes
a-squint and mouth all awry: "Come, gentlemen,
sprightly now, sprightly ! " They are street-sweepers. . .
Poor devils ! . . . where do these unhappy beings
come from ? ... at what Montfaucon will they die ? . . .
What does municipal munificence allow them for thus
cleaning (or soiling) the streets of Paris ? ... at what
age are they sent to the shambles ? . . . What is done
with their bones ? (their skin is good for nothing).
Where does that sort of animal find pasturage in the
day-time ? . . , and what is its pasture ? . . . has it got a
female, and young ? . . . what does it think about ? . . .
what can it discourse about, while performing, with the
required sprightliness, the functions that have been
allotted to it by the prefect of the Seine ? . . . are these
gentlemen advocates of a representative government, or
of overflowing democracy, or of military rule ? . . .
They are all philosophers ; but how many of them are
men of letters ? How many of them write vaudevilles ?
. . . how many of them have handled the brush before
being reduced to the broom ? . . . How many were
pupils of Vernet before they were models for Charlet ?
. . . How many of them have got the Grand prix de

328 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

Rome at the Academy of Fine Arts ? . . . I should never
have done, were I to ask all the questions this litho-
graph suggests. Questions of humanity, questions of
health, questions of equality, liberty and fraternit}-,
questions of philosoph}^ and anatomy, questions of liter-
ature and painting, questions of subsistence and comfort,
questions of taste and drainage, questions of art and
strangulation ! . . .

Oh ! but come now ! What sense, I ask myself, has
this tirade about street-sweepers ? What have I in
common with them ? I have got the Prix de Rome, ii
is true ; I sometimes have colds in the head ; afflictions
are not wanting; I am a great philosopher; but the
prefect of the Seine w^ould take good care not to intrust
me with the smallest municipal functions ; but I never
touched a brush in my life ; it is much as ever that I
know how to handle a pen ; I never wrote a vaudeville ,
I should not even be able to manufacture a comic opera

It was the binck in my kat (the imagination, caprice ;
that is what you say when you do not want to use the
right word) that dictated this elegy. Yet I am far from
having the time to indulge in such literary amusements ;
comic operas rain in torrents, on the boulevard des
Italiens, on the boulevard du Temple, in drawing-rooms,
everywhere. And we are critics, we are at once judges
and witnesses, although we have not been made to
swear on the Koran to tell the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth. What lamentable neglect,
for if I had taken such an oath, I would keep it. It is
true that you can always speak the truth without having
sworn to do so. So, since it rains comic operas, and we
are armed with the stump of a pen, and we live in Paris
to be registrars at the lyric tribunal, let us do our duty,
let us march on to the noble goal offered to our ambi-
tion, and not wait to be told twice: "Come, gentlemen,
sprightly now, sprightly!"

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. ^29

Too wretched critics ! for them winter has no fire, and
summer no ice. Benumbed and burning forever. Ever
Hstening, ever enduring. Ceaselessly to dance on egg-
shells, trembling lest they break some, either with the
foot of blame or with the foot of praise, while they
would like to stamp with both feet upon that heap of
screech-owls' and turkeys' eggs, without any great
danger to those of nightingales, so rare are they to-day.
. . . And not to be able at last to hang their weary pen
upon the willows by the waters of Babylon, and sit
down upon the banks, and weep at leisure ! . . .

Still more articles to write ! more operas ! more al-
bums ! more singers ! more gods ! more men ! The
earth has made a trip of some sixty million leagues
about the sun since last year. She started, and she has
come back again, (so they tell us at the Academy of
Sciences). And why did she take so much trouble ?
Why take so long a trip ? with what object ? . . . I
should very much like to know what she thinks, this
great ball, this great head of which we are the inhabit-
ants ; yes (for as for doubting that she thinks, I shall
not allow myself to do that. My Pyrrhonism does not
go so far as that ; it would be as ridiculous as for one
of the inhabitants of M. XXX, the great mathematician,
to allow itself to cast a doubt upon the thinking faculty
of its master). Yes, I am curious to know what this
great head thinks of our little evolutions, of our great
revolutions, of our new religions, of our war in the
East, of our peace in the West, of our Chinese upturn-
ing, of our Japanese pride, of our mines in Australia
and California, of our English industry and French
gayety, of our German philosophy and Flemish beer, of
our Italian music, of our Austrian diplomacy, of our
great Mogul and our Spanish bulls, and above all of our
Paris theatres, of which we must speak at all hazards.
That is to say, let us understand one another, that I

330 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

only care to know the earth's opinion of those of our
theatres in which it is said that singin^ is done ; and
even (although we have at present five of them, all told,)
that I am directly interested in knowing her opinion of
only three. Of these three, one is called Academic
imperiale de Musique, the second bears the name of
Opera-Comique, and the third is entitled Theatre-
Lyrique. Whence it follows that the Theatre- Lyrique
is not comic, that the theatre of the Opera-Comique is
not academic, and that the academic theatre is not lyric.
Just see where lyricism builds its nest! . . .

So I might, like so many others, consult the earth's
opinion on these important questions ; and the earth
would surely answer me, just as she has answered those
who have had the audacity to question her in these
latter days. But I am really ashamed to add myself to
the number of those importunate persons, and put her
to any more trouble. The more so that she might very
well give me wrong answers, in the humor she is now
in. She might even try to make me believe that the
academic theatre is comic, that the comic one is lyric,
and the lyric one academic. Imagine the confusion
such oracles would produce in the ideas of the public
(of the public that has any) !

Be this as it may, we count, none the less, three the-
atres in Paris, of which, I repeat, I must speak at all
hazards.

Too wretched critics ! for them winter has no fire, and
summer no ice. Benumbed and burning forever. Ever
listening, ever enduring. Ceaselessly to dance on egg-
shells, trembling lest they break some, either with the
foot of blame, or with the foot of praise, while they
would like to stamp with both feet upon that heap of
screech-owls' and turkeys' eggs, without any great
danger to those of nightingales, so rare are they to-day.
. . . And not to be able at last to hang their weary pen

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. ^31

upon the willows b}^ the waters of Babylon, and sit
down upon the banks and weep at leisure I . . .

When I think that to-day, the 3d of June, the com-
mander Page is perhaps sailing up the bay of Papute !
that his ships' guns are saluting the Tahitan shore,
which sends back, laden with a thousand perfumes, the
joyful cries of the fair islanders assembled on the beach !
1 see him from here, with his tall figure and his noble
face bronzed by the heat of the Indian sun ; he looks
through his telescope in the direction of Cocoa-point,
and the house of the pilot Henry, built at the entrance
of the Matavai road. . . . He is astonished that his salute
is not returned. . . . But there are the gunners running
up to the right and left of M. Moerenhout's house ;
they go into the two separate forts. Fire on all sides !
Hurrah ! it is France ! it is the new chief of the pro-
tectorate ! Another volley! Hurrah! hurrah! — And
there are the barracks with all the soldiers streaming
out, the French officers hurrying out of the cafe, and
M. Giraud appearing at the door of his house, all run-
ning down the rue Louis-Philippe towards the house of
the captain of the port. And those two ravishing creat-
ures coming out of a lemon grove, whither are they
going, hurriedly weaving wreaths of leaves and hibiscus
blossoms ? They are two maids of honor to Queen
Pomare ; at the sound of the guns, they have quickly
stopped the game of cards they had begun in a corner
of the royal hut during Her Majesty's nap. They cast
furtive glances in the direction of the Protestant Church.
Not a reverend father ! not a Pritchard ! Nobody will
know ! They complete their toilet by letting their
inaros slip down to the ground, vain tunic that anglican
apostles have imposed upon their modesty. Their radi-
ant brows are crowned, their luxuriant hair decked out
with flowers, they stand there in all their oceanic
charms ; they are a pair of Venuses, plunging in to the

^^2 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

sea. " O Page ! o Page f" (it is Page ! it is Page !) they
shout, cleaving the calm waters of the bay like two
sirens. They come up to the French vessel, and swim-
ming with their left hand, raise their right as a sign of
friendly salutation ; their soft voices send many ioreanas
(good-morning ! good morning !) to the ship's company.
One of the midshipmen gives a cry of . . . admiration
at this sight, and rushes to the side of the vessel. A
look from the commander nails him to his post, silent,
motionless, but trembling. M. Page, who speaks the
Kanack language like a native, calls out to the two na-
tives from the deck : " Taboo ! taboo .^" (it is forbidden).
They stop advancing, and raising their busts of antique
statues above the surface of the water, they clasp their
hands, smiling fit to damn St. Anthony. But the un-
moved commander repeats his cruel taboo ! They
throw him a flower together with one last, regretful
ioreaiia, and swim back to shore. The crew will not
land for two hours yet. And M. Page, seated at the
starboard rail, surveys this marvelous earthly paradise
over which he is to rule, in w^hich he is to live for many
years, inhales with delight the mild breeze that blows
to him from it, drinks a fresh cocoanut and says : "When
I think that there are now people in Paris, with the
thermometer at 95°, going in to the Opera-Comique,
to stay packed in there till one o'clock in the morning,
just to know whether Pierrot will marry Pierrette, to
hear those two little ninnies scream out their loves to
the accompaniment of a big drum, and to be able to
inform the readers of a newspaper next day of the
difficulties Pierrette has overcome in order to marry
Pierrot ! What possessed antiabolitionists these news-
paper editors are !"

Yes, when I think that a man can make these judi-
cious reflections four thousand leagues from here, at the
antipodes I in a country that is far enough advanced in

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. 333

civilization to do without theatres and critical articles ;
where it is so cool ; where the young beauties wear
such elegant costumes on their heads; where a queen
can take a nap ! I feel myself blushing with shame at
living in the midst of one of those infant nations, which
the wise men of Polynesia do not even deign to visit. . . .
Too wretched critics ! for them winter has no fire, and
summer no ice. Benumbed and burning forever. Ever
listening, ever enduring. Ceaselessly to dance on egg-
shells, trembling lest they break some, either with the
foot of blame, or with the foot of praise, while they
would like to stamp with both feet upon that heap of
screech-owls' and turkeys' eggs, without any great
danger to those of nightingales, so rare are they to-day.
. . . And not to be able at last to hang their weary pen
upon the willows by the waters of Babylon, and sit
down upon the banks and weep at leisure ! . . .

These poor wretches, especially in Paris, undergo tor-
ments which nobody gives them credit for, and which
would be enough, were they only known, to move the
hardest hearts to pity. But not desiring pity, they are
silent; they even smile at times; they are seen coming
and going, calm enough, to all appearance, especially at
certain times of the year, when their liberty is given them
on parol. Then, when the hour for girding up their
loins strikes, they walk to the theatres of their torture
with a stoicism like that of Regulus returning to Car-
thage.

And no one notices the really grand side of this.
Nay, when some of them, of feebler constitution than
the rest, are so tormented by thirst after the beautiful,
or at least after the reasonable, that their suffering atti-
tude, their bowed head, their wan looks attract the at-
tention of passers-by, then insult is added to injury, a
sponge dipped in gall and vinegar is held out to them
on the end of a pike, while the crowd laughs. And

334 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

they submit. There are, however, some violent ones,
and I am surprised that the exasperation of these has
never brought about any catastrophe.

Many, it is true, seek safety in flight. This old
means still succeeds. I must even confess to having
had the cowardice to put it in practice lately myself I
forget what performance was announced ; the Paris
headsmen and their aids were called together. I receive
a letter notifying me of the day and hour. There was
not a moment for hesitation. I run to the Rouen rail-
way, and set out for Motteville. When I get there, I
take a carriage and am driven over to a little unknown
port on the sea-coast, where a man may be pretty sure
of not being found out. Exact information had led me
to hope to find peace there ; peace, that heavenly gift,
which Paris refuses to men of good will. Saint- Valery-
en-Caux is really a charming place, hidden in a valley
near the coast ; est in secessu locus. There one is ex-
posed neither to hand-organs, nor to piano-forte com-
petitions. Not a single lyric theatre has been opened
there ; and if it had, it would have been shut already.

The bathing establishment is on a modest footing,
and does not give concerts; the bathers do not indulge
in music ; one of the two churches has no organist, and
the other has no organ ; the school-master, who might
be tempted to demoralize the people by teaching what
is called in Paris singing, has no pupils ; the fishermen
who might allow themselves to be thus demoralized, have
not the wherewithal to pay the master. The only songs
one hears here and there between seven and eight
o'clock in the morning, are those of the young girls
netting seines and sweep-nets, and these innocent chil-
dren ,have but the merest thread of a voice. There is
no National Guard going off, no lottery band ; the blows
of the calkers' mallets repairing the old hulks of ves-
sels are heard on all sides. There is a reading-room,

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. 335

in the windows of which are displayed neither songs
nor polkas with portraits and lithographs. You are in
danger of no amateur quartets, of no subscriptions to
snatch a virtuoso from the misfortune of serving his
country usefully. The men in tnat country have all
passed the age of conscription, and the children have
nof yet reached it.

It is an Eldorado for critics, in a word, an island of
Tahiti on terra firma, surrounded by water on one side
only ; less the ravishing Tahitians, it is true, but also
less the protestant ministers, the nasal chants, the big
Queen Pomare swelling up in her hut, and the French
newspaper; for a paper is printed in the French language
in Tahiti, a thing they take good care not to do in Saint-
Valery. Thus informed and re-assured, I get down from
the omnibus (I must also say that the driver of this om-
nibus, which brings the good people from Motteville to
Saint- Valery, neither plays on the trumpet, like his
brother drivers in Marseilles, nor on that frightful little
horn which the Belgians use on their railways, for the
assassination of travelers). So I get down from my
vehicle unharmed and almost joyfully, and hasten to
climb one of the cliffs that rise up vertically on each
side of the town. Then, from the top of this radiant
observatory, I cry out to the sea, ruminating its eternal
hymn three hundred feet below me : "Good-morning,
big one !" I bow before the setting sun executing its
evening decrescendo in a sublime palace of pink and
gold clouds, "All hail, your majesty!" And the deli-
cious sea-breeze running up to bid me welcome, I greet
it with a sigh of gladness, saying: "Good-evening
merry one!" and the soft mountain grass inviting me,
I roll upon the ground and give myself up to an orgy
of pure air, harmony and light.

I might tell many things about this trip to Normandy.
I will confine myself to telling about the wreck of a

2-5 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

little lugger, which went ashore two leagues from the
port of Saint- Valery, commanded by a clarinet-player
from Rouen. A most astonishing thing ! for who could
be more fit for steering a vessel than a clarinet-player?
Formerly people obstinately persisted in intrusting this
duty to sailors ; but they have at last recognized all the
dangers of this old custom. That is conceivable ; a
sailor, a man of the trade, naturally has ideas of his
own, a system ; he does what his system shows him to
be proper ; nothing would make him consent to a
manoeuvre which he judged wrong or improper. Every
one on board must obey him, without reasoning or hes-
itation ; he subjects all who surround him to a military
despotism. It is intolerable. Then sailors are jealous
of each other; it is enough that one has said white in a
given case, to make the other say black if the same case
happens again. Besides, have their pretended special
knowledge and nautical experience prevented innumer-
able and frightful mishaps ? They are still looking after
Sir John Franklin, lost in the polar seas. Yet he was a
thorough sailor. And the unlucky La Peyrouse who
came to grief on the reefs of Vanicoro, had not he
studied mathematics, physics, hydrography, geography,
anthropology, botany, and all the stuff that sailors,
properly so-called, persist in filling their heads with ?
Did all that prevent his leading two vessels to their ruin?
He had a system ; he would have it that the height of
the coral rocks with which the sea is obstructed in the
archipelago of the New Hebrides, near Vanicoro, was
to be studied ; that their position was to be determined,
passages sought out and soundings made, and he came
to grief What good did all his science do him ? Ah !
people are very Yight in mistrusting specialists, men
with systems, and in giving them a wide birth !

Then look at Columbus ! Was it not a happy idea
of Ferdinand and Isabella and their learned counselors

MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

337

to so obstinately refuse to give him two caravels, and
would they not have done wisely to persist in their re-
fusal ? For after all, he found the New World, it is
true ; but if he had not followed his westward course
with the obstinacy of a maniac, he would not have met
with some pieces of wood, worked by the hand of man,
twenty-four hours before the discovery of San Salvador,
this ridiculous circumstance would not have given cour-
age to his crew, and he would have had to swallow
his shame, return to Europe and think himself only too
happy to get there. So it is chance that brought about
that so famous discovery ; and any other man than
Columbus, without being either sailor or geologist, who
had taken it into his head to keep on sailing due west,
would have come to the Bahamas and thence to the
American continent just as well as he.

And Cook, the famous, the astounding Captain Cook !
Did not he go and get himself killed like a fool by a
savage in Hawai ? He discovered New Caledonia, took
possession of it in the name of England, and France
occupies it now. The fine service he rendered his
country !

No, no, these men with systems are the scourges of
all human institutions, nothing is more evident to-day.
The little mishap of Saint-Valery goes to prove nothing.
As the clarinet-player who commanded the lugger had
some eight or ten ladies aboard, he had, from vanity,
made as much sail as possible, and as the breeze was
good, he was making I don't know how many knots an
hour, and all the people on the pier was shouting out :
"But just see how well that little lugger is sailing!"
When, coming opposite Veule, and trying to put about
and come back, he struck bottom, and the poor lugger
was thrown on her beam ends. Very luckily the peo-
ple of Veule did not hesitate to take to the water up to
their waists and carry the trembling passengers ashore.
29

^^3 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

The clarinet-player, no doubt, did not know that you
must be careful not to come too near Veule beach at
low tide, or that his lugger drew so much water. That
is all ; and the most skillful sailors who, ignorant of
these facts as he was, had come at that hour, to the
same point of the coast with that lugger, would have
had the same accident.

The day after this mishap, which, I repeat, proves
nothing against the fitness of clarinet-players to com-
mand vessels, a letter from Paris found me out at Saint-
Valery, and informed me that a new (new !) piece had
just been brought out at the Opera-Comique. My cor-
respondent added that, as the work was inoffensive, I
could expose myself to it without much danger. So
I returned (I had to !), did not see it, and am convinced
that the public will thank me for not mentioning it.
At my return the work had already returned to chaos.
I asked several usually very well informed persons about
it, and they did not know what I was talking about.
There ! go and have successes, write masterpieces,
cover yourselves with glory ! that at the end of five or
six days ... O Paris ! city of indifference to comic
operas ! What a chasm is thy oblivion !

But I returned, nevertheless, and left the lofty cliffs,
and the great sea, and the splendid horizons, and the
sweet leisure, and sweet peace, for the flat, muddy, and
busy city ; for the barbarous city ! and I have taken up
the trowel of praise again ; I praise now as formerly !
more than formerly !

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. 33C)

danger to those of nightingales, so rare are they to-day.
. . . And not to be able at last to hang their weary pen
upon the willows by the waters of Babylon, and sit
down upon the banks and weep at leisure ! . . .

The Germans give the name of recensors to journal-
ists whose business it is to give a periodical account of
what goes on in the theatres and even to analyze re-
cently published literary works. If our expression
critics applies better to those persons who are engaged
in the second part of this task than the German term
does, we must acknowledge that the modest title of
recensors is much more exact to designate many
good people who are condemned to the cold, thankless,
and very often humiliating work that constitutes the first
part. Who, but these unhappy wretches themselves,
can know what racking pains, vast and profound dis-
gust, shuddering repugnance, concentrated wrath that
cannot explode, the performance of their task often
causes ? . . . What strength is thus lost ! what time
squandered ! what thoughts stifled ! what steam-engines,
strong enough to pierce through the Alps, set to work
to turn a mill-wheel !

Sad recensors, useless recensors, so often censured !
when will they . . .

(A man of sense interrupting Jeremiah :)

" Raca ! Raca ! Raca ! are you going to begin your
refrain over again, and give us the fiftieth verse of
hanging your pen upon the ivilloivs by the zuaters of
Babylon and sitting dozvn upon the banks and zveep-
ing ? . . .

"Do you know that your recriminations and lamenta-
tions are perfectly unendurable ? . . . Who the devil has
thrown you into such a state of desolation ? If you
are in such a fume, go and take a douche-bath ; if you
feel this gigantic power of mountain-splitting, for God's
sake, give it vent as you please, pierce through the

h^Q MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

Alps, pierce through the Apennines, pierce through
Mount Ararat, pierce through the butte Montmartre
even, if such is your need of piercing and coming to the
surface, and don't come and split our tympanum with
your screams like a caged eagle! There are enough
others, more competent than you, whose liveliest desire
would be to turn at the wheel of your mill."

(Jeremiah.) Whoever says unto his brother : Raca !
deserves eternal damnation. But you are right, thrice
right, seven times right, O man wholly right ; the eyes
of my mind were a-squint, you are the accident that
brings me to myself again, and here I am now, good-
natured as before.

SUCCESS OF A MISERERE.

They write from Naples; "On the 27th of March, a
Miserere by Mercadante was given at the church of St.
Peter, in the presence of His Eminence the cardinal-
archbishop and suite, and several of the professors of
the Conservatory. The performance was very fine, and
His Eminence deigned to express his satisfaction repeat-
edly. The composition comprises beauties of the high-
est order. The attendance zuishcd to hear twice the
Redde ini/ii and the Benigne fac, Domijie''

So the attendance cried bis, asked for a da Capo, like
the claqueurs at our first theatrical performances ? . . .
The fact is curious. And now go and complain of our
May concerts, and the first appearances of our young
cantatrices in the Paris churches ! . . . Eh ! unhappy
catholic critics, your antipatriotism blinds you ; you do
not see that we are little saints !

LITTLE MISERIES OF BIG CONCERTS.

It is at the annual festival in Baden-Baden that these
little miseries make themselves cruelly felt. And yet

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. o^j

everything is disposed in favor of the organizing con-
ductor of the orchestra ; no niggardly economy is forced
upon him, no shackle of any sort. M. Benazet, per-
suaded that the best way is to let him act freely, does
not do anything about it, except . . . paying. "Do
things royally," says he, ''and I give you carte-blanched
That is right ! It is only thus that anything great and
beautiful can be done in music. You laugh, I suppose,
and think of the answer Jean Bart gave to Louis XIV:

*'Jean Bart, I make you commander of a squadron."

"Sire, you have done well!"

Laugh, laugh by all means ! Jean Bart was right,
nevertheless, and it is a consummation devoutly to be
wished, that only sailors were chosen to command
squadrons. It would be extremely desirable that when
the Jean Bart was once chosen, the Louis XIV should
never try to control his manoeuvres, and suggest his
own ideas, distract him with his fears and play the first
scene in Shakspere's Tempest :

" Alonzo, King of Naples. — Good boatswain, have care. Where's
the master ? Play the men.

"Boatswain. — I pray now, keep below.

"Antonio. — Where is the master, boatswain ?

"Boatswain. — Do you not hear him.'' You mar our labor! Keep
your cabins : you do assist the storm.

" Gonzalo. — Remember whom thou hast aboard.

" Boatswain. — None that I love more than myself. You are a coun-
selor; if you can command these elements to silence, and work the peace
of the present, we will not hand a rope more ; use your authority. If
you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make vourself readv
in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap. — Cheerily, good
hearts. — Out of our way, I say."

In spite of so many means placed at his disposal, and
of the precious liberty to use them at will, it is still a
hard task for the orchestra-conductor to carry a festival
like that at Baden-Baden well through to the end, so
great is the number of small obstacles, and so subver-
sive may the influence of the slightest of them be to
the whole in any enterprise of this sort The first tor-

242 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

ment he has to undergo comes almost always from the
singers, and especially from the cantatrices, in the draw-
ing up of his program. As this difficulty is known to
him, he begins two months beforehand to ward it off:
"What are \'ou gomg to sing, madam?" "I don't
know ... I will think about it . . . will write to you."
.V month passes by, the cantatrice has not thought
about it, and has not written. A fortnight more is use-
lessly taken up with trying to get a decision from her.
Then they lea\'e Paris ; a provisory program is drawn
up, on which a blank is left for the title of the diva s
piece. It is an air by Mozart. Well. But the diva
has not c^ot the music of that air, and there is no lon^jer
time to have the orchestral parts copied, and she neither
wishes nor ought to sing it with piano-forte accompani-
ment. An obliging theatre has the kindness to lend the
orchestral parts. Everything is in order ; the program
is published. This program comes under the eyes of
the cantatrice, who is immediately frightened at the
choice she has made. "It is an immense concert," she
writes to the conductor; "the various grand numbers
of the rich program will make my poor Mozart piece
seem very small, very thin. Decidedly, I will sing
another air, Bel raggio from Scmiramide. You will
easily find the orchestral parts of that air in Germany,
and, if you do not, just have the goodness to write to
the director of the Theatre-Italien in Paris; he will, no
doubt, send them on to you without delay." As soon
as this letter is received, the programs are printed
afresh, a strip is pasted on the posters to announce the
scena from Semiraniide. But the orchestral parts have
not been found /// Germany, and it has not been deemed
expedient to beg the director of the Theatre-Italien to
send the whole opera of Semiraniide across the Rhine,
the air which is to be accompanied being inseparable
from the work. The cantatrice arrives ; all parties meet
at the general rehearsal.

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. ^^^

*'Well, we have not got the music to the Scmirainidc ;
you must sing with piano-forte accompaniment."

"Oh, good heavens ! but that will be icy."

"No doubt."

"What shall I do?"

"I don't know."

"Suppose that I come back to my Mozart air?"

"That will be the best thing you can do."

"In that case, let us rehearse it."

"With what? We have not kept the music; we re-
turned it to the theatre in Carlsruhe as you ordered.
You must have music for your orchestra when you
want your orchestra to play. Inspired singers always
forget these vulgar details. It is very material, very
prosaic, I admit; but so it is."

At the next rehearsal the orchestral parts of the Mo-
zart opera have been brought back ; all is in order
again. The programs have been reprinted, the posters
recorrected. The conductor announces to the musicians
that the Mozart air is to be rehearsed, and all is ready.
The cantatrice then comes up with that irresistible grace
we all know so well :

"I have an idea; I will sing the air in the Domino
noiry

"Oh! ah! ha! haee ! krrrr ! . . . Yi^^c^ Kapellmeister,
have you got the air madam mentions in your theatre ?"

"No sir."

"Well, then?"

"Then I must make up my mind to the Mozart air?"

"Make up your mind to it, believe me."

At last they begin ; the cantatrice has made up her
mind to the masterpiece. She covers it with embroid-
ery, as might have been foreseen. The conductor hears
that eloquent exclamation: "Krrrr!" sounding within
him louder than before, and leaning over to the diva, he
says to her in his sweetest voice, and with a smile that
tries not to look constrained :

344 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

"If you sing this air so, you will have enemies in the
house, I warn you beforehand."

"You think so?"

"I am sure of it."

"Oh great heavens! but ... I ask your advice . . .
I must perhaps sing Mozart simply, as it stands. It is
true we are in Germany ; I did not think of that ... I
am ready for anything, sir."

"Yes, yes, take courage; risk this little experiment;
sing Mozart simply. You see, there used to be airs in-
tended to be embroidered and embellished by singers ;
but they were usually written by cantatrices' valets, and
Mozart is a master ; he even passes for a great master
who was not wanting in taste."

They begin the air over again. The cantatrice, hav-
ing made up her mind to drain the bitter cup to the
dregs, sings that miracle of expression, sentiment, pas-
sion and style simply, only changing two measures for
the honor of the corps. She has hardly done, when
five or six people, who had come into the hall just as
she was beginning the air over again, come up to the
cantatrice full of enthusiasm, cr\'mg out :

"A thousand compliments, madam; how purely and
simply you sing ! That is the way the great masters
should be interpreted ; it is delicious, admirable ! Ah !
you understand Mozart!"

The conductor, aside : "Krrrrr ! ! !"

DEATH TO FLATS.

A lady, passionately fond of music, comes one day
into the shop of our famous publisher, Brandus, and
asks to see the newest and most beautiful songs, adding
that she cares especially about their not being too
heavily laden with flats. The shop-boy shows her a
sonfj.

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. -..t

"This piece is delicious," says he; "unfortunately
there are four flats to the signature."

" Oh ! that does not matter," answers the young lady,
''when there are more than two, I scratch them out."

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.

*' Some judge of authors' names, not works, and then
Nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men."

My Dear Ella:^

You ask me w^hy the Mystery of The Flight into
Egypt '^ has this note on its title-page : Attributed to
Pierre Diicrc, an imaginary chapel-master.

It was in consequence of a fault I was guilty of, a
grave fault, for which I have been condignly punished,
and with which 1 shall always reproach myself Here
is how it was.

I was one evening at the house of M. le baron de
M***, an intelligent and sincere friend of the arts, with
one of my old fellow-students at the Academy in Rome,
the learned architect. Due. The whole company were
playing either ecarte, or whist, or brelan, except my-
self. I abhor cards. By patience, and after thirty
years of effort, I have succeeded in knowing not a
single game of this sort, so as never to be liable to ap-
prehension by habeas eorpns when any players are in
want of a partner.

So I w^as rather evidently boring myself, when Due
turned to me, and said :

"As you are not doing anything, you ought to write
a piece of music for my album ! "

"Willingly."

I take a scrap of paper, draw some staves upon it,
on which I soon jot down an andantino in four parts

' Director of the London Musical Union.
2 Now a part of my sacred trilogy : The ChUdkood of Christ,
29*

2^5 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

for the organ. I think that I find a certain character
of artless, rustic mysticism about it, and the fancy takes
me to write some words of the same sort to it. The
organ-piece disappears, and becomes the chorus of the
Shepherds of Bethlehem, bidding the infant Jesus fare-
well, at the departure of the Holy Family for Egypt.
The games of whist and brelan are interrupted to hear
my sacred fabliau. The mediaeval cut of my verses is
as much commented upon as that of my music.

"Now," 1 say to Due, "I am going to put your name
to it, I want to compromise you."

"What an idea! my friends know well enough that
I don't know the first thing about composition."

"That is a pretty reason, truly, for not composing!
But as your vanity refuses to adopt my piece, just wait
a bit, I will make up a name, of which yours shall be a
part. It shall be Pierre Ducre, whom I make music-
master in the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, in the seven-
teenth century. That will give my manuscript all the
value of an archoeological curiosity."

So it was done. But I was in the vein for playing
the Chatterton. Some days afterwards I wrote the
Rest of the Holy Family at home, beginning this time
with the words, and a little fugued overture, for a little
orchestra, in a little, innocent style, in F-sharp minor
ivithont any leading note ; a mode which is no longer
in fashion, which resembles the plain chant and which
the learned will tell you is derived from some Phrygian,
or Dorian, or Lydian mode of ancient Greece, as if that
had anything to do with it, but which evidently has the
melancholy and rather simple character of the old popu-
lar religious songs.

A month later, when I no longer thought of my
score, a chorus happened to be wanting in the program
of a concert that 1 was to conduct. It struck me as a
good joke to put that of the S hep her els in my Mystery

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. 3^7-

in its place, leaving it under the name of Pierre Ducre,
music-master of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris (1679).
At the rehearsals, the chorus-singers took a lively fancy
to this ancestral music.

"But where did you unearth that?" they asked me.

"Unearth is very nearly the right word for it," I an-
swered without hesitation ; "it was found in a walled up
closet during the recent restoration of the Sainte-Cha-
pelle. It was written on parchment in old notation,
which I had great trouble in deciphering."

The concert takes place, Pierre Ducre's piece is very
well given and still better received. The critics give it
all praise next day, and congratulate me upon my dis-
covery. Only one hints at some doubts about its au-
thenticity and age. Which proves, whatever you may
say to the contrary, Gaul-hater that you are, that there
are men of wit everywhere. Another critic goes into
tears over the misfortune of that poor old master, whose
musical inspiration is only revealed to Parisians after a
hundred and seventy-three years of obscurity. "For,"
he says, "none of us had ever heard of him, and M.
Fetis's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, which yet
contains very extraordinary things, does not mention
him !"

Next Sunday, Due being at the house of a young
and beautiful lady who is extremely fond of old music,
and professes great disdain for all modern productions
when she knows their date, he thus addresses the queen
of the drawing-room :

"Well, madam, what did you think of our last con-
cert?"

"Oh ! I thought it very much of a medley, as usual."

"And the piece by Pierre Ducre?"

"Perfect, delicious! There is music! Time has
rubbed off nothing of its freshness. It is true melody,
the scarcity of which our contemporary composers make

2^8 MUSICAL GROTESQUES,

US feel quite deeply enough. It is not your friend M.
Berlioz, at all events, who will ever write anything like
that."

K\. these words Due could not help bursting out
laughing, and had the imprudence to reply :

"Alas, madam, but it is my friend M. Berlioz who
wrote the Farewell of the Shepherds, and wrote it in my
presence too, one evening, at the corner of an ecarte-
table."

The fair lady bites her lips, the roses of vexation
flush her paleness, and turning her back upon Due, she
flings him this cruel phrase:

"M. Berlioz is an impertinent fellow!"

You can imagine, my dear Ella, my shame, when
Due repeated the apostrophe to me. I hastened to
make amends by humbly publishing the poor little work
under my own name, still keeping the words: ''Attrib-
uted to Pierre Due re, an imaginary ehapel-niaster,'' in
its title, to remind me of my culpable fraud.

Now let people say what they please, my conscience
is clear. I am no longer in danger of seeing the sensi-
bility of mild and kindly men shed tears over fictitious
misfortunes through my fault, of making pale ladies
blush, of casting doubts into the minds of certain critics
who usually entertain doubts on nothing. I will sin no
more. Good-bye, my dear Ella, may my baleful ex-
ample be a lesson to you. Do not ever take it into
your head to thus set traps for the musical religion of
your subscribers. Fear the epithet that was applied to
me. You do not know what it is to be called an im-
pertinent fellow, especially by a beautiful, pale lady.

Your contrite friend,

Hector Berlioz.

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. ^49

A FIRST APPEARANCE.--DESPOTISM OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE

OPERA.

It Is no easy matter to come out at the Opera, even
for a young cantatrice with a fine \'oice, whose talent is
admitted on all hands, who has been engaged and dearly
payed in advance by the administration of that theatre,
and who has consequently every right to count upon
the good will of the director, and his desire to bring her
before the public as soon as possible. First of all, the
part in which she is to appear is to be chosen, and the
importance of this choice may be imagined. As soon as
this question comes up, various voices are heard more
or less authoritatively and loudly crying out to the artist
as follows :

"Take my bear ! "^
**Do not take his bear!"
"You will have a success, I guarantee It."
" You will be checkmated, I swear it to you."
"All vay press and all my claque shall be for you."
"All the public will be against you. While if you
take my bear you will have the public on your side."

"Yes, but 3^ou will have all my press and all my claque
and myself into the bargain for your enemies."

The frightened debutante then turns to her director to
direct her. Alas! asking direction from a director,
what innocence! The poor man does not know him-
self what devil to call upon. He is not ignorant that
the bear-dealers are right, when they speak of the
weight of their influence, and of what importance it is,
especially for a debutante, to conciliate them. Yet, as
he cannot, after all, satisfy both the bear with the white
head, and the bear with the black head at the same
time, he at last decides in favor of the bear that growls
the loudest, and the piece for the first appearance is an-
nounced. The debutante knows her part, but, as she
1 See Scribe's L'Ours et Ic racha. Scene VII. ct seq. — [Trans.]
30

350 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

has never yet sung it on the stage, at least one rehearsal
is necessary, for which the orchestra, chorus and princi-
pal dramatis pcrsonce must be caUed together. Here
begins a series of intrigues, iU-wiil, stupidity, treachery
and laziness fit to make a saint swear. On such a day
the orchestra cannot come together; on such another
one the chorus cannot be had; to-morrow the theatre
will not be free, a ballet is to be rehearsed; day after
to-morrow the tenor goes hunting, two days later he
will be back again, and will be tired out; next week the
baritone has a lawsuit in Rouen, which obliges him to
leave Paris; he will not be back for eight or ten days;
when he gets back his wife is confined, he cannot leave
her, but, wishing to be agreeable to the debutante, he
sends her some sugar-plums the day of the child's
christening; a meeting is agreed upon to rehearse at
least with the soprano in the singer's greenroom, and
the debutante comes at the appointed hour; the soprano,
who is not too enchanted to see a new star rising above
the horizon, keeps her waiting a little, but comes at last;
only the accompanyist does not appear. They go away
again without doing anything. The debutante tries to
complain to the director. The director is out, they do
not know when he will be back again. She writes to
him ; the letter is given him in twenty-four hours. The
accompanyist is reprimanded and a new rehearsal is ap-
pointed; he is punctual this time; the soprano does not
appear now in her turn. No rehearsal possible; the
baritone could not be summoned as his wife is still ill;
nor the tenor, as he is still tired out. Suppose then
that the debutante should turn this leisure to account,
and go to call upon the influential critics. . . . (She has
been made to believe that there are influential critics,
that is to say, that there are critics who exercise a cer-
tain influence upon pubHc opinion).

"Have you been," they ask her, "to call on M***,

MUSICAL GROTESQUES, 3^1

the savage critic under whose paw you have the ill luck
to fall? Ah! you must take care of him. He is a
capricious, headstrong fellow, with terrible musical
manias and ideas of his own ; he is a perfect hedge-hog ;
you never know where to have him. If you try to be
civil to him, he gets angry. If you are uncivil, he gets
angry all the same. If you go to see him, you bore
him; if you do not go, he thinks you are proud; if you
invite him to dine the evening before your debut, he will
answer you that 'he too has a business dinner to give
on that day.' If you propose to him to sing one of his
songs (for he does write songs), and that is an ingenious
and delicate thing to do, that is, and a charming seduc-
tion, essentially artistic and musical, he will laugh in
your face, and offer to sing some of yours himself when
you compose any. Ah! look out for that dangerous
man, and some others beside, or you are lost." And the
poor debutante for a hundred thousand francs begins 10
feel a hundred thousand terrors.

She runs to the house of the calumniated individual.

That gentleman receives her coolly enough.

"It is only two months since your debut was first an-
nounced, mademoiselle, so you have at least six weeks
more of trials to undergo before you make your first
appearance."

" Six weeks, sir!"

**0r seven or eight. But these trials must end some-
time. In what work do you appear? "

When the debutante has mentioned the title of the
opera she has chosen, the critic becomes still colder and
graver.

"Do you think that I have made a mistake in choosing
that part?"

"I don't know whether the choice is a good one for
you or not, but it is fatal to me ; the performance of that
opera always gives me violent intestinal pains. I had

352

MUSIC A L GR O TESQ UES.

sworn never to expose myself to it again, and you are
going to make me break my vow. Nevertheless I for-
give you my colics, but I cannot forgive you for making
me break my word and so lose my self» respect For I
shall be there, mademoiselle, I shall be there to hear
you in spite of all ; I will speak to my physician
about it."

The debutante feels a shudder run through her veins
at these menacing words ; not knowing what to say
next, she takes leave of the gentleman, begging his in-
dulgence, and goes out with an aching heart. But
another influential critic re-assures her. *'Be calm,
mademoiselle, we will support you, we are not men
without bowels like our colleague, and the opera you
have chosen, albeit a little hard to digest, does not
frighten us." At last the director begins to hope that
it will not be impossible to bring the artists together
soon for a general rehearsal. The baritone has gained
his lawsuit, his wife is convalescent, his child has cut its
milk-teeth ; the tenor has got over his fatigue, he has
even grown very fat; the soprano is re-assured, she has
been promised that the debutante shall not succeed ; as
the chorus and orchestra have not rehearsed for two
months, the director may venture to make an appeal to
their devotion. He even arms himself with all his
courage one evening-, and addresses the actors and heads
of all the departments in the despotic way the old captain
of the National Guard used to give his orders: "Mon-
sieur Durand, for the third and last time, I shall not re-
peat it again, might I take the liberty of asking you to
be good enough to have the kindness to take the trouble
to do me the favor to shoulder arms .?"

The day for the rehearsal is fixed, bravely posted up
in the greenrooms of the theatre, and, wonderful to re-
late, hardly any body grumbles at this abuse of power
on the director's part. Nay more, when the day comes,

MUSICAL GROTESQUES. ^q^

everybody is present hardly an hour and a half after the
appointed time. The director of successes is in the pit,
surrounded by his guard, a score in his hand ; for that
director, who is an original, has felt the necessity of
learning; somethincr about music so as to follow the me-
Iodic cues and not make his people strike in at the
wrong time.

The conductor gives the signal, they begin . . . "Well !
well ! and the debiLtante, vvhere the deuce is she ? Call
her." They look for her, but cannot find her; only a
boy of the theatre hands the director a letter, which was
brought the day before, as he says, announcing that the
debutante has had a severe attack of influenza, and can-
not possibly leave her bed, and consequently cannot re-
hearse. Fury of the assembly ; the director of successes
slams his score to ; the other director leaves the stage
in a hurry; M. Durand, who had begun to shoulder
arms, puts his musket back under his arm and goes
home growling. And it is all to be begun over again ;
and the poor influenza patient, when she does get well,
must think herself lucky that the baritone can only
have lawsuits and children every ten or eleven months,
that the tenor has not got himself ripped up by a wild
boar, and that M. Durand, not having mounted guard
for some time, is good enough to have the kindness to
take the trouble to shoulder arms again. For we must
do him this justice, he always ends by doing it.

In that case, the debutante also ends by making a first
appearance, unless some new obstacle arises. Oh ! then,
the director gets exasperated and knows himself no
longer; he then says up and down to his subjects with-
out any oratorical precautions: "Ladies and gentlemen,
I announce to you that to-morrow at twelve o'clock,
there will be no rehearsal !"

354 MUSICAL GROTESQUES.

A SAVING OF M. AUBER'S.

A tenor, whose voice was neither pure nor sonorous,
sang a ^'oinaiiza from Joseph in a drawing-room; when
he came to the words :

"Dans un humide et frnid abime,
lis me plongenl, dans leur fureur"

(They cast me in their fury, into a damp and cold abyss),
M. Auber, turning to his neighbor, said: "Joseph staid
decidedly too long in the pit."

SENSIBILITY AND LACONICISM.— A FUNERAL ORATION IN
THREE SYLLABLES.

Cherubini was walking in the greenroom of the con-
cert-hall of the Conservatoire, one day, between the
parts of a concert. The musicians about him seemed
sad ; they had just heard of the death of their colleague,
Brod, a remarkable virtuoso, first oboe at the Opera.
One of them comes up to the old master and says :
"Well, M. Cherubini, so we have lost poor Brod ! . . ."
"Eh! . . . what?" (The musician raises his voice):
"Brod! our comrade Brod ..." "Well?" "He is
dead!" "Hm! thin tone!"

SELECTIONS FROM
A TRAVERS CHANTS"

[A punning title which defies translation.

A travers c/ia///J>s=: Across country.
A travers c/ianis=Across singing.

—Trans.]

MUSIC.

MUSIC, the art of moving intelligent men, gifted with
special and practiced organs, by combinations of
tones. To thus define music, is to admit that we do
not believe it to be, as people say, made for everybody.
Whatever may be the conditions of its existence, what-
ever may have been its means of action at any time,
wdiether simple or complex, mild or energetic, it has
always been evident to the impartial observer that, as a
great number of persons cannot either feel or compre-
hend its power, those persons ivere not made for it, and
consequently, it zuas not made for tJiem.

Music is at once a sentiment and a science; it de-
mands of him who cultivates it, be he executant or
composer, natural inspiration and a knowledge which is
only to be acquired by protracted studies and profound
meditations. The union of knowledge and inspiration
constitutes art. Outside of these conditions, the musi-
cian will be nothing more than an incomplete artist, if
indeed he deserve the name of artist at all. The great
question of the pre-eminence of organization without
study, or of study without organization, which Horace
did not dare to solve in the case of poets, seems to us
to be equally difficult to answer in the case of musicians.
Men have been seen who were entire strangers to the
30* 357

358

* * A TRA VERS CHA NTS. '

science, and who yet produced by instinct graceful and
even sublime airs, witness Rouget de I'lsle and his im-
mortal Marseillaise ; but as these rare flashes of inspi-
ration only illumine one part of the art, while other no
less important parts remain in darkness, it follows that
these men cannot be definitely classed in the ranks of
musicians, considering the complex nature of our music :
THEY DO NOT KNOW.

We still more frequently meet with methodical, calm
and cold minds, who, after having patiently studied the
theory, made repeated observations, trained their mind
at length, and turned their incomplete faculties to what
best account they could, succeed in writing things that
answer to all appearances to the ideas vulgarly enter-
tained about music, but which satisfy the ear without
charming it, without speaking to the heart or the imagi-
nation. And the mere satisfaction of the ear is very
far removed from the delicious sensations that organ can
experience ; neither are the delights of the heart and
imagination to be held cheap ; and as they are joined
to a sensual pleasure of the liveliest sort in the true mu-
sical works of all schools, these impotent producers are
also, in our opinion, to be struck from the list of musi-
cians : THEY DO NOT FEEL.

What we call viusic is a new art, in the sense that it
very probably bears little resemblance to what the civil-
ized peoples of antiquity called by that name. Besides,
we must say at once, that word had such an extended
acceptation with them, that far from signifying simply
the art of tones, as it does to-day, it applied equally
to dancing, pantomime, poetry, eloquence, and even to
all the sciences together. Supposing that the etymology
of the word music is contained in imise, the widely ex-
tended meaning the ancients gave it is naturally ex-
plained ; it meant and must have meant, tJiat over which
the Muses preside. Hence the errors into which many

*'A TRAVERS CHANTS^

359

commentators have fallen in their interpretations. Yet
there is in the language of the present day a consecrated
expression of which the meaning is almost as general.
We say : Art, in speaking of the combined works of the
intellect, either alone, or aided by certain organs, and
of those bodily exercises which the intellect has rendered
poetic. So that the reader of two thousand years hence,
who finds in our books that phrase which has become
the trivial title of many rambling essays : "The state of
art in Europe in the nineteenth century," must interpret
it thus: "The state of poetry, eloquence, music, paint-
ing, engraving, sculpture, architecture, dramatic action,
pantomime, and dancing in Europe in the nineteenth
century." So we see that, with the exception of the
exact sciences, to which it does not apply, our modern
word art corresponds very well to the word music of
the ancients.

We have only a very imperfect knowledge of what
the art of tones, properly so called, was with them.
Some few isolated facts, related perhaps with an amount
of exaggeration of which we see every day analogous
examples, the inflated or wholly absurd ideas of certain
philosophers, perhaps also the false interpretation of
some of their writings would tend to attribute an im-
mense power to it, and such an influence upon morals
that legislators had to determine its course and regulate
its employment in the interest of their people. With-
out regarding the causes that may have modified the
truth on this head, and admitting that the music of the
Greeks really did produce extraordinary impressions
upon some individuals; impressions that were due
neither to the ideas expressed by poetry, nor to the ex-
pression of countenance and pantomime of the singer,
but to music itself, and only to it, the fact would by no
means prove that the art had attained a high degree of
perfection among them. Who does not know the violent

36o

«M TRAVERS chants:

action of musical sounds, combined in a most ordinary
Avay, upon nervous temperaments under certain circum-
stances? After a splendid feast, for instance, excited
by the intoxicating acclamations of a host of adorers, by
the recollection of a recent victory, by the hopes of new
triumphs, by the sight of his arms and the beautiful
female sla- es who surrounded him, by thoughts of vo-
luptuous pleasures, love, glory, power and immortality,
seconded by the energetic action of wine and good
cheer, Alexander, a man, by the way, of a very impres-
sionable organization, fell into a delirium at the accents
of Timotheus. But we can very well conceive that it
did not require any great efforts of genius on the part
of the singer to act thus violently upon a sensibility that
had been wrought up to an almost morbid pitch.

Rousseau, citing the more modern example of Eric,
King of Denmark, whom certain songs made so furious
that he killed some of his best servants, calls our atten-
tion, it is true, to the fact that these unhappy wretches
must have been much less amenable to musical influ-
ences than their master; else he might have run half
the risk. But the philosopher's paradoxical instinct is
still perceptible in this witty irony. Eh! no doubt the
Danish King's servants were less affected by music than
their sovereign! What is there astonishing in that?
Do we not know that the musical sense is developed by
exercise? that certain affections of the mind, although
very active in some individuals, are very little so in many
others? that nervous sensibility is in a manner the lot
of the upper classes of society, while the lower classes,
cither because of the manual labor they perform, or
from some other reason, are pretty nearly wanting in it ?
is it not because this inequality in organizations is incon-
testable and uncontested, that we so greatly restricted
the number of men upon whom music acts when we
gave our definition?

A TEA VERS CHANTS:

361

Yet Rousseau, even while thus ridicuhng the accounts
of the wonders worked by ancient music, seems in other
places to give them enough credence to place that an-
cient art, which we hardly know at all, and which he
himself knew no better than the rest of us, far above
the art of our own day. He ought, surely, to be the
last man to depreciate the effects of our modern music,
for the enthusiasm with which he speaks of it elsewhere
proves that they were of no common intensity in his
own case. Be it as it may, and only looking about us,
it will be easy to cite attested facts in favor of the power
of our music, of at least equal value with the doubtful
anecdotes of ancient historians. How often have we
not seen hearers agitated by terrible spasms, weep and
laugh at once, and manifest all the symptoms of delirium
and fever while listening to the masterpieces of our
great masters! A young Provengal musician, under
the influence of the passionate sentiments which Spon-
tini's Veslale had called up in him, could not endure
the idea of returning to our prosaic world, coming out
of the heaven of poetry that had just opened before
him; he informed his friends of his intention by letter,
and after hearing once more the masterpiece, the object
of his ecstatic admiration, thinking with reason that he
had attained the maximum and sum of all human hap-
piness on earth, he blew his brains out one evening at
the door of the Opera.

The famous cantatrice, Madame Malibran, hearing
Beethoven's Symphony in C-minor for the first time at
the Conservatoire, was seized with such convulsions that
she had to be carried out of the hall. We have, in such
cases, seen time and again serious men obliged to leave
the room to hide the violence of their emotions from
the public gaze. As for those which the author of these
lines owes personally to music, he affirms that nothing
in the world can give an exact idea of them to those
31

362

A TRAVERS chants:

who have not experienced them. Not to mention the
moral affections that the art has developed in him, and
only to cite the impressions received and the effects ex-
perienced at the very moment of the performance of
works that he admires, here is what he can say in all
truthfulness : While hearing certain pieces of music, my
vital forces seem at first to be doubled ; I feel a delicious
pleasure, in which reason has no part; the habit of
analysis itself then gives rise to admiration ; the emo-
tion, growing in the direct ratio of the energy and
grandeur of the composer's ideas, soon produces a
strange agritation in the circulation of the blood ; my ar-
teries pulsate violently ; tears, which usually announce
the end of the paroxysm, often only indicate a progress-
ive stage which is to become much more intense. In
this case there follow spasmodic contractions of the
muscles, trembling in all the limbs, a total niimbness in
the feet and hands, partial paralysis of the optic and
auditory nerves. I can no longer see, I can hardly hear ;
vertigo . . . almost swooning. ... It is easily to be irri-
agined that sensations carried to this pitch of violence
are quite rare, and that there is besides a vigorous con-
trast to them, namely that of bad musical effect. No
music acts more strongly in this direction than that of
which the principal fault is platitude added to false ex-
pression. Then I blush as with shame, a veritable in-
dignation seizes hold of me ; you would think, to see
me, that I had just received one of those outrages that
cannot be forgiven ; to efface the impression received, a
general upturning takes place, an effort to discharge it
throughout the whole organism, analogous to the efforts
of vomiting, when the stomach tries to eject some
nauseous liquor. Disgust and hatred are raised to their
highest power ; such music exasperates me, and I dis-
charge it with violence from every pore.

No doubt the habit of disguising or mastering my

*'A TRAVERS CHANTS.

Z^l

emotions, rarely permits this one to show itself in its
full force ; and if it has happened to me sometimes since
my earliest youth to give it full career, it was that I had
no time for reflection, and was taken by surprise.

So modern music has no reason to be jealous of the
supposed superior power of that of the ancients. Now
what are the modes of action of our art of music ?
Here are all that we know of, and although they are
many, it has not been proved that still others are not
to be discovered in future. They are :

MELODY.

A musical effect produced by different tones heard
successively, and formulated in more or less symmetrical
phrases. The art of linking together those series of
tones in an agreeable manner, or of giving them an ex-
pressive meaning, is not to be learned, it is a gift of
nature, which the observation of pre-existing melodies
and the peculiar character of individuals and nations
modify in a thousand ways.

HARMONY.

A musical effect produced by different tones heard
simultaneously . Natural gifts alone can make the great
harmonist ; yet a knowledge of those groups of tones
which form chords (generally recognized as agreeable
and beautiful), and the art of regularly connecting them
together is taught everywhere with success.

RHYTHM.

A symmetrical division of time by means of tones.
The musician cannot be taught to find out beautiful
rhythmical forms ; the peculiar faculty of discovering
them is one of the rarest. Rhythm, of all parts of mu-
sic, seems to us to be the least advanced at the present
day.

3^4

"A TRAVERS CHANTS:

EXPRESSION.

A quality by which music stands in direct relations
to the character of the sentiments it wishes to express,
and the passions it wishes to excite. The perception of
this quality is excessively uncommon ; we frequently
see the whole audience in an opera house, whom a
doubtful intonation would immediately disgust, listening
without displeasure, and even with delight, to pieces
the expression of which is completely false.

MODULATION.

We now designate by this word the passage or transi-
tion from one mode or key to a new mode or key.
Study may do much towards teaching the musician the
art of thus changing the tonality to advantage, and per-
tinently modifying its constitution. Popular songs gen-
erally modulate but little.

INSTRUMENTATION

Consists in letting each instrument play what best suits
its peculiar nature, and the effect it is intended to pro-
duce. It is also the art of grouping together instru-
ments so as to modify the tone of some by that of
others, resulting in a peculiar quality of tone which no
instrument would produce separately, nor united with
other instruments of its own kind. This phrase of in-
strumentation is in music exactly what coloring is in
painting. Powerful, resplendent and often exaggerated
as it is to-day, it was hardly known before the end of
the last century. We think that, as in rhythm, melody
and expression, the study of models may put the student
in the path of mastering it, but that he will not succeed
without special natural gifts.

THE POINT OF DEPARTURE OF SOUNDS.

By placing the listener at a greater or less distance
from the performers, and separating sonorous instru-

"A TRAVERS CHANTS.

365

ments from each other on certain occasions, modifica-
tions of musical effects are obtained which have not as
yet been sufficiently studied.

THE DEGREE OF INTENSITY OF SOUNDS.

Some phrases and inflections produce absolutely no
effect when given out softly and with moderation,
though they may become very beautiful when given
out with the force of emission they need. The inverse
proposition brings about even more striking results ; by
doing violence to a delicate idea, we reach the ridiculous
and monstrous.

THE MULTIPLICITY OF SOUNDS

Is one of the most powerful principles of musical emo-
tion. When instruments and voices are in large num-
bers and occupy a large surface, the mass of air set in
vibration becomes enormous, and its undulations ac-
quire a character of which they ordinarily are destitute.
So much so that if a single voice is heard in a church
which is filled by a large number of singers, no matter
what may be its intrinsic beauty, or the art with which
it enunciates a simple, slow theme, of little interest in
itself, it will only produce a very moderate effect;
whereas the same theme, taken up without much art by
all the voices in unison, will at once acquire an incredi-
ble degree of majesty.

Almost all of the various constituent parts of music
that we have mentioned seem to have been employed
by the ancients. Only their knowledge of harmony is
generally contested. A learned composer, our contem-
porary, M. Lesueur, stood up forty years ago as an in-
trepid antagonist to this opinion. Here is the reasoning
of his opponents:

** Harmony was not known to the ancients,'' say they;
" various passages in their historians and a host of doc-

366

A TK AVERS CHAXTS:

wncnts go to prove it. They only employed the unison
and the octave. It is also known that harmony is an
invention that does not date farther back than the eighth
century. As the scale and tonal constitution of the an-
cients were not the same as ours, which were invented
by the Italian, Guido d'Arezzo, but were very similar
to those of the plain chant, which is itself but a remnant
of Grecian music, it is evident to any one who is versed
in the science of chords that that sort of chant only al-
lows of the unison and octave, being as it is unsuited to
harmonic accompaniment."

To this might be answered, that the fact that har-
mony was invented in the Middle Ages does not prove
that it was unknown in previous ages. Many items of
human knowledge have been lost and found again; and
one of the most important discoveries that Europe as-
cribes to herself, that of gunpowder, had been made in
China long before. Besides, it is anything but certain
that the inventions attributed to Guido d'Arezzo were
really his, for he himself cites several of them in his
writincrs as thincrs universallv admitted before his time.
As for the difficulty of adapting our harmony to the
plain chant, without denying that it unites itself more
naturally to our modern melodic forms, the fact that
the plain chant is performed in counterpoint in several
parts, and even accompanied by chords on the organ in
all churches, is a sufficient answer. Let us now see
upon what the opinion of M. Lesueur is based :

'' Harmony was known to the ancients'' said he ; " the
works of their poets, philosophers and historians prove it
in many plaees in a peremptory manner. These histor-
ical fragments, very clear in themselves, have been
wrongly translated. Thanks to the understanding we
now have of the Greek notation, whole pieces of their
music in several voices and accompanied by various in-
struments are at hand to bear witness to the truth of

^^ A TRAVERS chants:' 367

this statement. Duets, trios and choruses by Sappho,
Olympus, Terpander, Aristoxenus, etc., faithfully re-
produced in our musical notation, will be published
later. Their harmony will be found to be simple an^'
clear, the smoothest chords being alone employed, the
style absolutely the same as that of certain portions of
the sacred music of our own day. Their scale and
tonal system were perfectly identical with ours. It is
one of the gravest errors to see a remnant of Grecian
music in the plain chant, which is a monstrous tradition
of the barbarous hymns the Druids used to howl round
the statue of Odin while offering up their horrible sac-
rifices. Some canticles in use in the ritual of the Catho-
lic Church are Greek, it is true, and we find them
founded upon the same system as modern music!
Moreover, even if circumstantial proofs were wanting, is
not the internal evidence we have sufficient to demon-
strate the falsity of the opinion that refuses all knowl-
edge and use of harmony to the ancients? What! can
the Greeks, those ingenious and polished sons of the
earth who saw the birth of Homer, Socrates, Pindar,
Praxiteles, Phidias, Apelles, Zeuxis, that artistic people
that raised up marvelous temples which time has not
yet destroyed, whose chisel cut out of marble human
forms worthy of representing the very gods; that
people whose monumental works still serve as models to
the poets, sculptors, architects and painters of our own
day, can they have had only a coarse and incomplete
music like that of the barbarian? . . . What! those
thousands of singers of both sexes who were maintained
at great expense in the temples, those myriads of in-
struments of various kinds that were called: Lyra,
Psalterium, Trigoninin, Sainbiica, CitJiara, Pedis,
Maga, Bavbiton, Teshido, Epigonmm, Siimniciiini,
Epandoron, etc., for stringed instruments; Tuba, Fis-
tula, Tibia, Cornu, Lituus, etc., for wind instruments;

368

J TK AVERS chants:'

Tympanum^ Cyinbaluvi, Crcpitaculmn, Tintinnahiibnn,
Crotalum, etc., for instruments of percussion, can they
have only been employed to produce cold and sterile
unisons and poor octaves? Could the harp and the
trumpet have been thus made to walk with the same
gait ; could two instruments of such different aspect and
character have been forcibly bound down to a grotesque
unison? It is doing unmerited insult to the intelligence
and musical sense of a great people, it is taxing all
Greece with barbarism."

Such were M. Lesueur's reasons for his opinion. As
for the facts cited by him in proof of it, nothing can
contravene them; if the illustrious master had only pub-
lished his great work on ancient music, with the frag-
ments he has mentioned, if he had indicated the sources
from whence he got them, the manuscripts that he has
examined; if the incredulous could have convinced
themselves by their own eyes, that those Jiarvionies at-
tributed to the Greeks have been really handed down to
us from them, then M. Lesueur would undoubtedly have
won his case at which he has worked so long and with
such unshaken persev^erance and conviction. Unfortu-
nately he has not done so, and as it is still very per-
missible to entertain a doubt on this head, we will
discuss the internal evidence M. Lesueur has advanced
with the same impartiality and attention we have brought
to bear upon the ideas of his antagonists. So we shall
reply to him:

The plain chants that you call barbarous are not all
so severely judged by the generality of musicians of
our time ; there are many of them, on the contrary,
which strike them as bearing the stamp of a rare char-
acter of severity and grandeur. The tonal system in
which these hymns are written, and which you condemn,
is often susceptible of the most admirable application.
Many popular songs, full of artless expression, are with-

■'A TRAVERS CHANTS.

369

out any leading note, and are consequently written in
the tonal system of the plain chant. Others, like the
Scotch airs, belong to a still stranger musical scale, since
they have neither the fourth nor the seventh degrees of
our scale. Yet what is fresher and at times more vigor-
ous than these mountain melodies ? To declare forms
that are contrary to our customs as barbarous, is not to
prove that a different education from ours cannot singu-
larly modify our opinions about them. Moreover, with-
out taxing Greece with barbarism, let us only admit
that her music was yet in its infancy compared with
ours ; the contrast of this imperfect state of a special
art with the splendor of other arts, with which it has no
point of contact, no manner of relationship, is not by
any means inadmissible. The reasoning that would
tend to make this anomaly seem impossible is far from
being new, and we all know that it has in many cases
led to conclusions which facts have afterwards disproved
with discouraging brutality.

The argument drawn from the musical unreason of
making instruments of such dissimilar natures as the
lyre, the trumpet and drums, progress in unison or in
octaves, is without real force ; for is this disposition of
instruments practicable, after all ? Yes, undoubtedly,
and musicians of our own day can employ it whenever
they wish. So it is not extraordinary that it should
have been admitted among nations, the very constitu-
tion of whose art admitted of no other.

Now, as to the superiority of our music over that of
the ancients, it seems more than probable. Be it that
harmony was known to the ancients, or that they were
ignorant of it, evidence enough to verify this conclusion
will result from sifting the testimony that the partisans
of two contrary opinions about the nature and means
of their art have furnished us.

Our music contains that of the ancients, but theirs
31*

2-0 ''A TRAVERS chants:'

did not contain ours ; that is to say, that we can easily
reproduce the effects of antique music, and an infinite
number of others beside which they never knew, and
which were impossible for them to produce.

We have said nothing of the art of tones in the East ;
from the reason that all that travelers have taught us
about it up to the present time is confined to formless
puerilities that bear no relation whatever to the ideas
we attach to the word nuisic. Until new notions have
been given us, wholly opposed to those we now enter-
tain, we must look upon music among the Orientals as
a grotesque noise, analogous to that which children
make when at play.

II.

BEETHOVEN- IN SA TURN'S RING.— THE MEDIUMS.

THE musical world is greatly disturbed at present ; the
whole philosophy of art seems to have been turned
topsy-turvy. It was generally believed, hardly a few
days ago, that the beautiful in music, like the mediocre,
like the ugly, was absolute ; that is to say, that a piece of
music that was beautiful, mediocre, or ugly for people of
taste, connoisseurs, was equally beautiful, mediocre, or
ugly for everybody, and consequently for people without
taste or knowledge. The upshot of this consoling opin-
ion was, that the masterpiece capable of bringing tears
into the eyes of a man living at No. 58 rue de la Chaus-
see-d'Antin, or of boring him, or disgusting him, must
necessarily produce the same effect upon a Cochin-
Chinese, a Laplander, a pirate of Timur, a Turk, or a
hod-carrier of the rue des Mauvaises-Paroles. When I
say it was believed, I mean by the learned, the doctors,
the simple in heart ; for in these questions great minds
meet, and those who do not resemble one another, at
least assemble together. As for myself, who am neither
learned, nor a doctor, nor simple, I never quite knew
what to think about these grave subjects of controversy ;
I believe, however, that I believed nothing, but now I
am sure of it, my mind is fixed, and I believe in the ab-
solutely beautiful much less than I do in the horn of the

272 "^ TRAVERS CHANTS^

unicorn. For why, I pray, should I not beHeve in the
horn of the unicorn ? It is now proved as proved can
be, that there are unicorns in various parts of the Him-
alayas. We all know the adventure of Mr. Kingsdoom.
The famous English traveler, astonished at meeting one
of these animals, which he believed to be fabulous (there
you see what it is to believe !), and looking at it with an
attention that hurt the feelings of the elegant quadruped,
the infuriated unicorn rushed upon him, nailed him to a
tree, and left a long piece of horn in his chest as a proof
of its existence. The unhappy Englishman could never
get over it.

Now I must tell you why I am sure of believing for
a day or two that I do not believe in the absolutely
beautiful. A revolution must have taken place, and re-
ally has taken place in philosophy since the marvelous
discovery of tipping tables (of pine-wood), and then of
mediums, and then of the invocation of spirits, and then
of spiritual conversations. Music could not remain
outside of the influence of such a considerable fact, and
keep itself isolated from the world of spirits, it, the sci-
ence of the impalpable, of the imponderable, of the in-
discernible. So, many musicians have put themselves
in relations with the world of spirits (they ought to have
done so long ago). By means of a pine tabl-e of very
moderate cost, upon which you place }'our hands, and
which, after a few minutes of reflection (reflection of the
table), sets to work to lift up one or two of its legs, in a
way, unfortunately, to shock the modesty of English
ladies, you can succeed not only in invoking the spirit
of a great composer, but in entering into regular con-
versation with him, and forcing him to answer all sorts
of questions. Nay more, if you set to work rightly,
you can make the spirit of the great master dictate a
new work, an entire composition coming all burning
from his brain. As in the case of the letters of the

* ' A TRA VER S CHA NTS.'' ^ ^ ,

alphabet, so it has been agreed that the table, raising its
legs and letting them fall again upon the floor, shall
give so many raps for a C, so many for a D, so many
for an F, so many for an eighth-note, so many for a six-
teenth-note, so many for a quarter-rest, so many for an
eighth-rest, etc., etc, I know that you will answer me :
"It has been agreed," you will say; "agreed with
whom?" evidently with the spirits. "Now, before this
agreement was made, how did the first medium go to
work to find out that the spirits agreed to it ?" I cannot
tell ; what is certain is, that it is certain ; and then, in
these great questions, you must positively allow yourself
to be guided by your interior sense, and above all things
not hunt for fleas.

So then, now, already (as the Russians say) they
lately invoked the spirit of Beethoven who lives in
Saturn. As Mozart lives in Jupiter, all the world
knows that, it does seem as if the composer of Fidclio
ought to have chosen the same planet for his new abode ;
but Beethoven, as we all know, is rather wild and
capricious, perhaps also he has some unconfessed an-
tipathy to Mozart. At any rate he lives in Saturn, or
at least in his ring. And here we see, last Monday, a
medium who is very familiar with the great man, with-
out any fear of putting him out of temper by making
him take such a long journey for nothing, place his
hands upon a pine table to send Beethoven, in Saturn's
ring, an order to come down and talk with him a min-
ute. So the table immediately makes indecent move-
ments, lifts up its legs and shows . . . that the spirit is
near. These poor spirits are very obedient, you will
admit. During his terrestrial existence Beethoven
would not have put himself out to go only from the
Carinthian gate to the imperial palace, if the Emperor
of Austria had begged him to come and see him, and he
now leaves Saturn's ring and interrupts his lofty con-
32

374

A TRAVERS CHAXTS:'

templations to obey the order (mark that), the order of
the first man that happens to come along with a pine
table.

That is what death is! how it changes your disposi-
tion! How right Marmontel was when he said in his
opera oi Zanire et A^or:

**Les esprits, dont on nous fait peur,
Sont les meilleures gens du monde."

(The spirits people frighten us about are the best sort
of folk in the world.)

So it is. I have already told you that in these ques-
tions you must not hunt for fleas.

Beethoven arrives, and says through the legs of the
table: **HereIam!" The delighted medium hits him
a tap on the stomach. . . . "Come now," you will say,
**here you are again at your absurdities!" How is
that? "Why yes I you spoke of a brain just now in
connection with spirits; spirits are not bodies." No
. . . no, but you know very well that they are. . . semi-
bodies. That has been thoroughly explained. Do not
interrupt me any more by such futile observations. I
continue my sad tale. As I was saying, the medium,
w^io is himself a semi-spirit, hits Beethoven a semi-tap
on the semi-stomach, and without further ado, begs the
semi-god to dictate him a new sonata. Beethoven does
not wait to be told twice, and the table immediately
begins to stride about. . . . They write under its dic-
tation. When the sonata is written, Beethoven sets out
again for Saturn; the medium, surrounded by a dozen
stupefied spectators, goes to the piano-forte, performs
the sonata, and the stupefied spectators become con-
founded listeners as they recognize that the sonata is
by no means a semi-platitude but a full-grown plati-
tude, sheer nonsensical stupidity.

How shall we believe in the absolutelv beautiful now?

A TRAVERS CHAXrs.

375

Surely Beethoven, going to live in a higher sphere,
cannot but have perfected himself, his genius must have
become grander and more elevated, and in dictating a
new sonata he must have wished to give the dwellers
upon earth an idea of the new style he has adopted in
his new abode, an idea of his fourth manner^ an idea
of the music that is played upon the Erards of Saturn's
ring. And here we find that this new style is pre-
cisely what we base musicians of a base and sub-
saturnian world call flat, silly and unendurable, and
far from ravishing us up to the fifty-eighth heaven, it
irritates us and makes us sick at the stomach. . . .Oh!
it is fit to make us lose our reason, if that were possible.

So we must believe that, as the beautiful and the ugly
are not absolute and universal, many productions of the
human intellect that are admired on earth will be de-
spised in the world of spirits, and I think that I am
authorized to conclude (for the matter of that, I have
suspected it for some time) that some operas, given and
applauded daily, even at theatres which modesty for-
bids me to name, would be hissed in Saturn, in Jupiter,
in Mars, in Venus, in Pallas, in Sirius, in Neptune, in the
Great and Little Bear, in the constellation of Biga, and are
after all but infinite platitudes for an infinite universe.

This conviction is not calculated to encourage great
producers. Many among them, overcome by the bale-
ful discovery, have fallen ill, and may, so they tell us,
pass away into the state of spirits. Luckily that will
take some time.

III.

THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE ART OF SINGING
IN THE LYRIC THEATRES OF FRANCE AND ITALY,
AND THE CA USES THAT HA IE BROUGHT IT ABOUT.

LARGE HALLS.— CLAQUEURS, INSTRUMENTS OF PERCUSSION.

IT seems to vulgar common sense as if we ought to
have singers for operas in our so-called lyric establish-
ments ; but just the contrary is the fact: we have
operas for singers. We must always adjust, cut up,
piece out, lengthen, shorten a score more or less to put
it into a condition (and what a condition !) to be sung
by the artists to whom it is confided. One finds his
part too high, another finds his too low; this one has
too many pieces, that one has not enough; the tenor
wants ^'s at every point, the baritone wants as\ here one
finds an accompaniment that embarrasses him, there
his rival complains of a chord that he does not like;
this is too slow for the prinia-donna, that is too lively
for the tenor. In a word, the hapless composer who
should take it into his head to write a scale in C in the
medium register, and in a slow tempo, and without ac-
companiment, could not be sure of finding singers to
sing it well and witJiout changes ; most of them would
even say that the scale zvas not in tJieir voiee, because it
was not written for them.

At the present day, in Europe, with the system of
3/6

*'A TRAVERS CHANTSr ^yy

singing that is in vigor (that is the right word for it), in
every ten individuals who call themselves singers it
would be possible to find two, or three at the very most,
capable of singing a simple song well, I mean thoroughly
well, correctly, true, with expression, in a good style
and with a pure and sympathetic voice. Suppose that
you take one of them at random, and say to him :
"Here is a very simple old air, very touching, the sweet
melody of which does not modulate and keeps within the
the compass of one octave; sing it now;" it is very
possible that your singer, who is perhaps an illustrious
personage, will exterminate the poor litde musical
blossom, and that in listening to him you will regret
some good village girl you used to hear hum the old air.
No musical thought, no melodic form, no expressive
accent can hold its own against the frightful mode of
interpretation that is becoming more and more widely
spread every day. If that were only all! but we have
to-day numerous varieties of antimelodic singing. First
there is the innocently silly style, then the pretentiously
silly style, the style ornamented with all the stupidities
the singer takes it into his head to introduce; this one
is already very culpable. Next comes the vicious style,
which corrupts the public and drags it into bad musical
paths, by the attractiveness of a certain capricious,
brilliant execution, but false expression which is alike
revolting to good taste and good sense ; at last we have
the criminal style, the rascally style, which adds to ras-
cality an inexhaustible wealth of silliness, and only pro-
ceeds by great yells, and delights

" Aux bruyantes melees,
Aux longs roulements des tambours,"

(In noisy mellys, and long rolls of the drum), in sombre
dramas, in stranglings, in poisonings, in maledictions, in
anathemas, in all dramatic horrors, in a word, which
furnish most opportunities for giving voice. It is this

2 '7 8 " ^ ^-^^ VERS CHA NTSr

last style that reigns despotically in Italy at the present
day, so they tell us. But the cause, the cause? you
will ask. The cause, or causes, I answer, are easily
found out; the remedy is what is harder to find, or
rather the remedy will never be applied, to speak
frankly, even when it is found, and its efficacy has been
thoroughly demonstrated. The causes are at once
moral and physical, all depending upon one another ;
and if theatrical enterprises had not always and almost
everywhere been given into the hands of people who are
covetous of money above all things, and ignorant of the
requirements of art, these causes would not exist.

They are: the disproportionate size of most lyric
theatres ;

The system of applause, either salaried or otherwise;

The preponderance that has grown up of the execu-
tion over the composition, of the larynx over the brain,
of matter over mind, and, at last, too often the cowardly
submission of genius to nonsense.

Lyric theatres are too large. It has been proved

and is certain that sound, to act miLsically upon the
human organism, must not proceed from a point too far
distant from the listener. People are always ready to
answer, when we speak of the sonority of an opera-
house or a concert- room : Everything can be very well
heard tJie^'e, But I also hear the cannon very well
from my study when it is fired from the esplanade
of the Invalides, and yet that noise, which, by the way,
is outside of all musical conditions, does not strike me,
does not move me, does not in any way make my nerv-
ous system vibrate. Well, it is just this blow, this emo-
tion, this shock that sound positively must give the
organ of hearing to move it musically, and which we do
not receive from even the most powerful groups of
voices and instruments when we listen to them from too
great a distance. Some scientists think that the electric

A TRAVERS chants:'

379

fluid cannot traverse a space greater than a certain
number of millions of leagues ; I do not know that this
is so, but I am sure that the musical fluid (I beg leave
to thus designate the unknown cause of musical emo-
tion) is without force, warmth or vitality at a certain
distance from its point of departure. We /lear, but we
do not vibrate. Now, we must vibrate ourselves with
the instruments and voices, and be made to vibrate by
them in order to have true musical sensations. Nothing
is easier to demonstrate. Place a few persons, well or-
ganized and with some knowledge of music, in a room
of moderate size, unfurnished and uncarpeted ; play
well before them some real masterpiece, by a real com-
poser, really inspired, a work free from those unendur-
able conventional beauties which pedagogues and
ready-made enthusiasts admire, a simple trio for piano-
forte, violin and 'cello, Beethoven's trio in B-flat, for
instance; what will happen? The listeners will feel
themselves seized little by little with an unwonted agi-
tation, they will experience an intense and profound
sense of enjoyment, which will now move them keenly,
now plunge them into a delicious calm, into a true
ecstasy. In the midst of the andante, at the third or
fourth return of that sublime and so passionately relig-
ious theme, it may happen that one of them cannot
restrain his tears, and if he lets them run for a moment,
he will perhaps end (I have witnessed this phenomenon)
by weeping violently, furiously, explosively. Now
there is a musical effect ! there is a listener thoroughly
under the influence of, and intoxicated by, the art of
tones, a being raised to a height immeasurably above
the common regions of life ! That man adores music,
he cannot express what he feels, his admiration is ineffa-
ble, and his gratitude to the great poet-composer who
has thus enchanted him equals his admiration.

Now suppose that in the middle of the same piece,

380

A TEA VERS CHANTS:'

played by the same artists, the room in which it is played
should gradually grow larger, and that the audience
should be carried little by little to a greater distance
from the players in consequence of this progressive in-
crease in size. Well, here we have our room as large
as an ordinary theatre ; our listener, who but a moment
ago felt his emotions rising, begins to regain his com-
posure ; he still hears, but he no longer vibrates ; he
admires the work, but by a process of reasoning, and no
longer from sentiment or in response to an irresistible
impulse. The room grows still larger, and the listener
is farther and farther removed from the musical focus.
He is as far off as he would be if the three players were
grouped together on the stage of the Opera, and he
were sitting in the balcony in one of the first row of
boxes directly opposite. He still hears, not a sound
escapes him, but he is no longer under the influence of
the musical fluid, which cannot reach him ; his agitation
ceases, and he becomes cold again, he even feels a sort
of disagreeable anxiety which is all the more distressing
that he makes greater efforts to attend and not lose the
thread of the musical discourse. But his efforts are in
vain, insensibility paralyzes them, he begins to be bored,
the great master tires him, importunes him, the master-
piece is no longer anything more than a little ridiculous
noise, the giant is a dwarf, art a deception ; he grows
impatient and stops listening. Another test !

Follow a military band playing a brilliant march, in
the rue Royale, we will suppose ; you listen to it with
pleasure, you walk briskly after it, its rhythm carries
you away, its warlike trumpet-calls animate you, and
you already think of glory and battles. The band
comes to the place de la Concorde, you still hear it, but
as the reflectors of sound are no longer there, you stop
vibrating, and you leave it to go its way, thinking no
more of it than of the music made by a company of
jugglers.

*<A TR AVERS C HANTS:' 38 I

Now to come back to the heart of our subject, how
often has it not happened, in the times when they still
had the grace to give Gluck's works at the Opera, and
not too badly either, how often has it not happened, I
say, that I remained cold, but angry at my own cold-
ness, while hearing the first act of OrpJu'c ! Yet I knew,
I was sure that it was a marvel of expression and poetic
melody ; the performance was wanting in no essential
good quality. But the stage represented a sacred grove,
and was open on all sides, the sound was lost at the back,
at the right and left of the stage, there were no reflectors,
and consequently no effect ; OrpJieiis really seemed to
be singing on a plain in Thrace : Gluck was wrong.
When this same part of OrpJieiis was sung again by A.
Nourrit, some days later, the same choruses sung by the
same singers, and the same pantomime music played by
the same orchestra, but in the hall of the Conservatoire,
they regained all their magical influence ; we were all
in ecstasies, we were impregnated with antique poetry :
Gluck was right.

Beethoven's symphonies, which are overwhelming in
the hall of the Conservatoire, have been played several
times at the Opera, where they had no effect whatever :
Beethoven was wrong. Mozart's Don Giovanni, ardent,
impassioned and passion-inspiring as it is at the Theatre-
Italien, when the performance is good, is perfectly icy
at the Opera, as every one admits. The Nozze di
Figaro would seem still colder there. So at the Opera
Mozart is wrong ! . . .

The masterpieces of Rossini's first manner, the Bar-
ber, and the Cenerentola, and many others lose their
piquant and witty physiognomy at the Opera ; we still
enjoy them, but coldly and from a distance, as we should
enjoy a garden looking at it through a telescope. So
that Rossini is wrong ! . . .

And see how the Freyschiitz, that so lively musical
32*

382

'*A TRAVERS chants:'

drama, so full of wild energy, drags out its weary length
at the Opera ! Can Weber be wrong ? . . .

I could easily multiply examples. What is a theatre
in which Gluck, Mozart, Weber, Beethoven and Rossini
are wrong, but a theatre built upon bad musical princi-
ples ? Yet it is not wanting in sonority. No, but like
all other theatres of the same dimensions, the Opera is
too large. Sound fills it easily, but not so the musical
fluid that is liberated by the ordinary means of execu-
tion. People will, no doubt, object to this, that several
fine works produce some effect there notwithstanding,
and that a skillful singer, who has the power of enchain-
ing the attention of an audience, and concentrating it
upon himself, can successfully attempt the softer effects
of singing there. But I reply that the precious singer
would impress his audience far more keenly in a smaller
hall, and that the same would be true of those fine works
that are specially written for the Opera ; nay, more, that
of twenty beautiful ideas contained in exceptional scores
(scores written in our own times for the Opera), there
are hardly four or five that come to the surface ; the
rest are lost. And even those beauties only appear
veiled and lessened by distance, never under all their as-
pects, never in all their vividness and brilliancy.

Hence the so much laughed-at, but yet very real,
necessity of hearing a fine opera very often to appre-
ciate it and discover its merits. At its first performance
all seems confused, vague, colorless, without form, nerve-
less ; it is but a half-efiaced picture, the drawing of
which we must follow line by line. Hear the judgments
of the lobby between the acts of first performances : the
new work, according to the critics, is invariably tiresome
or detestable. Here are tw^enty-five years that I have
listened to them in such cases, without ever, even in a
single instance, hearing a more favorable opinion ex-
pressed. It is much worse at dress-rehearsals, when

A TRA VERS CHANTS.

383

the house is half empty; then nothing comes to the
surface, everything vanishes ; neither melodic grace, nor
harmonic science, nor instrumental coloring, nor love,
nor hate, can have any effect ; it is a vague and more or
less fatiguing noise that irritates and plagues you to
death, and you leave the house cursing both work and
composer.

I shall never forget the dress- rehearsal of the Hugue-
nots. Meeting Meyerbeer on the stage after the fourth
act, all that I could say to him was this: ''There is a
chorus in the last scene but one which, // seems to me,
must produce some effect." I meant the chorus of
monks in the scene of the benediction of poniards, one
of the most overwhelming inspirations of art in all ages.
It seemed to me that it must produce some effect. I had
not been otherwise impressed by it.

Dramatic musical composition is a double art ; it re-
sults from the association and intimate union of poetry
and music. Melodic accents can, no doubt, have a
special interest, a charm that is peculiar to themselves,
and which results from music alone ; but their force
is doubled when we see them combine to express a
noble passion, or a beautiful sentiment suggested by a
poem worthy of the name ; each art is re-inforced by the
other. Now this union is in a great measure destroyed
by too large halls, where the listener, in spite of all his
attention, hardly understands one line in twenty, where
he does not distinctly see the actor's features, and where
it is consequently impossible for him to catch the more
delicate shades of melody, harmony, or instrumentation,
the reason for these shades, or their relation to the dra-
matic element determined by the words, since it is just
the words that he cannot hear.

Music, I repeat, must be heard near to; its principal
charm disappears with distance; it is, at the very least.

384

A TRAVERS C HANTS:

singularly modified and weakened. What pleasure
could we take in the conversation of the wittiest people
in the world, if we were obliged to carry it on at a
distance of thirty paces? Sound beyond a certain dis-
tance, although we may still hear it, is like a flame that
we see, but the warmth of which we do not feel.

This advantage of small halls over large ones is evi-
dent, and it was because he had noticed it, that a direct-
or of the opera said one day with humorous artlessness
and a touch of irritation: "Oh! in your hall at the
Conservatoire everything makes an effect." Yes?
Well, just try, and play there the vulgarities, the brutal
platitudes, the nonsense, the absurdities, the discordances,
the cacophonies that are endured as well as may be in
your opera, and you will see what sort of effect they
will make. . .

Now let us examine another side of the question, that
which affects the art of singing and the art of the com-
poser; we shall very soon find the proof of what I be-
gan by saying, and see that if the art of singing has be-
come the art of screaming, as it is to-day, the too great
size of theatres is the cause of it ; we shall also find that
other excesses which dishonor music to-day proceed
from the same cause.

The theatre of la Scala, in Milan, is immense ; that
of la Cannobiana is also very large ; the theatre of San-
Carlo in Naples, and many others that I could name,
are of equally enormous dimensions. Now where did
the school of singing that is so openly and justly con-
demned to-day come from? From the great musical
centres of Italy. As the Italian public has also the habit
of talking during performances as loudly as we talk at
the Bourse, the singers have been led little by little, as
well as the composers, to seek after every means of con-
centrating upon themselves the attention of that public
which pretends to like its music. They consequently

**A TRAVERS chants:

385

aim at sonority above everything; to obtain it, they
have suppressed the use of delicate shades, of the voix
inixte, of the head voice, of the loiver notes of the scale in
all voices ; they no longer admit any but the high notes,
called chest tones, for the tenors; as the basses no longer
sing except on the high degrees of their scale, they have
been transformed into baritones ; the male voices, not
really gaining in the upper register what they have lost
in the lower, have been deprived of a third of their com-
pass ; composers, writing for these singers, have had to
shut themselves up within the limits of an octave, and
confining themselves to the use of eight notes at the very
most, they only produce monotonous and desperately
vulgar melodies; the highest and most piercing female
voices have obtained a marked preference over all
others. Those soprani, those tenors, those baritones
that shout out at random are the only ones that are ap-
plauded; composers have seconded them to the best of
their ability by writing in the same direction as their
stentorian exertions ; duets, trios, quartets and cho-
ruses in unison have sprung up ; as this style of
composition is moreover easier and more expeditious for
the maestri and more convenient for the executants, it
has prevailed ; and when the big-drum came to its aid,
the system of dramatic music that we now enjoy found
itself established in a great part of Europ«.

I make this restriction, for it does not really exist in
Germany. There are no cavernous halls there. Even
the Grand Opera in Berlin is not disproportionately
large. They say that the Germans sing badly ; that
may seem true in general. I will not broach the ques-
tion here, whether or not their language is the reason
of it, and whether Madam Sontag, Pischek, Tichatschek,
Mademoiselle Lind, who is almost a German, and many
others do not form magnificent exceptions ; but upon
the whole, German vocalists sing, and do not howl, the

386

"A TRAVERS CHANTS.

screaming school is not theirs; they make music.
Whence does this come? It is, no doubt, because they
have a finer musical sense than many of their rivals in
other countries, but also because the German lyric thea-
tres are all of moderate dimensions, and the niusical
fljud can reach every part of them ; because the public
is always silent and attentive, and all ungraceful efforts
of voices and instrumentation are consequently useless,
and would seem still more odious than with us.

So here, you will say, is a libel brought against large
theatres ; we can no longer make eleven thousand francs
of receipts, nor bring together eighteen hundred people
in the Paris Opera, at Covent Garden in London, in la
Scala, in the San- Carlo, nor elsewhere, without in-
curring the criticisms of musicians. We unhesitatingly
answer in the affirmative. You have let the cat out of
the bag : receipts ! You are speculators, we are artists ;
we do not speak of the art of coining money, which is
the only one that interests you.

True art has its own conditions of power and beauty;
speculation, which I take good care not to confound
with industry, has its own more or less moral condi-
tions of success, and in the final analysis, art and specu-
lation mutually execrate each other. Their antagonism
is of all places and all times, and will be eternal ; it lies
in the very heart of the questions themselves. Talk to
the director of a theatrical entertainment, ask him which
is the best opera-house ; he will answer, or at least, he
will think without daring to say so, that it is the one in
which you can make the largest receipts. Talk to a cul-
tivated musician, or a learned architect, who is fond of
music, and he will tell you: "If you wish the essen-
tial qualities of the art of tones to be appreciable in an
opera-house, it must be a musical instruntcnt ; and it is
not one unless certain physical laws, the nature of which
is perfectly well understood, are not taken into account

*'A TR AVERS CHANTS:

387

in its construction. All other considerations are with-
out strength or authority in comparison with that.
Stretch metalhc strings upon a packing case, and fit a
key- board to it, and you will not have a piano- forte for
all that Stretch strings of gut and silk upon a clog,
and you will not get a violin by it. The skill of pianists
and violinists will be impotent to transform those ridic-
ulous machines into musical instruments, even if your
packing-case were of rose-wood, and your clog of
sandal-wood. You can let hurricanes blow through a
stove-pipe, the sound that comes out of it may be ex-
tremely energetic, but it will not make your stove-pipe
an organ-pipe, nor a trombone, nor a tuba, nor a horn.
All imaginable considerations, either of perspective, or
of splendor, or of money, will fall to the ground before
the laws of acoustics and those of the transmission of the
musical fluid, for these laws do exist. This is a fact, and
the obstinacy of facts is proverbial." This is what
those . . . artists will tell you. But they want to make
music, and you want to make money.

As for the effect of the orchestra in too large halls, it
is defective, incomplete and false, in as much as it is
other than that the composer intended while writing his
score, even if his score was written expressly for the
large hall in which it is heard.

As the range of the musical fluid of various projectors
of sound is unequal, it necessarily follows that instru-
ments of long range will often have a degree of power
disproportionate to the importance the composer has
given them, while those of short range will disappear,
or will forfeit the importance that has been assigned
them to gain the ends of composition. For the musical
action of voices and instruments to be complete, all the
tones must reach the listener simultaneously, and with
the same vitality of vibration. In a word, sounds writ-
ten in score (musicians will understand me) must reach
the ear in score.

388

'A TRAVERS CHANTS.'

Another consequence of the extreme size of lyric
theatres, and one which I have hinted at just now, in
recaUing the use made to-day of the big-drum, has been
the introduction of all the violent auxiharies of instru-
mentation into common orchestras. And this abuse,
which is carried to-day to its utmost limits, not only
ruins the power of the orchestra itself, but has contributed
not a little to bring about the system of singing of which
we deplore the existence, by exciting singers to wrestle
violently with the orchestra in the emission of tone.

Here is how the reign of instruments of percussion
has been established.

Will readers who love music forgive me for entering
upon such long developments ? I hope so. As for the
others, I have little fear of boring them ; they will not
read me.

It was in Gluck's Iphigenie en Aulide, if I mistake
not, that the big- drum was first heard at the Paris
Opera, but alone, without cymbals, or any other instru-
ment of percussion. It figures in the last chorus of the
Greeks (a chorus in unison, let us note this by the way),
of which the first w^ords are : Par tons, voluns a la vic-
toire ! (Let us go, let us fly to victory I) This chorus
is in march time with repeats. It accompanies the filing
ofi* of the Thessalian army. The big-drum strikes the
strong beats of each bar, as in common marches. As
this chorus was struck out when the catastrophe of the
opera was changed, the big-drum was not heard again
until the beginning of the following century.

Gluck also introduced the cymbals (and we know with
what admirable effect) in the chorus of Scythians in
Iphigenie en Tauride, the cymbals alone, without the
big-drum, though routine writers of all countries think
the two inseparable. In a ballet of the same opera he
made the happiest use of the triangle alone. And that
was all.

*'A TR AVERS CHANTS" 389

\\\ 1808 Spontini used the big-drum and cymbals in
the triumphal march and the dance air of the gladiators
in the Vestale. Later he used them again in the proces-
sion-music in Fcrnand Cortes. So far there had been,
if not a very ingenious, at least a proper and very re-
served use of those instruments. But Rossini came and
gave his Siege de Corinthe at the Opera. He had noticed,
not without grief, the somnolence of the public in our
great theatre during the performance of the finest works,
a somnolence brought on much more by the physical
causes, contrary to musical effect, which I have just
mentioned, than by the style of the masterly works of
that period ; and Rossini swore that he would not sub-
mit to such an affront. "I will find a w^ay to keep you
awake," said he. And he put the big-drum in every-
where, and the cymbals and triangle, and the trom-
bones and ophicleide by bundles of chords, and by
banging with all his might in the hurried rhythms, he
made such lightnings of sonority flash from the orches-
tra, such thunderbolts, that the public rubbed its eyes,
and took a liking to this new sort of emotions, Avhich w^ere
more lively if not more musical than any it had experi-
enced before. Encouraged by success, he pushed this
abuse still farther in Mo'ise, where, in the famous finale
of the third act, the big-drum, cymbals and triangle
strike in on all four beats of the measure in the fortes,
and give out consequently as many notes as the voices,
which latter accommodate themselves as can be imagined
to such an accompaniment. Nevertheless, the orchestra
and chorus of this number are so constructed, the sono-
rity of the voices and instruments thus disposed is so
overwhelming, that the music still comes to the surface
in the midst of all this din, and the mttsical fluid projected
in great waves to all points of the house, in spite of its
vast dimensions, seizes upon the audience, shakes it, makes
it vibrate, and one of the greatest effects that are to be

2 Qo " ^ TRA VERS CHA NTS. "

signalized at the Opera since its existence, is thus pro-
duced. But do the instruments of percussion contribute
to it ? Yes, if we consider them as a furious stimulant
to the other instruments and to the voices ; not so, if we
only take into account the real part they play in the
musical action, for they crush the orchestra and voices,
and substitute an insanely violent noise for a finely en-
ergetic sonority.

Be it as it may, from the time that Rossini came upon
the stage at the Opera, the instrumental revolution in
theatre orchestras was accomplished. The great noises
were used on every occasion, and in all w^orks, no matter
what style the subject demanded. Soon the drums,
big-drum, cymbals and triangle were no longer suffi-
cient, a snare-drum was added, then two cornets came
to aid the trumpets, trombones and ophicleide ; the
orean stationed itself behind the scenes next the bells,
and military bands were seen upon the stage, and at
last the great Sax instruments, which are to the other
voices of the orchestra as a columbiad to a musket.
Finally Halevy added the tam-tam to all these violent
means of instrumentation in his Magicienne. The new
composers, irritated at the obstacle the immense size of
the house put in their path, thought that it must be
overthrown at all hazards, to save their works from hav-
ing sentence of death passed on them. Now have we
generally remained within the conditions of worthy and
elevated art, by employing these extreme means to
ward off the obstacle by trying to destroy it ? Surely
not ! exceptions are rare.

The judicious use of the most vulgar, and even the
coarsest instruments, may be acknowledged by art, and
may really serve to increase its riches and power. Not
one of the means we have in our power to-day is to be
despised ; but the instrumental horrors that we witness
only become all the more odious, and I think that I have

''A TRAVERS CHANTS^

391

shown that they have, for their part, contributed greatly
to bringing about the vocal excesses which have led me
to make these too long, and, I fear, too useless reflec-
tions.

Add that these same excesses, gradually introduced
through the spirit of imitation upon the stage of the
Opera- Comique, are incomparably more revolting there,
when we take into consideration the peculiar conditions
of that theatre, its orchestra, its singers, and the general
tone of its repertoire,

I have thought proper to meet this question face to
face, for the first time, as the life of theatrical music ev-
idently depends upon it ; these truths may displease
some great artists, and some excellent and powerful
minds ; but I think that in their conscience they will
recognize that they are truths.

I mentioned, in the beginning, the moral causes of
the immense disorder, the physical causes of which I
have just studied. The influence of applause, and of
what dramatic artists especially still have the astounding
simplicity to call success, must be considered the fore-
most of them. The ridiculous importance given to ex-
ecutants, who are, or are thought to be, indispensable,
and the authority they have usurped, are not to be for-
gotten either. But this is not the place to examine
these questions ; we should have to write a whole vol-
ume on the subject.

IV.

THE BAD SINGERS, THE GOOD SINGERS. — THE PUB-
LIC—THE CLAQUEURS.

1HAVE said already that a singer or a cantatrice able
to sing only sixteen measures of good music in a nat-
ural, well-poised, and sympathetic voice, and sing them
without effort, without drawing and quartering the
phrase, without platitudes, without exaggerating the ac-
cents to turgidity, without affectation, without tricks,
without mistakes in French, without dangerous liaisons,
without hiatuses, without insolent modifications of the
text, without transposition, without hiccoughing, with-
out barking, without baa-ing, without false intonations,
without making the rhythm limp, without ridiculous
ornaments, without nauseous appoggiatitras, in a word,
so that the period written by the composer may be
comprehensible, and remain simply as he wrote it, is a
rare, very rare, excessively rare bird.

And it will become much rarer if the aberrations of
pubhc taste continue to manifest themselves as they do
now, with explosiveness, passion and hatred for com-
mon sense.

If a man has a strong voice, without knowing how to
use it the least bit in the world, without having the
most elementary notions of the art of singing ; if he only
forces a note violently, he is violently applauded for the
sonority of that note.

A TRAVELS CHANTS.

393

If a woman has for her only possession an exceptional
compass of voice ; if she can give, pertinently or not, a
low G or F moYQ like a death-rattle than a musical tone,
or else a high F that is quite as pleasant to the ear as
the squeal of a little dog when you step on his tail, that
is enough to make the whole house resound with accla-
mations.

Take this woman, who cannot sing the smallest mel-
ody without putting you into a fidget, whose warmth
of soul equals that of a block of Canadian ice ; if she
only has the gift of instrumental agility, no sooner does
she shoot forth her squibs and sky-rockets at the rate
of sixteen sixteenth-notes per bar, no sooner does her
infernal trill drill into your tympanum with ferocious
persistency for a whole minute without stopping to take
breath, than you are sure to see

" Les claqueurs monstrueux au parterre accroupis,"

(The monstrous claqueurs cowering in the pit) bound
up and yell with delight.

If a declaimer has got it through his skull that true
or false accentuation is all in all in dramatic music as
long as it is only outrageously exaggerated, and that it
can take the place of sonority, measure and rhythm,
that it is enough to compensate for the loss of singing,
form, melody, tempo and tonality ; that he has a right
to take the strangest liberties with the most admirable
productions, to satisfy the demands of a style which is
inflated, bombastic, bloated and bursting with emphasis;
when he puts this system in practice before a certain
public, the most lively and sincere enthusiasm rewards
him for having throttled a great master, spoiled a
masterpiece, shivered a beautiful melody to atoms, and
torn a sublime passion to tatters.

These people have one good quality, which would
not at any rate suffice to make singers of them, but

2Q4 . '^ A TRA VERS chants:'

which they have so exaggerated as to change it to a
fauh and a repulsive vice. It is no longer a beauty-
spot, it is a wart, a polypus, a wen spreading itself over a
face which is thoroughly insignificant if not absolutely
ugly. Such practitioners are the scourge of music ;
they demoralize the public, and it is a sin to encour-
age them. As for the singers who have a voice, a
human voice and sing, who know how to vocalize and
sing, who have some knowledge of music and sing,
who know how to accentuate discerningly and sing, and
who in singing respect the work and the composer,
whose faithful, attentive and intelligent interpreters they
are, the public has too often nothing better than proud
disdain or lukewarm encouragements for them. Their
regular and smooth countenance has no beauty-spot, no
wen, not the faintest wart. They wear no spangles, and
do not dance upon the phrase. But they are none the
less the really useful and charming singers, who, keep-
ing within the conditions of art, have earned the
suffrages of people of taste in general, and the gratitude
of composers in particular. It is through their efforts
that art exists, and by the others that it dies. But, you
Avill say, do you dare to insinuate that the public does
not applaud, and very warmly too, the great artists who
are masters of all the true resources of musical dramatic
singing, who are endowed with sensibility, intelligence,
virtuosity and that rare faculty that is called inspiration ?
No, undoubtedly, the public sometimes applauds them
also. At such times the public is like those sharks that
follow ships and get caught with a line ; it swallows all,
the bit of salt-pork with the hook.

THE FREYSCHVTZ AT THE OP^RA.^

1HAD just got back from my long peregrinations in
Germany, when M. Fillet, the director of the Opera,
formed the project of putting the Freyschiitz upon the
stage. But the musical numbers of this work are pre-
ceded and followed by prose dialogue, as in our comic
operas, and as the customs of the Opera require that
everything in the lyric dramas and tragedies of its reper-
toire should be sung, the spoken text had to be written
out in recitative form. M. Fillet proposed this task to
me.

"I do not think," I answered him, ''that the recita-
tives you ask for ought to be added to the Freysehilts ;
nevertheless, as it is the only condition under which it
can be given at the Opera, and as, if I did not write
them, you would intrust the composition to somebody
else less familiar with Weber, perhaps, than I, and cer-
tainly less devoted to the glorification of his masterpiece,
I accept your offer, on one condition : the Freyschiitz
shall be played absolutely as it is, without changing
anything either in the hbretto or the music."

"That is exactly my intention," replied M. Fillet;
**do you think I am the man to renew the scandals of
Robin des Bois ? "

* See "Art life and Theories -of Richard Wagner," (Amaieur Series)
page 92.— Trans.

396

A TRAVERS CHANTS:

"Very well. In that case I will go to work. How
do you intend to cast the parts?"

"I shall give the part of Agathe to Madame Stoltz,
that of Aeniichcn to Mademoiselle Dobre, Duprez will
sing Max''

"I bet he will not," said I, interrupting him.

"What makes you think he will not ?"

"You will find out soon enough."

"Bouche will make an excellent Caspar.''

"And who have you got for the Hermit?"

"Oh! ..." answered M. Pillet, embarrassed, "that
is a useless part that only drags the affair out ; I intend
to cut all of the business in which he has anything to
do."

" Oh ! that is all ? And this is the way you respect
the Freyschiitz, and do not imitate M. Castilblaze ! . . .
We are very far from agreeing ; allow me to retire, I
cannot have anything to do with this new correction."

"Oh Lord ! what a whole loaf man you are ! Well !
We will keep the Hermit^ and preserve everything, I
give you my word."

Emilien Paccini, who was to translate the German
libretto, having also given me this assurance, I consent-
ed, not without some misgivings, to take the composi-
tion of the recitatives upon myself The feeling which
led me to exact the preservation of the Freyschiltz in its
integrity, a feeling that many people called sheer feti-
chism, thus took away every pretext for remodeling or al-
tering the work, and for the suppressions and corrections
that would otherwise have been ardently indulged in.
But a serious inconvenience also resulted from my in-
flexibility : the spoken dialogue seemed too long when
set to music, in spite of the precaution I had taken to
make it as rapid as possible. I could never make the
actors abandon their slow, heavy and emphatic way of
and especially in the scenes between

"A TRAVERS chants:' 307

Max and Caspar, the musical rendering of their essen-
tially simple and familiar conversation had all the pomp
and solemnity of a scene in lyric tragedy. This hurt
the general effect of the FreyscJiiltz somewhat, though
it obtained a brilliant success. I did not wish to be
mentioned as the author of the recitatives, in which both
artists and critics still found some dramatic qualities and
one special merit, tJiat of the style, which, they said,
harmonized perfectly with that of Weber, and a reserve
in instrumentation that even my enemies were forced to
acknowledge.

As I had foreseen, Duprez, who had sung Max
(Tony) in the pasticcio of Robin des Bois ten years be-
fore, with his little light tenor voice, could not adapt his
big voice of leading tenor to the same part, which is
written rather low in general, it is true. He proposed
the most singular transpositions, necessarily intermingled
with the most insane modulations and the most gro-
tesque transitions ... I cut short all this folly, declaring
to M. Fillet that Duprez could not sing the part, by his
own admission, without disfiguring it completely. So it
was given to Marie, the second tenor, whose voice is
not without character in the lower part, a good musi-
cian, but a heavy and uninteresting singer.

Neither could Madame Stoltz sing Agathe without
transposing her two principal airs ; I had to transpose
the first one in E to D, and lower the prayer in A-Jiat
in the third act a minor third, which made it lose three-
quarters of its ravishing coloring. But, on the other
hand, she was able to keep the final sextet in B, and
sang the soprano part in it with an amount of verve and
enthusiasm that made the whole house burst into ap-
plause every evening.

It is one-quarter real difficulty, one-quarter ignorance,
and a good half caprice, that causes all this unwilling-
ness in singers to render their parts as they are written.
34

398

''A 'fKAVEKS CI/AXTS:'

They did not fail to try to introduce a ballet, all
my efforts to prevent it being in vain. I proposed to
compose a choregraphic scene, indicated by Weber him-
self in his rondo for piano -forte, the Invitation a la
valse, and I instrumented that charming piece. But the
ballet-master, instead of following the plan traced out
in the music, could only find the usual ballet common-
places, and trivial combinations, which must have charm-
ed the public very moderately. So to make up for
quality by quantity, they asked for the addition of three
more figures. And now come some dancers who have
got it into their heads that I had some movements in
my symphonies that were very suitable for dancing, and
would complete the ballet to perfection. They go and
speak to M. Fillet; he jumps at the idea, and comes to
ask me to introduce into Weber's score the ball-scene
from my Sympkouie fantastique and the festival from
Romeo et Juliette.

The German composer, Dessauer, was in Paris at that
time, and used to frequently come behind the scenes at
the Opera. I only answered the director's proposal by
saying :

"I cannot consent to introduce into the Freyschiitz
anything that is not by Weber, but to prove to you that
this is not from any exaggerated and unreasonable re-
spect for the great master, there is Dessauer walking
about at the back of the stage, let us go and submit
your idea to him ; if he approves, I will conform to your
wishes; if not, I beg you not to mention it again."

At the very first words of the director, Dessauer
turned quickly to me and said :

''Oh! Berlioz, don't do that."

"You hear him," said I to M. Fillet

So there was no more question of that. We took
dance airs from Oberon and Preciosa, and the ballet was
thus complete with only compositions by Weber. But

' ' A TRA I 'ERS CHA N TS:' ^ on

after a few performances the airs from Obcron and Pre-
ciosa disappeared ; then they cut and slashed away at
the Invitation a la valse, which had yet made a great
hit in its orchestral dress. When M. Fillet had left the
directorship of the Opera while I was in Russia, they
took up the Freyschiltz again, and cut a part of the
finale of the third act ; at last they dared to cut the
whole first scene of this same third act, in which are
the sublime prayer of Agathc, the scene of the young
girls, and Aennchen' s romantic air with viola solo.

And it is thus that the Freyschilts is given at the
Opera to-day. That masterpiece of poetry, originality
and passion serves as a make- weight for the most mis-
erable ballets, and must consequently be deformed to
make room for them. If some new choregraphic work
comes up more fully developed than its predecessors,
they will again prune away the Freyschiltz without the
slightest hesitation. And how they give what is left of
it ! What singers ! What a conductor ! What cow-
ardly drowsiness in the tempi I What discordance in
the ensembles / What a flat, stupid and revolting inter-
pretation of and by all ! . . . Go now and be an inventor,
a torch-bearer, an inspired man, a genius, to be thus
tortured, besoiled and vilified ! Unmannerly buyers
and sellers ! While waiting for the whip of a new Christ
to hunt you out of the temple, be assured that what of
Europe has the least feehng for art holds you in the
profoundest contempt.

VI.

TO BE, OR NOT TO BE.— PARAPHRASE.

^''T^O be, or not to be, that is the question : — Whether
1 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the bad operas, ri-
diculous concerts, second-rate virtuosos, mad composers,
or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and, by op-
posing, end them ? — To die, — to sleep, — no more : — and
by a sleep, to say we end the ear-ache, the sufferings of
heart and reason, and the thousand unnatural shocks our
critical faculty is heir to, — 'tis a consummation devoutly
to be wished. To die; — to sleep; — to sleep! per-
chance to have the nightmare; — ay, there's the rub;
for in that sleep of death what racking dreams may
come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, what
madcap theories we shall have to examine, hear what
discordant scores, praise what fools, see what outrages
perpetrated upon masterworks, what vagaries extolled,
what windmills taken for giants, must give us pause.
There's the respect that makes newspaper articles so
many, and makes the wretches who write them of so
long life ; for who would bear the society of a rattle-
brained world, the spectacle of its madness, the scorn
and blunders of its ignorance, the injustice of its jus-
tice, the icy indifference of its governors ? Who
would whirl in the gale of ignoble passions, of paltry
interest calling itself love of art, stoop to discussing the
400

** A TRAVERS chants:' ^01

absurd, be a soldier and teach his general how to drill
him, be a traveler and lead his guide who yet loses
his way, when he himself might his quietus make with
a flask of chloroform, or a steel-pointed slug? Who
would be content to see despair born from hope, wea-
riness from inaction, rage from patience ; but that the
dread of something after death, — the undiscovered
country, from whose bourn no critic returns, — puzzles
the will. . . — What, I cannot even find a few moments
for meditation ; Soft you, now ! The fair cantatricc,
Ophelia, armed with a score and grimacing with a
smile. What would you of me? Flatteries is it not,
always and forever." *'No, my lord; I have a score of
yours, that I have longed long to redeliver; I pray you,
now receive it." "No, not I ; I never gave you aught."
" My honored lord, you know right well, you did ; and,
with it, words of so sweet breath composed, as made
the thing more rich. Their perfume lost, take this
again ; for to the noble mind rich gifts wax poor when
givers prove unkind. There, my lord." "Ha, ha!
have you a heart ?" "My lord?" "Are you a singer?"
"What means your lordship?" "That if you have a
heart and be a singer, your heart should admit of no dis-
course to your singing." "Could singing, my lord,
have better commerce than with heart? " " Ay, truly ;
for the power of a talent like yours will sooner transform
heart from what it is to a bawd, than the force of heart
can translate singing into its likeness; this was some-
time a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did
admire you once." "Indeed, my lord, you made me
believe so." "You should not have believed me; I ad-
mired you not." "I was the more deceived." "Get
thee to a nunnery. What is your ambition ? A great
name, much money, the applause of fools, a titled hus-
band, the name of duchess. Ay, ay, they all dream of
marrying a prince. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of

402

A TRAVEKS chants:

idiots?" "O, help him, you sweet heavens!" "If
thou dost marry, I will give thee this sad truth for thy
dowry : let an artistic woman be as chaste as ice, as
pure as snow, she shall not escape calumny. Get thee
to a nunnery ; farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry,
marry a fool ; for wise men know well enough what
torments you have in store for them. To a nunnery,
go; and quickly too. Farewell." "Heavenly powers,
restore him ! " "I have heard of your vocal coquetries
too, well enough. God hath given you one voice, and
you make yourselves another. They confide to you a
masterwork, you change its very essence, you debase
it, you crowd it with wretched ornaments, you make in-
solent cuts, you introduce grotesque scales, laughable
arpeggios^ facetious trills; you insult the master, people
of taste, art and sense. Go to; I'll no more oft; to
a nunnery, go ! " [Exit.)

The young Ophelia is not wholly in the wrong,
Hamlet has rather lost his head. But it will not be
noticed in our musical world, where at present every one
is completely mad. Besides, he has lucid moments,
this poor prince of Denmark; he is but mad north-
north-west; when the wind is southerly, he know^s a
hawk from a hand-saw well enough.

APPENDICES,

APPENDIX A.

FUNERAL DISCOURSE OVER THE BODY OF HECTOR
BERLIOZ, DELIVERED BY M, GUILLAUME, PRESL
DENT OF THE AC AD £M IE DES BEAUX-ARTS.

GENTLEMEN :--To-day is the first beginning of
peace for the famous and ever-miHtant artist, for
whom the Academy of Fine Arts now wears mourning,
for he was truly of the men who are predestined to find
rest in the grave only. His life, passed amidst contradic-
tions and struggles, ended amidst sufferings, which sorrow
had, perhaps, caused, but which it assuredly aggravated
without stint. The circumstances of that life of torment
have been often told. Here, where we are met together
to look back upon it, I must confine myself to retracing
the prime facts of a noble career, and cast, with you, a
sorrowful glance at the rare merits which made it illus-
trious.

An irresistible call drew Berlioz early toward music,
and from his first attempts his vigorous nature led him
to repudiate all false conventionality and frivolity in the
art. He was only at the opening of his career, when
the originality of his genius flashed out upon the world ;
his first work, the Fantastic Symphony, made him
famous. His stay in Italy, where he spent two years as
an inmate of the Academy of France, strongly fixed his
irrevocable convictions, and, as his individuality ex-
34* 405

4o6

APPENDICES.

panded, he found new and lasting strength in commun-
ion with classic masterpieces. His symphony of Harold,
and above all, his Romeo and Juliet won him^esh.
laurels. In all he produced in after years profound
science has ever been manifest, acting as handmaiden to
a grandeur of sentiment and a pathos that knew how to
bring, under one sceptre the realms of the Lyric Drama
and of the Symphony. Fond of strong emotions, he
knew how to draw the most striking (saisissantes) effects
from vast combinations. Power and strength were con-
genital with him, and sublimity, which suggests struggle,
attracted his soul more than serene beauty.

Who of us, gentlemen, can forget the Funei'al and
Triumphal Symphony ? Who does not remember the
Requiem-Mass, in which the poignant vigor of expres-
sion engenders a sort of momentary terror ? But Ber-
lioz's genius was not confined within narrow limits ; he
could enter upon the most diverse planes of feeling, as
he has proved in his magnificent oratorio, the Childhood
of Christ ; and he went on, ever progressing, up to that
noble opera, The Trojans, a work full of dramatic fire,
and of a pathos worthy of antiquity ; a composition
broadly melodious, whose triumph its commanding
beauties should have assured.

But whatever the success of his works may have been,
Berlioz always seemed to think less of applause than of
the triumph of his convictions. Of a valiant nature and
firm convictions, he could not rest content with publish-
ing his beliefs through music alone ; he always felt the
need of defending with his pen the principles he thought
necessary to life and art. In all his critical labors, in the
midst of unexpected vivacities of form and the some-
times excessive polemic spirit of the day, we find a solid
basis of healthy and strengthening doctrines. It is there
that we can appreciate his whole mind, in which a restive
spirit of independence was yet allied to the largest

APPENDICES.

407

classic sentiment; it is there that his artist's conscience
stands wholly unveiled. His hatred for easy frivolity,
his respect for grand traditions are expressed in vig-
orous and passionate terms. Gluck and Beethoven
are his favorite masters ; a sincere love for their master-
pieces animates him to the enthusiastic pitch, moves him
to very tears. Noble intoxication, just pride of a mind
that comprehends the beautiful, and keeps itself proudly
aloof, in the midst of a debased public taste.

It was for the Academy of Fine Arts to welcome an
artist rendered noteworthy by the originality of his
works and the decision of his opinions ; it consecrated
by a brilliant election a career so well filled and crowned
by great fame and legitimate popularity. This mark of
high esteem was addressed to the musician, but the
man was no less worthy of it by his inviolable sincerity.
Who can contest it ? Berlioz, in all the vehemence of
his criticism, only attacked ideas, ideas alone were the
object of his generous wrath. He never knew envy ;
he always was ready to applaud the success of his
rivals, to lavish enthusiasm upon works really worthy
of admiration, and in which he recognized the principle
of progress.

Gentlemen, the genius of Berlioz will remain one of
the expressions of our century ; few artists are destined
to bear like him the marks of the time in which he lived.
By. the independent loftiness of his inspirations, by his
love for the free and pure sources of art, by his religious
cherishing of a grand ideal, founded upon truth, he was
one of the most energetic representatives of the spirit of
our time. He was modern both from his conception of
the artist and his personal originality. His sensibility
took delight in his own sufferings, and was ever ingen-
ious in re-opening his own wounds.

The pleasure that some souls take in the misfortunes
that are inseparable from life is dangerous. The strong-

4o8

APPENDICES.

est succumb to It. Berlioz's proud sarcasm seemed for
a long while to place him abov^e the reach of unjust at-
tacks. At last he fell a victim to that morbid sensibility
that thinks to raise itself above all ills by sounding their
depths. Melancholy took possession of him. Then
when the most cruel griefs were added to this incurable
affliction of his mind, when his wife and son were torn
from him by a premature death, he bent entirely. His
body was not strong enough to endure the deep lacera-
tions of his soul ; and after pitiless sufferings he fell.
Gentlemen, let us bow down before this long agony.
Berlioz, our dear and regretted colleague, deserves, be-
yond all other men, the profound peace to which he has
gone. May he rest in the bosom of that peace, the
dawning of a glory that shall ever grow greater, and
with which the Society of Fine Arts associates itself,
after honoring itself by supporting him in his trials; it
has come here to-day to bid him a last farewell.

APPENDIX B.

A COMPLETE CATALOGUE OF THE WORKS OF
HECTOR BERLIOZ.

Opus I.

OUVERTURE DE Waverley, en R^. (Overture to Wa-
verley, in D).

— Full score and parts.
Paris : Richault.
Leipzig : Hofmeister.
— For piano-forte a 4m.

Leipzig : Hofmeister.
Brunswick : Leibrock.
(First given at the Conservatoire, May 26th, 1828,
Habeneck conducting).

Opus 2.

Irlande : recueil de inorceaux de chant avec accorn-

pagnement de piano snr des paroles tradnites de

TJioinas Moore. (Ireland : a collection of songs with

piano-forte accompaniment, to words translated from

Thomas Moore).

Paris : Richault.
Two of these songs have also the original English
text ; the £Ugie and Adieu, Bessy.

La Belle Voyageuse and the Chant sacre are also pub-
lished in full score, instrumented by the composer.
35 409

41 o APPENDICES,

Opus 3.
OuvERTURE DES Francs-Juges. (Overture to the
Vehmic- Judges).

— Full score and parts.
Paris : Richault.
Leipzig: Hofmeister.
— In parts for military band, arranged by Wieprecht.

Paris : Richault.
— F'or piano-forte a 4m.
Paris : Richault.
Leipzig : Hofmeister.
— The same arranged by Karl Czerny.

Brunswick : Meyer.
— For piano-forte a 2m. arranged by F. Liszt.
Mainz : B. Schott's Sohnen.
(First given at the Conservatoire, May 26th, 1828,
Habeneck conducting).

Opus 4.
OuVERTURE DU Roi LeaR, en Ut. (Overture to King
Lear, in C).

— Full score and parts.
Paris : Richault.
Leipzig : Hofmeister.
— For piano-forte a 4m. arranged by J. A. Leib-
rock.

Paris : Richault.
Brunswick : Litolff.
— For piano-forte a 2m. arranged by J. A. Leib-
rock.

Brunswick : Litolff.
(First given at the Conservatoire, December 9th, 1 832,
Habeneck conducting).

Opus 5.
Messe DES MoRTS, Requiem. (Mass for the dead,
Requiem).

APPENDICES, 41 J

— Full score.

Paris : Schlesinger (out of print).
Milan: Ricordi.
— Full score and parts.

Leipzig : Hofmeister.
Berlioz says in his catalogue that Ricordi's edition Is
the only correct one, as it differs in several essential
points from Schlesinger's. He makes no mention of
Hofmeister's edition, which is probably a later one.

(Written in 1836 for the annual funeral service per-
f :)rmed in honor of the victims of the Revolution of July,
1830, but first given in the church of the Invalides,
December 5th, 1837, ^t the funeral service of General
Danremont and the French soldiers killed at the siege
of Constantina, October 12th, 1837. Habeneck con-
ducted the performance).

Opus 6.
Le Cinq Mai : Cantate pour voix de Basse et Chceur.
(The Fifth of May : Cantata for a bass voice and
chorus).

— Full score and parts.
— Piano-forte score.

[With French and German text].
Paris: Richault.

Opus 7.
Les Nuits D'EtE: recneil de six morceatix de chant
avec petit orchestre. (Summer nights : a collection
of six songs with small orchestra).
— Piano-forte score.

Paris : Richault.
There is a Swiss edition of this opus under the follow-
ing title :

Die Sommernachte, eine Sammlung von seeks Ge-
sangstikken mit kleinem Orchester,

^j2 APPEXDICES.

1. Ldndliches Lied. (Country Song).

2. Der Geist der Rose. (The Rose's Ghost).

3. A II f den Lagiinen. (On the Lagoons).

4. Trennnng. (Parting).

5. Aiif dem Friedhofe. \JMondscheiii\. (In the
Church-yard).

6. Das unbekannte Land. (The Unknown Country).
— Full score.

— Piano-forte score.

[With German and French text].
Winterthur : Rieter-Biedermann.
Leipzig : Hofmeister.
No. 2 differs slightly from the Paris edition.

Opus 8.
Reverie et Caprice, Ro7nance pour violon. (Revery
and Caprice, Romanza for violin).
— Full score and parts.
— Piano-forte score.

Paris : Richault.

Opus 9.
Le Carxaval Romaix, Ouverture caraete'ristiqne ;
deuxieine ouverture de Benvenuto Cellini, destinee a
etre executee avant le second acte de cet opera.
(The Roman Carnival, a characteristic overture; second
overture to Benvenuto Cellini, to be played before the
second act of the opera).
— P\ill score and parts.
— In parts.

Berlin : Schlesinger.
— For two piano-fortes a 8m. arranged by J. P.
Pixis.

Paris : Brandus.
— For piano-forte a 4m. arranged by J. P. Pixis.
Paris : Brandus.
Berlin : Schlesinger.

APPENDICES. 4j^

Opus lO.
Traite d'InstrUMENTATION, siiivi de la Thcorie du
Chef d' Orchestre. (A Treatise on Instrumentation,
followed by tne Theory of the Orchestral Conductor).

•In French. Paris : Schonenberger.
— In English. London : Ewer and Novell
— In German. Berlin : Schlesinger.

— In Italian. Milan : Ricordi.
The second [English and French] edition is the only
correct one ; it contains several new chapters, and others
have been remodeled. The Milan edition does not con-
tain the Theory of the Orchestral Conductor, which the
German publisher has published separately.

Opus I I.
Sara la Baigneuse : Ballade a trois c/iojitrs. (^Sara
at the Bath : Ballad for three choruses.)
— Full score and parts.

— Arranged for two voices with piano-forte accom-
paniment.

Paris : Richault.
\

Opus 12.

La Captive, Reverie de Victor Hugo, pour contralto.
(The Captive, Revery by Victor Hugo, for a contralto
voice).

— Full score.

— Piano- forte score.

Paris: Richault
— Piano-forte score with French and German text.
Berlin : Schlesinger.
Leipzig: Kahnt.

Opus 13.
Fleurs DES Landes: Recueil de cinq morceaux de
chant avec piano. (Moorland Flowers : a collection
of five songs with piano-forte accompaniment).

.jj^ APPEXDICES.

— Paris : Rich au It.
The fohowing are pubhshed separately with French
and German text.

Le Matin. (Morning).
Le Tre bucket. (The Trap).

Vienna : Mechetti.
Le Pdtre breton. (The Breton Shepherd), in full
score.

Paris: Richault.

Opus 14 a.
Symphonie Fantastique, premiere partie de V Episode
de la vie d'tin artiste. (Fantastic Symphony, first part
of the Episode in the Life of an Artist).
— Full score and parts.
Paris : Brandus.
— For piano-forte a 2m. arranged by F. Liszt.
Paris : Brandus.
Vienna: Witzendorf
— 4th movement {Marche an Snpplice) arranged
for piano-forte a 4m. from Liszt's transcrip-
tion, by F. Mockwitz.
Berlin: Schlesinger.

Opus 14 b.
Lelio, OU le RetoUR a la Vie: Monodrame lyrique,
denxihne partie de V Episode de la vie d'lm artiste.
(Lelio, or the Return to Life : Lyric monodrama,
second part of the Episode in the Life of an Artist).
— Full score and parts.
Paris: Richault.
— Piano-forte score with French and German text.
Paris : Richault.
Leipzig : Hofmeister.
The Dramatic Fantasy on Shakspere's Tempest, with
which the work closes, can be performed separately.

APPENDICES.

415

(The Fantasy on the Tempest was first given at the
Opera in 1829. The Fantastie SympJioiiy was first
given at the Conservatoire in 1830. The work was
first given entire at the Conservatoire, December 9th,
1832. Habeneck conducted, and Bocage, the actor, re-
cited the part of Lelio).

Opus 15.
Grande Symphonie funebre et triomphale, pour
grande harmonie militaire, avec tin orehestre d' instru-
ments a cordes, et tin ehoetir ad libitum. (Grand
Funeral and Triumphal Symphony, for full military
band, with string-orchestra and chorus ad libitum).
— Full score and parts.

— The Apotheose in parts for Sax instruments.
Paris : Brandus.
(Written for and performed at the ceremony of the
transfer of the remains of the victims of the Revolution
of July to the Bastille Column, July 28th, 1 840).

Opus 16.
Harold en Italie : Symphonic en quatre parties
avec iin alto principal. (Harold in Italy : symphony
in four movements, with viola obbligata).
— Full score and parts.
Paris : Brandus.
(First given at the Conservatoire, November 23d,
1834. Urhan played the leading viola part, and Girard
conducted).

Opus 17.
Romeo et Juliette: Symphonic Dramatique avec
chceurs, solos de chant et Prologue en recitatif choral^
d'apres la Ti^agedie de Shakspere. (Romeo and Juliet :
Dramatic Symphony with chorus, solos and Prologue
in choral recitative, after Shakspere's Tragedy).

4i6

APPENDICES.

— Full score and parts.
Paris : Brandus.
— Piano-forte score arranged by Theodor Ritter.
[With French and German text].
Winterthur : Rieter-Biedermann.
Leipzig: Hofmeister.
^Second movement, Fete chez Capulet, for two
pianos-fortes a 8m. arranged by R. Pohl.
Leipzig: Klemm.
— Adagio, Scene d'amoiii% for piano-forte a 2m. ar-
— ranged by Theodor Ritter.
Berlin : Schlesinger.
The piano-forte score is indispensable for choral re-
hearsals of the symphony.

(First given in Paris, November 24th, 1839, under
Berlioz's own direction).

Opus 18.
Tristia, rcciieil de deux chceiirs, et d'lme inarcJie fiuicbre
avec ckceitrs. (Tristia, a collection of two choruses,
and a funeral march with chorusj.
— Full score and parts.
Paris : Richault.
No, I. Meditation religieitse, and No. 2, Ballade siir
la viort d' OpJielie, are also published in piano-forte
score

Opus 19.
Feuillets D' Album, recucil de trois moire aux de
chant, dont nn avec cJioeiir. (Album Leaves, a col-
lection of three songs, of which one is with chorus).
Paris : Richault.
No. I. Zaide [With French and German text].

Vienna : Haslinger.
No. I. Zaide and No. 2 Les Champs.
Vienna: Pietro Mechetti.

A PPEXDICES. ^ I y

The following may also be considered as belonging to
the Fe2iilkts d 'Alburn :

La Priere du Matin, ckceur a deux voix. (The
Morning Prayer, two-part chorus).
— Piano-forte score.

Paris: Escudier.
La belle Isabeau, conte pendant rorage, avcc cJuvur
(The Fair Isabeau, a tale during the storm, with
chorus).

— Piano-forte score.

Paris : Edmont Mayaud.
Le Chasseur Danois, cJiaiit pour roix de basse,
(The Danish Hunter, song for a bass voice).
—Piano -forte score.

Paris : Edmont Mayaud.
Berlin : Stern und Cie.

Opus 20,
Vox POPULI, deux grands cJiceurs avec orehestre : La
Menace des Francs, et I ' Hymne a la France. (Vox
Populi, two grand choruses with orchestra : The
Franks' Threat, and the Hymn to France).
— Full score.

Paris : Richault

Opus 21.
Ouverture du Corsaire, (Overture to the Cor-
sair).

— Full score and parts.
Paris : Richault.
— For piano-forte a 4m. arranged by Hans v.

Bulow%
— For piano-forte a 2m. arranged by Hans v.
Billow.

Winterthur : Rieter-Biedermann.

35 =

4i8

APPENDICES.

Opus 22.
Te Deum, a trois chcetirs, avec orchestre et orgue oblige.
(Te Deum for three choruses, with orchestra and
obbhgato organ).
— Full score.

Paris : Brandus.
(Brought out April 30th, 1854, in the church of Saint-
Eustache, at the Thanksgiving Service for the safety of
the Emperor's life after the attempt at his assassination
on the 28thj.

Opus 23.
Benvenuto Cellini, Opera semiseria en trois actes.
(Benvenuto Cellini, Opera semiseria in three acts).
— Piano-forte score with French and German text.

Brunswick : Meyer und Litolff.
— Overture in full score and parts.
— Overture a 4m. arranged by Hans von Biilow.
— Overture a 2m. arranged by A. Fumagalli.
Berlin : Schlesinger.
Several numbers have been published separately in
piano-forte score by Brandus in Paris.

The full score is not published. The MS. copy at the
Opera in Paris is in the most complete disorder, and
does not contain the alterations made by the composer
before bringing out the work in Weimar. There is a
correct MS. copy at the Opera House in Weimar.

{^Benvenuto Cellini, was brought out at the Opera in
Paris, September 3d, 1836, Habeneck conducting. The
principal features of the cast were : Benvenuto, Duprez ;
Teresa, Madame Gras-Dorus; Ascanio, Madame Stoltz).

Opus 24.
La Damnation de Faust, Legende en quatre actes.
(^The Damnation o{ Faust, Legend in four acts).
— Full score and parts.

APPENDICES. 4IC)

— Piano- forte score.

[With French and German text].
Paris: Richault,
Leipzig : Hofmeister.
Marc he Hojigroise,

— For piano-forte a 4m. arranged by J. Benedict.
— For piano-forte a 2m. arranged by Ed. Wolff.
Berlin : Bote und Bock.
Hyinne de la Fete de Pdques.

— For piano-forte a 2m. arranged by Camilla
Saint-Saens.

Paris : Richault.

(Brought out at the Opera-Comique, December 6,

1846, under Berlioz's own direction. The principal

features of the cast were : Faust, Roger ; MephistopJieles^

Herman Leon ; Marguerite, Madame Duflot-Maillard).

Opus 25.

L'Enfance DU Christ, Trilogie Sacr^e. {Le Songe

d' Her ode, La Ftiite en Egypte, L Arrive e a Sals).

(The Childhood of Christ, a sacred Trilogy. [Herod's

Dream, The Flight into Egypt, The Arrival in Sais]).

— Full score and parts with French and German

text.

Paris : Richault.
Leipzig : Hofmeister.
— Piano-forte score.

With French and German text, Paris : Richault.
With French and German text, Leipzig: Hof-
meister.
With French and English text London : Beale.
La Ftiite en Egypte.
— Full score.
— Piano-forte score.
[With French and German text].
Leipzig: Kistner.

^20 APPENDICES.

(The Enfance die Christ was brought out in Paris at
the Salle Herz, Sunday, December lOth, 1854, under
Berlioz's own direction. The cast was : Marie, Madame
Meillet ; Jos€pJi, Meillet; Herode, Depassio ; Pcre de
famiile, Battaille; Polydorus, Noir. The recitatives
were sung by Jourdan .

Opus 26.
LTmperiale, Cantate a deux ckcenrs, ct a grand
orchestre, (The Emperor's Cantata, for two choruses
and grand orchestra).
— Full score.

Paris : Brandus.
(Brought out in the Palais de ITndustrie in the
Champs-Elysees in 1855, BerUoz conducted the per-
formance).

The following works have no opus number.

Beatrice ET Benedict, Opc'ra-comiqne en deux actes.
(Beatrice and Benedick, Comic opera in two acts).
— Piano-forte score with French and German text.
Berlin : Bote und Bock.
(Brought out at the new Opera- House in Baden-
Baden, August 9th, 1862, under Berlioz's own direc-
tion. The principal features of the cast were : Benedict,
Montaubry ; Beatrice, Madame Charton-Demeur ; HerOy
Mademoiselle Monrose).

LES TROYENS.

I. La Prise de Troie, Opera en trois actes. (The Fall
of Troy, Opera in three acts).
— Piano-forte score.

Berlin : Bote und Bock.
Paris : Choudens.
(Never performed).

APPEXDICES. A 2 I

II. Les Troyens a Carthage, 0/>e7'a en cinq actes.
(The Trojans in Carthage, Opera in five acts).
— Piano-forte score.

Berhn : Bote und Bock.
Paris: Choudens.^
(Brought out at the Theatre-Lyrique, November 4th,
1863, Carvalho conjiucting. The principal features of
the cast were : Eitee, Monjauze ; Didon, Madame
Charton-Demeur; Hylas, Cabel).

The following orchestral transcriptions by Berlioz are
published.

Roiiget de V Isles La Marseillaise, arranged for
chorus and grand orchestra.
— Full score.

Paris : Brandus.
Leopold de Meyer s Marche Marocaine, arranged for
grand orchestra.
— Full score.

Paris : Escudier.
Karl Maria von Weber's INVITATION A LA Valse,
arranged for grand orchestra.
—Full score.

Paris : Brandus.

A piano- forte score of von Weber's Der Freyschiitz
with recitatives by Berlioz is published by Schlesinger
in Paris. A collection of airs selected from Berlioz's
works, is published by Choudens in Paris.

1 Very incomplete and otherwise faulty.

INDEX

OF IMPORTANT NAMES, PLACES AND WORKS MENTIONED IN THIS
VOLUME.

ACADEMIE ROYAL DE MUSIQUE

(see also Opera), 276.
Adam, 13.
Alboni, 248.

Alceste (by Gluck), 189.
Alexandre, 60, 315.
Alizard, 135.
Amussat, 16, 311.
Andrieux, 16.

Antigone (by Mendelssohn), 131.
Antony (by Dumas), 45.
Aristoxenus, 367.
Arviide (by Gluck), 179.
Artot, 132.
Auber, 13, 76, 354.

BACH, 96, 126, 166, 193.

Balzac, 225, 290.

Barbier, 207.

Barnum, 255.

Beethoven, 5, 24, 27, 73, 100, 164, 210, 213,

275, 298, 300, 371, 407.
Benvenuto Cellini (by Berlioz), 11, 49.

Cavatina from, 140.

Overture to, 157, 200.

Berlin, 84, 138, 164, 176, igi.
Berlioz, Louis, 56, 71, 74.
Berlin, Armand, 49.
Bertin, Louise, 164.

Berton, 24.

Beverley (scene from, by Berlioz), 18, 19.

Bigottini, Mile., 16.

Black Forest, 105.

Bocage, 44.

Boccherini, 292.

Bohrer brothers, 82, 152, 213.

Boieldieu, 24.

Borghi-Mamo, 284.

Branchu, 16, 233.

Breslau, 52.

Brunswick, 7, 150.

Brussels, 81.

Burgmiiller, 274.

CABEL, 324.

Calais, rue de, 75.

Cannobiana, teatro della, 384-

Captivey la (by Berlioz), 44.

Carlsruhe, 117, 343.

Carnaval Romain, le (by Berlioz), 12.

Cassel, 217.

Castil-Blaze, 319.

Catel, 24.

Cenere7iiola, la (by Rossini), 381.

Charles X, 253.

Chateaubriand, 19.

Chelard, 119, 121.

Cherubini, 5, 24, 29, 354,

424

INDEX.

Cheval Arabe, le (by Berlioz), 17.

Chopin, 214.

Citnarosa, 165.

Cinq-Mai, le (by Berlioz), 145, 163, 203,

206, 211, 217, 220.
Cleopatra after the Battle of Actiu7n (by

Berlioz), 32.
Conservatoire, 23, 31, 49, 82, 172.
Cosifan Tutte (by Mozart), 100.
Costa, 6, 26.

Cote-Saint-Andre, la, 3, 20, 56.
Covent Garden, 271, 386.

DAMCKE, 71.

Danatdes, les (by Salieri), 16,

Darmstadt, 207, 217.

David, Ferdinand, 131.

Death of JesHs, the (by Graun), 195.

Derivis, 16, 18, 233, 243.

Desmarest, 191.

Dessauer, 398.

Dobre, 396.

Dohler, 214, 302.

Do7i Carlos (by Schiller), igg.

Don Giovanni (by Mozart), 26, 100, 276,

381.
Donis-Gras, 247.
Dorval, 45, 184.
Dotzauer, 146.
Dresden, 84, 138.
Drury Lane, 273.
Due, 345.

"Ducre, Pierre," 12, 346.
Duponchel, 245.
Duprez, 248, 251, 396.

ELLA, 345.

Enfafice du Christ, V (by Berlioz), 9, 345,

406.
Erard, 314.
Ernst, 138.
Estelle, the "Stella mentis"; Madame

F***, IS, 63, 64, 68, 74-
Estelle et Nemoriti (by Florian), 14, 18, 19.

FALCON, 184.

Fall of Jerusalem, the (by Hiller), 93, IT9.

Fantastic Symphony (by Berlioz), 15, 45,

49, 103, 108, 121, 132, 139, 141, 405.
Faust (by Goethe), 32, 119.
(by Spohr), 90.

Faicst, la Datnnation de (by Berlioz), 7,

54, 70-
Ferrand, 20, 52.
Fetis, 5, 347.

Feydeau, 17, see also Opera-Comique.
Fidelia (by Beethoven), 89, 181.
Figaro, le Nozze di (by Mozart), 26, 100,

178, 220, 381.
Fingal's Cave (by Mendelssohn), 127.
Flrmin, 45.
Fliegende Hollander, der (by Wagner),

142.
Florence, 34.
Florian, 14.
Folies-Nouvelles, 3t9.
Francs-fuges, les (by Berlioz), 20, 46, 103,

i?i, 132, 196.
Frankfort a M., 81, 84, 87.
Freischiitz, der (by Weber), 99, 178, 276,

381, 395-

GAMBARA (by Balzac), 290.

Ganz brothers, 167.

Gasparin, de, 47.

Gautier, Mme. , 15.

Gay-Lussac, 16.

Genast, 120.

Genoa, 37.

Georges, Mile., 184.

Girard, 6, 47, 95.

Gluck, 5, 24, 27, 73, 12=;. 181, 188, 233, 407.

Goethe, 119.

Goldschmidt, 261.

Graun, 195.

Grenoble, 3, 75.

Griepenkerl, 161, 216,

Grisi, 248.

Guhr, 87, 99, 217.

Guldo d'Arezzo, 366.

Guillaume, 75, 405.

Gjiillainne Tell (by Rossini), 97, 251, 284.

Gymnase-Dramatique, 237.

Gyrowetz, 291.

HABENECK, 6, 47, 176.

Hahnel, Mile., 174, 206.

Halevy, 13, 390.

Hamburg, 150, 161.

Hamlet (by Shakspere), 28, 45, 59.

Handel, 319.

Hanover, 11, 207, 213.

INDEX.

4:^5

Hanover, Prince Royal of, 217.

Harold en Italic (by Berlioz), 47, 49, 104,

108, 117, 145, 154, 163, 200, 211, 406.
Harpe, rue de la, 23.
Hasse, 148.
Hasse, Faustina, 149,
Haydn, 100.
Hechingen, 105.
Heine, Henri, 9, 150, 246.

Solomon, 163.

Heinefetter, Mile., 118.

Heller, 76, 123.

Herder, 97.

Heroic SyvipJiony (by Beethoven), 290.

Hiller, 92.

Homer, 71.

Horwath, 52.

Hugo, 164.

Hiigueitots, les, (by Meyerbeer), 97, 99,

179, 181, 284, 383.
Humboldt, 198.
Hummel, 120.

IDOMENEO (by Mozart), too.
linperiale, V (by Berlioz), 11.
Invalides, Church of the, 378.
Iphigenie en Aulidc (by Gluck), 388.
<?« Tauride (by Gluck), 16, 127,

JANIN, 164.

Jean Bart, 143, 341.

Jenny Bell (by Scribe), 318.

Joseph (by Mehul), 354.

Jouy, 236.

Jitiz'e, la (by Halevy), 284.

KaNT, 97.
Krebs, 99, 162.
Kreutzer, 26.

LABLACHE, 22.

Lachner, Vincenz, 118.

Lachnith, 25.

La Fontaine, 14, 29.

Lear, King (by Shakspere), 121.

Le'ar, le Roi (by Berlioz), 11, 41

120, 132, 139.

Leibrock, 154.
Leipzig, 125, 128.
Lelio (by Berlioz), 44.

Lconorc, overture to (by Beethoven), 116.

Lesueur, 17, 24, 218, 365.

Levasseur, 181.

Lind, Jenny, 255, 385.

Linda di Cha77ionnix (by Donizetti), 163,

273-
Lindpaintner, 98.
Lipinski, 7, 81, 139, 144, 149.
Liszt, 46, 54, no, 248.
Lobe, 119, 121.
London, Opera in, 270.
Lortzing, 137.

L.ucia di Lanimermoor (by Donizetti), 285.
Lulli, 318.
Lyons, 64.

MAGDEBURG, 212.

Magic Fhtte, the (by Mozart), 162, 276.

Magicieyine, la (by Halevy), 390.

Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre, 14.

Malibran, Mme., 250, 361.

Mangold brothers, 82, 219.

Manheim, 117.

Mantius, 174.

Marcello, 149.

Marie, 397.

Mario, 248, 271.

Marmonte), 374.

Marpurg, 96.

Mars, Mile., 45.

Marschner. 8i, 213.

Martin, 9.

Matilda di Sabrnn (by Rossini), 42.

Matriinonio Scgreto, il (by Cimarosa), 166.

Mayence, 81, 86.

Mazarin, 264.

Medea, (choruses to, by Taubert), 173.

Medecin jnnlgre' lid, le (by Moliere), 97.

Medicis, The, 207.

Meillet, M. and Mme., 324.

Mendelssohn, 33, 81, 99, 123.

Mercadante, 340.

Mer>% 65.

Metternich, Prince de, 13.

Meyerbeer, 81, 138, 167, 179, 188, 197, 199,

266.
Meylan, 64.
Midsummer Night's Dream, Overture to,

(by Mendelssohn), 129.
Milanollo sisters, the, 88.

426

INDEX.

Motse en Egypte (by Rossini), 99, 146, 163,

275, 389-
Moliere, 29, no.
Molique, loi.
Monaco, 74.
Montfort, 125.

Montmartre, Cemetery of, 60, 75.
Moore, 210.
Morel, 81.
Moscow, 54.
Motteville, 334.
Mozart, 165, 276, 342.
Muette de Portici, la (by Auber), 99.
MiJller family, the, 82, 152.

NAPOLEON I, 145.

Nathan-Treillet, Mme., 84.

Nero, 229.

Neukirchner, loi.

Nice, 41, 74.

Nina (by Persuis), 16.

Nourrit, 381.

Numa Pompilius, 228.

OB E RON (by Weber), 146, 398.
Odeon, Theatre de 1', 28.
Olympus, 367.

Opera, Theatre de 1', 49, 262, 349, 381.
Opera-Comique, 44, 236.
Orphee (by Gluck), 100, 381.
Orpheus torn to pieces by Bacchattts (by
Berlioz), [£« Mort d'Orphe'e], 24, 30.
Osborne, 207.
Ours et le Paclia, V (by Scribe), 3^9.

PACCINI, 396.
Paer, 24.

Paganini, 7, 46, 49.
Page, 331-
Paris, 82, 207, 333.
Parish-Alvars, 145, 217.
Passion-Mjisic (by Bach), 166, 192.
Pastoral Symphony (by Beethoven), 293.
Patti, 68.

Paul a^d Virginia (by Bemardin de Saint-
Pierre), 71.
Pergolese, 312.

Peri, la (by Burgmiiller), 274.
Perpignan, 212.
Perrin, 75, 324.
Persiani, 248.

Pesth, 52.

Pietra Santa, 38.

Pillet, 396.

Pischek, 22, 89, 174, 385.

Planche, 290.

Poliuto (by Donizetti), 72.

Pomare, 331.

Pons, de, 19.

Poussard, 171.

Prado, le, 291.

Preciosa (by Weber), 398.

Prise de Troie, la (by Berlioz), 13.

Pro7)ietheus (by Beethoven), 100.

Prophete, le (by Meyerbeer), 271, 284.

Prussia, Prince of, 196.

Princess of, 197.

King of, 191, 198.

Queen of, 198.

Puget, Loisa, 85.

QUINAULT, 187.

RACHEL, 249.

Rdkoczy-indulo (by Berlioz), 52.

Reissiger, 142.

Requiem (by Berlioz), 9, 10, 47, 139, 141,

i57> 199. 406.
Rhine, the, 86.
Rienzi (by Wagner), 142.
Ries, 167.
Riga, 54-

Rob Roy, Overture to, (by Berlioz), 43.
Robert le Diable (by Meyerbeer), 273, 284.
Robin des Bois (by Weber filtered through

Castil-Blaze), 395.
Roedern, comte de, 198.
Roger, 285.
Romberg, 201.
Rome, 24, 43.

Rotneo and Juliet (by Shakspere), 28.
Romeo et Juliette (by Berlioz), 7, 11, 51,

133, 145, 15s, 199, 205, 211, 218, 406.
Roqueplan, 247.
Rossini, 13, 275, 301, 389.
Rothschild, 218.
Rouget de I'lsle, 319, 358.
Rousseau, 360.
Rubini, 126.

SAINT-ANTOINE, 323.
Saint-Eustache, Church of, 291.

INDEX.

427

Saint-Lazare, rue, 324.

Saint-Lcger, 22.

Saint-Marc, rue de, 44.

Saint-Roch, Church of, 18, 233.

Saint- Valery-en-Caux, 334.

Sainte-Chapelle, the, 346.

San Carlo, teatro di, 384.

Sappho, 367.

Sardanapale (by Berlioz), 32, 46, 125.

Sax, 13, loi, 147, 169, 197.

Scala, teatro della, 384.

Schiller, 119.

Schilling; 96

Schlosser, 82, 218.

Schmetzer, 157.

Schott, 86.

Schrade, 102.

Schroder-Devrient, Mme.. 90, 144, 174, 181.

Schumann, Clara, 137.
Robert, 136.

Schutter, 44.

Scribe, 318.

Semirai7iide (by Rossini), 342.

Serail, die Entfuhrung aus dein, (by Mo-
zart), 100.

Shakspere, 7, 28, 59, 71, 73, 211.

Siege de Corintke, le (by Rossini), 13, 389.

Smithson, Miss, 38, 44, 45, 56, 57.

Snel, 85.

Spohr, 33, 217.

Spontini, 5, 27, 189, 205, 233, 275, 389.

St. Petersburg, 54, 74.

Stern, 107.

Stoltz, 250, 396.

Strakosch, 67.

Stratonice (by Mehul), 16.

Strauss, 86.

Stuttgard, 96.

Sulla (by Jouy), 236.

Sylphide, la, 284.

Syiiiphonie fiviebre et triotnphale (by Ber-
lioz), II, 51, 139, 406.

Symphony in C-minor (by Beethoven),
361.

TAGLIONI, Paul, 186.
Tamburini, 248.

Tasso, 189.

Taubert, 172.

TV Deutn (by Berlioz), 10.

(by Hasse), 148.

Techlisbeck, 107.
Telemaco (by Gluck), 125.
Temple, faubourg du, 322.
Templer U7id Jiidin (by Marschner), 213.
Terpander, 367.
Thalberg, 143.
Theatre-Itallen, le, 43.
Thenard, 16.
Tichatschek, 140, 385.
Timotheus, 360.
Trinite, church of la, 75.
Trio in B-flat (by Beethoven), 379.
Troyens a Cartlmge, les (by Berlioz), 63,
70, 406.

URHaN, 213.

VALENTINO, 18.

Vanicoro, 336.

Vavipyr, der (by Marschner), 120, 213.

Vatel, 247.

Vernet, 34, 40, 327.

Vestale, la (by Spontini), 99, 275, 361, 389.

Veule, 337.

Vienna, 13, 5%54-

Vienne, 3.

Villafranca, 41.

Virgil, 14, 71, 73.

Vivier, 102.

Voltaire, 28.

WAGNER, 142.

Wallenstein (by Schiller), 119.

Walpzirgisnacht, die (by Mendelssohn),

128.
Weber, 5, 13, 24, 100, 148.
Weimar, 116, 119, 218.
Westmoreland, Earl of, 197.
Wiprecht, 171, 196.

ZEMIRE ET AZOR (by Marmontel),
374-

THE END.

Date Due

l+^-rt.

May 4-

1^48

MAY i 3 1

MAY i ^

. .W^,

JUN 9 1

)49

" ;?

MAY 1 5

1950

OCT 11

1997

NW 0 8

Library Buracu Cat. no. 1137

927,81 B45se

3 5002 00382 5267

Berlioz, Hector

Hector Berlioz; selections from his lett

10 .B5 A2

Berlioz^ Hector> 1803-1869.

Hector Berlioz; select!
from his letters, and

onj

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