{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_21056/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_21056","id":"gutenberg_21056","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21056","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: History - Religious","Category: Music","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Music in art","Musicians -- Biography","Musicians -- Portraits"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Frontispiece: The Tone Masters.  Haydn, Mozart, Handel, Beethoven.\nFrom painting by Hans Temple.]\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAmong the Great\n\nMasters of Music\n\nScenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians\n\n\n\n_Thirty-two Reproductions of Famous Paintings_\n\n_with Text by_\n\nWalter Rowlands\n\n\n\n\nLondon\n\nE. Grant Richards\n\n1906\n\n\n\n\nTO\n\nMiss Jane Rowlands\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n  ST. CECILIA\n  PALESTRINA\n  LULLI\n  STRADIVARIUS\n  TARTINI\n  BACH\n  HANDEL\n  GLUCK\n  MOZART\n  LINLEY\n  HAYDN\n  WEBER\n  BEETHOVEN\n  SCHUBERT\n  ROUGET DE LISLE\n  PAGANINI\n  MENDELSSOHN\n  CHOPIN\n  MEYERBEER\n  WAGNER\n  LISZT\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.\n\n\n  THE TONE MASTERS . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_\n  ST. CECILIA\n  PALESTRINA\n  THE YOUNG LULLI\n  STRADIVARIUS\n  TARTINI'S DREAM\n  BACH'S PRELUDES\n  MORNING DEVOTIONS IN THE FAMILY OF BACH\n  FREDERICK THE GREAT AND BACH\n  THE CHILD HANDEL\n  HANDEL AND GEORGE I.\n  GLUCK AT THE TRIANON\n  MOZART AND HIS SISTER BEFORE MARIA THERESA\n  MOZART AND MADAME DE POMPADOUR\n  MOZART AT THE ORGAN\n  THE LAST DAYS OF MOZART\n  SHERIDAN AT THE LINLEYS'\n  HAYDN CROSSING THE ENGLISH CHANNEL\n  THE \"LAST THOUGHTS\" OF VON WEBER\n  BEETHOVEN AT BONN\n  BEETHOVEN IN HIS STUDY\n  A SYMPHONY BY BEETHOVEN\n  BEETHOVEN'S DREAM\n  SCHUBERT AT THE PIANO\n  ROUGET DE LISLE SINGING THE MARSEILLAISE\n  PAGANINI IN PRISON\n  SONG WITHOUT WORDS\n  CHOPIN AT PRINCE RADZIWILL'S\n  THE DEATH OF CHOPIN\n  MEYERBEER\n  WAGNER AT HOME\n  A MORNING WITH LISZT\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\nThe compiler's thanks are due to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., and\nto Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, for permission to use a selection\nfrom \"The Silent Partner.\"\n\n\n\n\nMusic is the link between spiritual and sensual life.--_Beethoven_.\n\n          And while we hear\n  The tides of Music's golden sea\n  Setting toward eternity,\n  Uplifted high in heart and hope are we.\n      --_Tennyson_.\n\nMusic in the best sense has little need of novelty, on the contrary,\nthe older it is, the more one is accustomed to it, the greater is the\neffect it produces.--_Goethe_.\n\nMusic is a kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads us to\nthe edge of the infinite, and lets us for moments gaze into\nthat.--_Carlyle_.\n\n\n\n\nAMONG THE GREAT MASTERS OF MUSIC.\n\n\nST. CECILIA.\n\nOne of the most ancient legends handed down to us by the early Church\nis that of St. Cecilia, the patroness of music and musicians.  She is\nknown to have been honoured by Christians as far back as the third\ncentury, in which she is supposed to have lived.\n\nDoubtless much of fancy has been added, in all the ensuing years, to\nthe facts of Cecilia's life and death.  Let us, however, take the\nlegend as it stands.  It says that St. Cecilia was a noble Roman lady,\nwho lived in the reign of the Emperor Alexander Severus.  Her parents,\nwho secretly professed Christianity, brought her up in their own faith,\nand from her earliest childhood she was remarkable for her enthusiastic\npiety: she carried night and day a copy of the Gospel concealed within\nthe folds of her robe; and she made a secret but solemn vow to preserve\nher chastity, devoting herself to heavenly things, and shunning the\npleasures and vanities of the world.  As she excelled in music, she\nturned her good gift to the glory of God, and composed hymns, which she\nsang herself with such ravishing sweetness, that even the angels\ndescended from heaven to listen to her, or to join their voices with\nhers.  She played on all instruments, but none sufficed to breathe\nforth that flood of harmony with which her whole soul was filled;\ntherefore she invented the organ, consecrating it to the service of\nGod.  When she was about sixteen, her parents married her to a young\nRoman, virtuous, rich, and of noble birth, named Valerian.  He was,\nhowever, still in the darkness of the old religion.  Cecilia, in\nobedience to her parents, accepted the husband they had ordained for\nher; but beneath her bridal robes she put on a coarse garment of\npenance, and, as she walked to the temple, renewed her vow of chastity,\npraying to God that she might have strength to keep it.  And it so fell\nout; for, by her fervent eloquence, she not only persuaded her husband,\nValerian, to respect her vow, but converted him to the true faith.  She\ntold him that she had a guardian angel who watched over her night and\nday, and would suffer no earthly lover to approach her.  And when\nValerian desired to see this angel, she sent him to seek the aged St.\nUrban, who, being persecuted by the heathen, had sought refuge in\ncatacombs.  After listening to the instructions of that holy man, the\nconversion of Valerian was perfected, and he was baptised.  Returning\nthen to his wife, he heard, as he entered, the most entrancing music;\nand, on reaching her chamber, beheld an angel, who was standing near\nher, and who held in his hand two crowns of roses gathered in Paradise,\nimmortal in their freshness and perfume, but invisible to the eyes of\nunbelievers.  With these he encircled the brows of Cecilia and\nValerian, as they knelt before him; and he said to Valerian, \"Because\nthou hast followed the chaste counsel of thy wife, and hast believed\nher words, ask what thou wilt, it shall be granted to thee.\"  And\nValerian replied, \"I have a brother named Tiburtius, whom I love as my\nown soul; grant that his eyes, also, may be opened to the truth.\"  And\nthe angel replied, with a celestial smile, \"Thy request, O Valerian, is\npleasing to God, and ye shall both ascend to his presence, bearing the\npalm of martyrdom.\"  And the angel, having spoken these words,\nvanished.  Soon afterward Tiburtius entered the chamber, and perceiving\nthe fragrance of the celestial roses, but not seeing them, and knowing\nthat it was not the season for flowers, he was astonished.  Then\nCecilia, turning to him, explained to him the doctrines of the Gospel,\nand set before him all that Christ had done for us,--contrasting his\ndivine mission, and all he had done and suffered for men, with the\ngross worship of idols made of wood and stone; and she spoke with such\na convincing fervour, such heaven-inspired eloquence, that Tiburtius\nyielded at once, and hastened to Urban to be baptised and strengthened\nin the faith.  And all three went about doing good, giving alms, and\nencouraging those who were put to death for Christ's sake, whose bodies\nwere buried honourably.\n\nNow there was in those days a wicked prefect of Rome, named Almachius,\nwho governed in the emperor's absence; and he sent for Cecilia and her\nhusband and brother, and commanded them to desist from the practice of\nChristian charity.  And they said, \"How can we desist from that which\nis our duty, for fear of anything that man can do unto us?\"  The two\nbrothers were then thrown into a dungeon, and committed to the charge\nof a centurion named Maximus, whom they converted, and all three,\nrefusing to join in the sacrifice to Jupiter, were put to death.  And\nCecilia, having washed their bodies with her tears, and wrapped them in\nher robes, buried them together in the cemetery of Calixtus.  Then the\nwicked Almachius, covetous of the wealth which Cecilia had inherited,\nsent for her, and commanded her to sacrifice to the gods, threatening\nher with horrible tortures in case of refusal.  She only smiled in\nscorn, and those who stood by wept to see one so young and so beautiful\npersisting in what they termed obstinacy and rashness, and entreated\nher to yield; but she refused, and by her eloquent appeal so touched\ntheir hearts that forty persons declared themselves Christians, and\nready to die with her.  Then Almachius, struck with terror and rage,\nexclaimed, \"What art thou, woman?\" and she answered, \"I am a Roman of\nnoble race.\"  He said, \"I ask of thy religion;\" and she said, \"Thou\nblind one, thou art already answered!\"  Almachius, more and more\nenraged, commanded that they should carry her back to her own house,\nand fill her bath with boiling water, and cast her into it; but it had\nno more effect on her body than if she had bathed in a fresh spring.\nThen Almachius sent an executioner to put her to death with the sword;\nbut his hand trembled, so that, after having given her three wounds in\nthe neck and breast, he went his way, leaving her bleeding and half\ndead.  She lived, however, for the space of three days, which she spent\nin prayers and exhortation to the converts, distributing to the poor\nall she possessed; and she called to her St. Urban, and desired that\nher house, in which she then lay dying, should be converted into a\nplace of worship for the Christians.  Thus, full of faith and charity,\nand singing with her sweet voice praises and hymns to the last moment,\nshe died at the end of three days.  The Christians embalmed her body,\nand she was buried by Urban in the same cemetery with her husband.\n\nAs the saint had wished, her house was consecrated as a church, and the\nchamber in which she had suffered martyrdom was regarded as a place\nespecially sacred.  In after years, the edifice fell into ruins, but\nwas rebuilt by Pope Paschal I. in the ninth century.  While this pious\nwork was in progress, it is told that Paschal had a dream, in which St.\nCecilia appeared to him and disclosed the spot where she had been\nburied.  On a search being made, her body was found in the cemetery of\nSt. Calixtus, together with the remains of Valerian, Tiburtius, and\nMaximus, and all were deposited in the same edifice, which has since\nbeen twice rebuilt and is now known as the church of St. Cecilia in\nTrastevere.  At the end of the sixteenth century, the sarcophagus which\nheld the remains of the saint was solemnly opened in the presence of\nseveral dignitaries of the Church, among whom was Cardinal Baronius,\nwho left an account of the appearance of the body.  \"She was lying,\"\nsays Baronius, \"within a coffin of cypress-wood, enclosed in a marble\nsarcophagus; not in the manner of one dead and buried, that is, on her\nback, but on her right side, as one asleep, and in a very modest\nattitude; covered with a simple stuff of taffety, having her head bound\nwith cloth, and at her feet the remains of the cloth of gold and silk\nwhich Pope Paschal had found in her tomb.\"  The reigning Pope, Clement\nVIII., ordered that the relics should be kept inviolate, and the coffin\nwas enclosed in a silver shrine and replaced under the high altar, with\ngreat solemnity.  A talented sculptor, Stefano Maderno, was\ncommissioned to execute a marble statue of the saint lying dead, and\nthis celebrated work, which fully corresponds with the description of\nBaronius, is now beneath the high altar of the church, where ninety-six\nsilver lamps burn constantly to the memory of Cecilia.  The\naccompanying inscription reads, \"Behold the image of the most holy\nvirgin Cecilia, whom I myself saw lying incorruptible in her tomb.  I\nhave in this marble expressed for thee the same saint in the very same\nposture of body.\"\n\nIt seems hardly possible now to say when St. Cecilia came to be\nconsidered as music's patron saint,--probably it was not until\ncenturies after her death.  We know that in 1502 a musical society was\ninstituted in Belgium, at Louvain, which was placed under the patronage\nof St. Cecilia.  We know, also, that the custom of praising music by\ngiving special musical performances on St. Cecilia's Day (November 22)\nis an old one.  The earliest known celebration of this nature took\nplace at Evreux, in Normandy, in 1571, when some of the best composers\nof the day, including Orlando Lasso, competed for the prizes which were\noffered.  It is recorded that the first of these festivals to be held\nin England was in 1683.  For these occasions odes were written by\nDryden, Shadwell, Congreve, and other poets, and the music was supplied\nby such composers as Purcell and Blow.  At the Church of St. Eustache,\nin Paris, on St. Cecilia's Day, masses by Adolphe Adam, Gounod, and\nAmbroise Thomas have been given their first performance.  In Germany,\nSpohr and Moritz Hauptmann have composed works in honour of the day,\nand Haydn's great \"Cecilia\" mass must not be forgotten.\n\nMrs. Jameson says that, before the beginning of the fifteenth century,\nSt. Cecilia was seldom represented in art with musical attributes, but\ncarried the martyr's palm.  Later, she appears in painting, either\naccompanied by various instruments of music, or playing on them.\nDomenichino, who was in Rome when the sarcophagus of St. Cecilia was\nopened, and painted numerous pictures of the saint, shows her in one of\nthem as performing on the bass viol.  This picture is in the Louvre,\nwhere also is Mignard's canvas, representing her accompanying her voice\nwith a harp.\n\nMany painters have depicted St. Cecilia playing upon the organ, often a\nsmall, portable instrument, such as she bears in the celebrated picture\nby Raphael, which we reproduce.  For over six hundred years, from the\ntime of Cimabue to our own day, artists of all countries have vied with\neach other in representations of St. Cecilia, but none have risen to\nthe height of Raphael's treatment of the theme.\n\n[Illustration: St. Cecilia.  From painting by Raphael]\n\nHe shows us Cecilia, standing with enraptured face lifted to heaven,\nwhere the parted clouds display six angels prolonging the melody which\nthe saint has ceased to draw forth from the organ she holds.  On her\nright, the majestic figure of St. Paul appears as if in deep thought,\nleaning on his sword, and between him and St. Cecilia we see the\nbeautiful young face of the beloved disciple, John the Evangelist.\nUpon the other side, the foremost figure is that of Mary Magdalen,\ncarrying the jar of ointment in her hand, and behind her stands St.\nAugustine with a bishop's staff, looking toward John.  At the feet of\nSt. Cecilia are scattered various instruments of music, a viol,\ncymbals, the triangle, flute, and others.  They are broken, and some of\nthe pipes of the regal held by St. Cecilia are falling from their\nplace,--all seeming to indicate the inferiority of earthly music to the\ncelestial harmonies.  Of the five saints depicted, only Cecilia looks\nupward, and it has been suggested that Raphael meant that she, alone,\nhears and understands the heavenly strains.\n\nShe is clothed in a garment of cloth of gold, St. Paul in crimson and\ngreen, and the Magdalen in violet.\n\nSome writers claim that the face of the Magdalen is that of Raphael's\nlove, the \"Farnarina,\" whom he frequently used as a model.  The baker's\ndaughter was a girl of the Trastevere, and it is a coincidence that her\nhome was near that church dedicated to Cecilia, where the saint's\nremains have rested for hundreds of years.\n\nAs Mrs. Jameson observed, Sir Joshua Reynolds has given us a paraphrase\nof Raphael's painting of music's patron saint in his fine picture of\nMrs. Billington, the famous English singer of his last years, as St.\nCecilia.  She holds a music book in her hand, but is listening to the\ncarolling of some cherubs hovering above her.  The composer Haydn paid\nthe singer a happy compliment suggested by this portrait when he said\nto Sir Joshua, \"What have you done? you have made her listening to the\nangels, you should have represented the angels listening to her.\"  Mrs.\nBillington was so delighted with this praise that she gave Haydn a\nhearty kiss.  This splendid portrait of the charming young singer is in\nthe Lenox Library in New York.\n\nRaphael's \"St. Cecilia\" has, of course, a history.  In October of the\nyear 1513, a noble lady of Bologna, named Elena Duglioli dall Olio,\nimagined that she heard supernatural voices bidding her to dedicate a\nchapel to St. Cecilia in the Church of S. Giovanni in Monte.  Upon\ntelling this to a relative, Antonio Pucci of Florence, he offered to\nfit up the chapel at his own expense, and induced his uncle, Lorenzo\nPucci, then newly created a cardinal, to commission Raphael to paint a\npicture for the altar.  It was finished in 1516.\n\nTradition relates that Pucci had no ear for music, and was laughed at\nby his brother cardinals when chanting mass in the Sistine Chapel.  He\nthereupon invoked the aid of St. Cecilia, who rewarded the donor of her\npicture by remedying his harmonic deficiency.\n\nIn 1796, Napoleon's conquering army carried the painting to Paris,\nwhere it remained until 1815, when it was returned to Bologna.  It was\nat a later date transferred to the art gallery of that city, where it\nnow hangs.  About the middle of the eighteenth century, when the agent\nof Augustus III., the Elector of Saxony, was negotiating the purchase\nof Italian paintings for the royal gallery in Dresden, the \"St.\nCecilia\" was offered to him for $18,000, but the price was thought too\nhigh, and a copy by Denis Calvaert sufficed.  This still hangs in the\nZwinger at Dresden, the home of the Sistine Madonna.  According to\nVasari, the organ and other musical instruments in this picture were\npainted by one of the master's pupils, Giovanni da Udine.  Raphael\nagain designed a St. Cecilia in the now ruined fresco of her martyrdom,\nwhich either the master or one of his pupils painted in the chapel of\nthe Pope's hunting castle of La Magliana, near Rome.  Fortunately, Marc\nAntonio's engraving has preserved for us the composition of this work.\n\nOf the many tributes to this \"St. Cecilia,\" we will select the one by\nShelley.\n\n\"We saw besides one picture of Raphael--St. Cecilia; this is in another\nand higher style; you forget that it is a picture as you look at it;\nand yet it is most unlike any of those things which we call reality.\nIt is of the inspired and ideal kind, and seems to have been conceived\nand executed in a similar state of feeling to that which produced among\nthe ancients those perfect specimens of poetry and sculpture which are\nthe baffling models of succeeding generations.  There is a unity and a\nperfection in it of an incommunicable kind.  The central figure, St.\nCecilia, seems rapt in such inspiration as produced her image in the\npainter's mind; her deep, dark, eloquent eyes lifted up; her chestnut\nhair flung back from her forehead--she holds an organ in her hands--her\ncountenance, as it were, calmed by the depth of its passion and\nrapture, and penetrated throughout with the warm and radiant light of\nlife.  She is listening to the music of heaven, and, as I imagine, has\njust ceased to sing, for the four figures that surround her evidently\npoint, by their attitudes, toward her; particularly St. John, who, with\na tender yet impassioned gesture, bends his countenance toward her,\nlanguid with the depth of his emotion.  At her feet lie various\ninstruments of music, broken and unstrung.  Of the colouring I do not\nspeak; it eclipses nature, yet has all her truth and softness.\"\n\nDryden's \"Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687,\" set to music by Draghi, an\nItalian composer, ends with this verse, apposite to our picture:\n\n  \"Orpheus could lead the savage race,\n  And trees uprooted left their place,\n        Sequacious of the lyre:\n  But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher;\n  When to her organ vocal breath was given,\n  An angel heard, and straight appeared,--\n        Mistaking earth for heaven!\"\n\nTen years later he wrote his noble ode, \"Alexander's Feast,\" in honour\nof St. Cecilia's festival, at the close of which he again refers to the\nsaint's wondrous powers:\n\n      \"Thus long ago,\n  Ere heaving bellows learn'd to blow,\n    While organs yet were mute,\n    Timotheus to his breathing flute\n      And sounding lyre,\n  Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.\n    At last divine Cecilia came,\n    Inventress of the vocal frame;\n  The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,\n    Enlarged the former narrow bounds,\n    And added length to solemn sounds,\n  With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.\n      Let old Timotheus yield the prize,\n      Or both divide the crown;\n    He raised a mortal to the skies,\n      She drew an angel down.\"\n\nHandel, in 1736, produced his oratorio of \"Alexander's Feast.\"  Pope's\n\"Ode on St. Cecilia's Day,\" was written in 1708, and performed at\nCambridge, in 1730, with music by Maurice Greene.  In this composition\nthe poet uses a similar image to Dryden.  He sings:\n\n    \"Music the fiercest grief can charm,\n    And fate's severest rage disarm;\n    Music can soften pain to ease,\n    And make despair and madness please;\n    Our joys below it can improve,\n    And antedate the bliss above.\n    This the divine Cecilia found,\n  And to her Maker's praise confin'd the sound.\n  When the full organ joins the tuneful quire,\n    Th' immortal pow'rs incline their ear;\n  Borne on the swelling notes our souls aspire,\n  While solemn airs improve the sacred fire;\n    And angels lean from Heav'n to hear.\n  Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell,\n  To bright Cecilia greater pow'r is given;\n    His numbers rais'd a shade from Hell,\n    Hers lift the soul to Heav'n.\"\n\n\n\n\nPALESTRINA.\n\nSome twenty miles from Rome, the insignificant but picturesquely\nsituated town of Palestrina, lies on the hillside.  The Praeneste of\nantiquity, it was once an important colony of Rome, many of whose\nwealthy ones resorted thither in summer, for the sake of its bracing\natmosphere, which Horace extolled.  Excavations here have yielded a\nrich harvest, and the Eternal City holds among its ancient treasures\nfew of more interest or value than those recovered from the soil of\nPalestrina.\n\n[Illustration: Palestrina.  From painting by Ferdinand Heilbruth.]\n\nHere, probably in 1524, was born Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, who\nreceived his last name from that of his native town.  His parents were\nof humble station in life, but, beyond this fact, we know little that\nis reliable about his youth or early education.  In 1540 he went to\nRome, and became a pupil at the music school of Claudio Goudimel, a\nFrench composer, who turned Protestant, and perished in the massacre of\nSt. Bartholomew's Day.  Palestrina appears to have returned to his\nbirthplace when he was about twenty years old, and to have been made\norganist and director of music in the cathedral.  He married in 1546,\nand had several sons, but in 1551 was again in Rome, where he held the\nposition of teacher of the boy singers in the Capella Giulia, in the\nVatican.  While holding this office, he composed a set of masses, which\nhe dedicated to Julius III., and which were issued in 1554.  Before\nthat time, Flemish composers had supplied all the music of the Church,\nand these masses are the first important work by an Italian musician.\nThe Pope recognised their value by appointing Palestrina one of the\nsingers of the papal choir, which was against the rules of the Church,\nmarried singers being debarred.  Nor was the composer's voice such as\nentitled him to a place in this splendid body of singers, and he\nconscientiously hesitated before accepting the position.  He did not,\nhowever, hold it long, for Julius III. died within a few months, and\nhis successor, Marcellus II., lived but twenty-three days after\nbecoming Pope.  Paul IV., who succeeded Marcellus, was a reformer, and\ndismissed Palestrina from the choir, which was a severe blow to the\npoor composer.  But in October of the same year (1555) he was made\ndirector of the music at the Lateran Church, where he remained for over\nfive years.  During this time he produced several important works,\namong them being his volume of _Improperia_ (\"the Reproaches\"), an\neight-voiced \"Crux Fidelis,\" and the set of \"Lamentations\" for four\nvoices.  These compositions gave him fame as the leader of a new\nschool, the pure school of Italian church-music.  In 1561 the composer\nbecame director of music at the Church of St. Maria Maggiore, where he\nremained ten years, during which period the event took place which gave\nhim his greatest fame.\n\nFor years church music had been lacking in that dignity which should be\nits main characteristic, and this fault was largely due to the Flemish\ncomposers, who thought most of displaying their technical skill.  They\nfrequently selected some well-known secular tune around which to weave\ntheir counterpoint, many masses, for instance, having been written on\nthe old Provencal song of \"L' Homme Arme.\"  Some of the melodies chosen\nas the basis for masses were nothing but drinking songs.  At that time\nthe tenor generally sang the melody, and, as in order to show on what\nfoundation their work rested, the Flemings retained the original words\nin his part, it was not uncommon to hear the tenors singing some\nbacchanalian verses, while the rest of the choir were intoning the\nsacred words of a \"Gloria\" or an \"Agnus Dei.\"  These abuses lasted for\nan incredibly long time, but finally, in 1562, the cardinals were\nbrought together for the purification of all churchly matters, and the\nCouncil of Trent took note of the evil.  All were agreed upon\nabolishing secular words from the mass, and some even urged the\nbanishment of counterpoint itself, and a return to the plain song or\nchant, but fortunately this sweeping reform met with a vigorous protest\nfrom others.  At last the whole matter was referred to a committee of\neight cardinals, who wisely sought the aid of an equal number of the\npapal singers, and the outcome of their debate was a commission given\nPalestrina to write a mass, which should employ counterpoint without\nirreverence, and prove that religion and music might be blended into\none.\n\nThe composer, in response to this signal mark of confidence, wrote\nthree masses, which he submitted in 1565.  The third one was the\ncelebrated \"Mass of Pope Marcellus,\" of which the Pope ordered a\nspecial performance by the choir of the Apostolical Chapel.  The\nrendition was followed by the complete acceptance of Palestrina's work.\n\nA new office, that of \"Composer to the Pontifical Choir,\" was created\nfor him, and in 1571 he became leader of the choir of St. Peter's.\nAlthough highly honoured and rewarded with many offices, Palestrina\nreceived no great pecuniary recompense for his labours.  His life was\nblessed, however, with the love of a devoted wife, and the friendship\nof many true admirers, especially Cardinal Carlo Borromeo and Filippo\nNeri, the founder of oratorio, both of whom were afterward canonised.\n\nPalestrina died in 1594, and lies buried in St. Peter's, where his\nworks are still performed.  To the end of his life he never ceased to\nproduce, and left behind him over ninety masses, one hundred and\nseventy-nine motettes, forty-five sets of hymns for the entire year,\nand an immense quantity of other compositions.  No composer, it is\nsaid, has ever existed at once so prolific and so sustainedly powerful.\nBoth the man and his work deserve our regard.  Elson says: \"If ever the\nCatholic Church desires to canonise a musical composer, it will find\ndevoutness, humility, and many other saintly characteristics in\nPalestrina.\"\n\nPalestrina, in reverend age, discoursing on his art to some pupils or\nfriends, has been painted by Ferdinand Heilbuth (1826-1889), an artist\nwho, born in Germany of Jewish parents, gained his greatest successes\nin France.  He painted three classes of pictures,--those in which\ncelebrated personages of other times are the central attraction, as in\n\"Palestrina;\" others which portray aged ecclesiastics of the Roman\nChurch, conversing with the orphan boys of some religious foundation,\nor the like; and lastly, charming transcripts from field or wood, in\nwhose foreground he placed some fair dame in fashionable attire.\n\n\n\n\nLULLI.\n\nThat Amazon of princesses, granddaughter of Henry IV., and cousin of\nLouis XIV., the Duchesse de Montpensier (better known, perhaps, by the\nname of \"La Grande Mademoiselle\"), once asked the Chevalier de Guise to\nbring her from Italy \"a young musician to enliven my house.\"  The\nchevalier did not forget the great lady's whim, and noticing, one day\nin Florence, a bright-eyed boy of twelve singing to the music of his\nguitar, said to him, \"Will you come with me to Paris?\"  The lad, a poor\nmiller's son, without hesitation answered, \"Yes;\" and thus the young\nLulli got his start in the world.\n\nHe soon gained experience of the uncertainty which attended the favour\nof royalty, for, after a few days, \"La Grande Mademoiselle\" grew tired\nof her new toy, and sent him to the kitchen, where he became a cook's\nboy.  Here, in the intervals of his work, surrounded by pots and pans,\nand eatables of all kinds, he often played upon his violin, or sang to\nhis guitar.  He is credited with having set some verses to music, at\nthis time; among them the popular \"Au Clair de la Lune,\" which the\nnumberless readers of \"Trilby\" will remember was sung by La Svengali,\non that famous night at the Cirque des Bashibazoucks.  Some couplets\nreflecting on his mistress were sent to the young musician, and,\ncomposing a pretty air to the words, he sang them to the frequenters of\nthe kitchen.  This disrespectful act reached the ears of the duchess,\nwho thereupon expelled Lulli from her house.\n\n[Illustration: The Young Lulli.  From painting by H. de la Charlerie.]\n\nHis talent for the violin had, however, attracted the attention of some\npeople of influence, and he was placed under tuition, and finally made\none of the court musicians.  At nineteen years old, he played for the\nfirst time before the king, who was much pleased, and appointed him\nInspector of the Violins, and organised for him a band of young\nmusicians, who were called _Les Petits Violons_, to distinguish them\nfrom the _Grande Bande des Violons du Roi_.  Lulli was then chosen to\ncompose dance-music for the ballets performed at court, and afterward\nthe entire musical portion of these entertainments was entrusted to\nhim.  He became also a collaborator of Moliere, furnishing the music\nfor many of the great dramatist's plays, and even acting in some of\nthem.\n\nHis greatest fame was won in the composition of operas, for which the\npoet Quinault wrote the words, and he is justly considered to be the\nfounder of French opera.  Among Lulli's operas are \"Armide,\" \"Isis,\"\n\"Atys,\" \"Alceste,\" \"Psyche,\" \"Proserpine,\" and \"Bellerophon.\"  The\ncomposer did not reach old age, but died in 1687, about fifty-four\nyears old, wealthy and honoured, and a great favourite of Louis XIV.,\nwho had made him \"Superintendent of the King's Music,\" and treated him\nwith much liberality.  His death was caused, one might say, by an\nillness of the king.  When Louis recovered from this sickness, Lulli\nwas commanded to write a Te Deum in grateful celebration of the event.\nAt the first performance, the composer himself conducted, and while\nbeating time with his baton, accidentally struck it against his foot,\ncausing a bruise, which developed into an abscess of such a malignant\ncharacter that the entire foot, and then the leg were affected.\nAmputation was advised as the only hope of saving the patient's life,\nbut Lulli hesitated in giving his consent, and it was soon too late.\nFrom all accounts, the closing scene of Lulli's life was not marked\nwith that awe which generally attends a death-bed.  He desired\nabsolution, but his confessor would not absolve him, except on the\ncondition that he would commit to flames the score of his latest opera.\nAfter many excuses, Lulli at length acquiesced, and pointing to a\ndrawer, where was the rough score of \"Achille et Polixene,\" it was\nburned, the absolution granted, and the priest went home satisfied.\n\nLulli grew better, and one of the young princes visited him.\n\n\"What, Baptiste,\" said he, \"have you burnt your opera?  You were a fool\nfor giving such credit to a gloomy confessor, and burning such good\nmusic.\"\n\n\"Hush! hush!\" whispered Lulli, \"I knew well what I was about,--I have\nanother copy of it!\"\n\nBut this was not all.  Unhappily, this joke was followed by a relapse,\nand the prospect of certain death caused him such dreadful remorse for\nhis deceit to the priest, that he confessed all, and submitted to be\nlaid on a heap of ashes, with a cord around his neck, which was the\npenance recommended him!  He was then placed in bed, and expired\nsinging, \"_Il faut mourir, pecheur, il faut mourir!_\" to one of his own\nairs.\n\nMany anecdotes are told about Lulli, of which we will repeat one or two.\n\nSo fatal was the influence of success and its attendant fortune upon\nLulli's career, that he entirely laid aside his violin, and refused to\nhave such a thing in his house, nor could any one prevail upon him to\nplay upon one.  Marshal de Gramont, however, was his match.  He\ndetermined not to be entirely deprived of his favourite treat, and\ndevised the ingenious plan of making one of his servants, who could\nbring more noise than music out of the instrument, play upon the violin\nin Lulli's presence; whereupon the ex-violinist would rush to the\nunfortunate tormentor, snatch the fiddle from him, and seek to allay\nhis disturbed equanimity (which, much to the delight of those within\nhearing, always took him a long time to accomplish) by playing himself.\n\nAt the first performance of \"Armide,\" at Versailles, some delay\nprevented the raising of the curtain at the appointed hour.  The king,\nthereupon, sent an officer of his guard, who said to Lulli, \"The king\nis waiting,\" and was answered with the words, \"The king is master here,\nand nobody has the right to prevent him waiting as long as he likes!\"\n\nHippolyte de la Charlerie, who painted Lulli as a boy in the kitchen of\n\"La Grande Mademoiselle,\" was a Belgian artist, who died young, in\n1869, the same year that he sent this picture to the Paris Salon.\n\n\n\n\nSTRADIVARIUS.\n\nCrowest, the English writer on musical subjects, says: \"Two hundred\nyears ago, the finest violins that the world will probably ever have\nwere being turned out from the Italian workshops; while at about the\nsame time, and subsequently, there was issuing from the homes of music\nin Germany, the music for these superb instruments,--music not for any\none age, 'but for all time.'\"\n\n\"In the chain of this creative skill, however, a link was wanting.\nNobody rose up who could marry the music to the instrument.  For years\nand years the violin, and the music for it, marched steadily on, side\nby side, but not united.  Bach was writing far in advance of his time,\nwhile Stradivarius and the Amatis were 'rounding' and 'varnishing' for\na people yet to come.  It was not till the beginning of the present\ncentury that executive skill, tone, and culture stepped in, and were\nbrought to bear upon an instrument that is, perhaps, more than any\nother, amenable to such influences.  Consequently, to us has fallen the\nhappy fate to witness the very zenith of violin-playing.  A future\ngeneration may equal, but can scarcely hope to surpass a Joachim, a\nWilhelmj, or a Strauss,--players who combine the skill of Paganini with\na purity of taste to which he was a stranger, and, moreover, with a\nfreedom from those startling eccentricities which, more than anything\nelse, have made the reputation of that strange performer.\"\n\nThe greatest violin-maker that ever lived, Antonio Stradivari, or\nStradivarius, was born in Cremona, probably in 1644.  No entry of his\nbirth has been found in any church register at Cremona, but among the\nviolins which once belonged to a certain Count Cozio di Salabue was one\nbearing a ticket in the handwriting of Stradivarius, in which his name,\nhis age, and the date of the violin were given.  He was then ninety-two\nyears old, and the date of the violin was 1736.  He was the pupil of\nanother famous Cremonese violin-maker, Niccolo Amati, and his first\nworks are said to bear the name of his master, but in 1670 he began to\nsign instruments with his own name.  His early history is quite\nunknown, but a record exists showing that in 1667, when twenty-three\nyears old, he married Francesca Ferraboschi.  For about twenty years\nafter his marriage, Stradivarius appears to have produced but few\ninstruments, and it is supposed that during this time he employed\nhimself chiefly in making those scientific experiments and researches\nwhich he carried into practice in his famous works.  It was about the\nyear 1700, when he was fifty-six years old, that Stradivarius attained\nthat perfection which distinguishes his finest instruments.  The first\nquarter of the eighteenth century witnessed the production of his best\nviolins,--the quality of those made after 1725 is less satisfactory.\n\nDuring his long life (he died in 1737), the great violin-maker worked\nindustriously, and produced a large number of instruments, but a far\ngreater number are attributed to him than he could possibly have made.\nHis usual price for a violin was about twenty dollars, (Haweis says\nfifty dollars), but a fine specimen from his hand now sells in the\nauction room for hundreds of dollars.  In 1888, a Stradivarius violin\nbrought the large sum of five thousand dollars, and double this sum was\npaid a few years since for the celebrated \"Messie\" violin, made by\nStradivarius in 1716, and still in perfect condition.  Count Cozio di\nSalabue had bought it in 1760, but never allowed it to be played upon,\nand when he died (about 1824) it was purchased by that remarkable\n\"violin hunter,\" Luigi Tarisio.  Thirty years later, he, too, passed\nover to the majority, and his friend, the Parisian violin-maker\nVuillaume, bought the \"Messie\" from Tarisio's heirs, along with about\ntwo hundred and fifty other fiddles, many of which were of the greatest\nrarity and value.  Vuillaume kept the \"Messie\" in a glass case and\nnever allowed any one to touch it, and many anxious days he passed\nduring the Commune, fearing for his musical treasures.  However, they\nluckily escaped the dangers of the time, and when, in 1875, Vuillaume\ndied, the \"Messie\" became the property of his daughter, who was the\nwife of M. Alard, the celebrated teacher of the violin.  From his\nexecutors it was bought in 1890 for 2,000 pounds, for the English\ngentleman who now possesses this most famous of all the works of\nStradivarius.  Charles Reade, the novelist, who was a lover of the\nviolin and an expert in such matters, in 1872 had thought this\ninstrument to be worth 600 pounds, so that its value had trebled in\nless than twenty years.  The celebrated violinist, Ole Bull, owned a\nStradivarius violin, dated 1687, and inlaid with ebony and ivory, which\nis said to have been made for a king of Spain.  In the \"Tales of a\nWayside Inn\" Longfellow speaks of it:\n\n  \"The instrument on which he played\n  Was in Cremona's workshop made,\n  By a great master of the past\n  Ere yet was lost the art divine;\n\n      *      *      *      *\n\n  \"Exquisite was it in design,\n  Perfect in each minutest part,\n  A marvel of the lutist's art;\n  And in its hollow chamber, thus,\n  The maker from whose hands it came\n  Had written his unrivalled name,--\n        'Antonius Stradivarius.'\"\n\nHaweis, in his admirable book on \"Old Violins,\" reproduces for us \"the\natmosphere in which Antonio Stradivari worked for more than half a\ncentury.\n\n\"I stood in the open loft at the top of his house, where still in the\nold beams stuck the rusty old nails upon which he hung up his violins.\nAnd I saw out upon the north the wide blue sky, just mellowing to rich\npurple, and flecked here and there with orange streaks prophetic of\nsunset.  Whenever Stradivarius looked up from his work, if he looked\nnorth, his eye fell on the old towers of S. Marcellino and S. Antonio;\nif he looked west, the Cathedral, with its tall campanile, rose dark\nagainst the sky, and what a sky! full of clear sun in the morning, full\nof pure heat all day, and bathed with ineffable tints in the cool of\nthe evening, when the light lay low upon vinery and hanging garden, or\nspangled with ruddy gold the eaves, the roofs, and frescoed walls of\nthe houses.\n\n\"Here, up in the high air, with the sun, his helper, the light, his\nminister, the blessed soft airs, his journeymen, what time the workaday\nnoise of the city rose and the sound of matins and vespers was in his\nears, through the long warm days worked Antonio Stradivari.\"\n\n[Illustration: Stradivarius.  From painting by E. J. C. Hamman.]\n\nEdouard Jean Conrad Hamman, who painted the picture of\nStradivarius--deep in thought amid his violins--which accompanies this,\nwas a Belgian.  Born at Ostend in 1819, and a pupil of De Keyser, he\nlived a long time in Paris, won many medals and other honours, and died\nin 1888, leaving behind him numerous pictures, several of which are\nreproduced in this book.  His \"Erasmus Reading to the Young Charles V.\"\nis in the Luxembourg, and the Brussels museum has his \"Dante at\nRavenna,\" and the \"Entry of Albert and Isabella into Ostend.\"  Besides\nthese he produced \"The Mass of Adrien Willaert,\" \"The Childhood of\nMontaigne,\" \"Shakespeare and his Family,\" \"Vesalius,\" \"Hamlet,\" and\n\"Murillo in his Studio.\"  One of his paintings, entitled \"The Women of\nSiena, 1553,\" shows the women of that city working on the\nfortifications intended to resist the besieging army of Charles V., and\nanother depicts Columbus first sighting land on October 12, 1492.\n\n\n\n\nTARTINI.\n\nA few years ago the Istrian town of Pirano unveiled a statue, not\nexactly to _one_ of its illustrious sons, but to the _only one_ of its\nchildren who ever became famous, so far as we know.  The pedestal of\nthe statue is inscribed.\n\n  _Istria to Giuseppe Tartini, 1896._\n\n\nThe admirably conceived figure which surmounts the pedestal represents\nthe master standing, violin and bow in hand, at the moment of his\naccidental discovery of the curious acoustic phenomenon known as the\n\"third sound,\"--_i. e._, the production of a third note in harmony when\nonly two are struck with the bow.  The statue was modelled by Dal\nZotto, an able Italian sculptor, whose work found so much favour with\nthose present at its inauguration that they enthusiastically carried\nhim about the piazza on their shoulders,--a tribute we judge to have\nbeen well deserved.\n\nThe subject of Dal Zotto's statue was sent, while yet very young, from\nPirano, (where he was born of a good family in 1692) to Capo d' Istria,\nto study at the college of the \"Padri delle Scuole.\"  It was here that\nhe received his first instruction in violin playing, and in\nfencing,--two accomplishments that were to play an important part in\nhis future life.  In spite of the fact that Tartini's family had\ndestined him to become a Franciscan, he had the strongest antipathy to\nan ecclesiastical career.  His relatives fought in vain against his\nunbending resistance, and finally sent him to Pavia, to study law.\nLearning cost him little effort, and he still found plenty of spare\ntime for fencing.  Somewhat wild, and tired of serious study, he\ndecided to take up his abode in Paris or Naples, and there establish\nhimself as a fencing-master.  A love-affair put an end to this project.\nTartini having won the heart of a young and beautiful girl, a niece of\nthe cardinal and Bishop of Padua, George Cornaro, the lovers were\nsecretly married, but did not long succeed in keeping the knowledge of\ntheir union from their relatives.  Tartini's family, enraged at his\nconduct, withdrew at once the support they had hitherto given him, and\nto cap the climax, the bishop accused him of seduction and theft.\nWarned in time, Tartini fled to Rome, leaving his young wife in Padua\nwithout confiding to her the direction of his travels.\n\nReaching Assisi, he ran across a monk in whom he recognised a near\nrelation from his native city of Pirano.  This good-natured brother,\nwho was a sacristan in the monastery at Assisi, took pity on the\nrefugee, and gave him an asylum in one of the cells.  This is the time,\nand this is the cell in which the accompanying picture represents our\nhero.  Two years he passed in this monastery, making use of his\ninvoluntary seclusion to carry on with great zeal his musical studies.\nThe story of Tartini's dream, and his motive for writing the \"Devil's\nSonata\" is told in various ways and with many additions.  Tartini told\nthe tale himself to the astronomer Lalande, who relates it in the\nfollowing manner in his \"Italian Travels.\"  \"One night in the year\n1713,\" said Tartini, \"I dreamed that I had made a compact with the\nDevil, and that he stood at my command.  Everything thrived according\nto my wish, and whatever I desired or longed for was immediately\nrealised through the officiousness of my new vassal.  A fancy seized me\nto give him my violin to see if he could, perchance, play some\nbeautiful melodies for me.  How surprised I was to hear a sonata, so\nbeautiful and singular, rendered in such an intelligent and masterly\nmanner as I had never heard before.  Astonishment and rapture overcame\nme so completely that I swooned away.  On returning to consciousness, I\nhastily took up my violin, hoping to be able to play at least a part of\nwhat I had heard, but in vain.  The sonata I composed at that time was\ncertainly my best, and I still call it the 'Devil's Sonata,' but this\ncomposition is so far beneath the one I heard in my dream, that I would\nhave broken my violin and given up music altogether, had I been able to\nlive without it.\"  The Paris Conservatory Library owns the manuscript\nof the \"Devil's Sonata,\" which was published many years later (in\n1805), under the title of \"Il Trillo del Diavolo.\"  This sonata has\nbecome one of the show-pieces of leading violinists, such as Joachim,\nLaub, and others.  One writer speaks of it as a \"piece in which a\nseries of double shakes, and the satanic laugh with which it concludes,\nare so dear to lovers of descriptive music.\"  Its title alone almost\nensures its success beforehand.  The listener is, however, less\nimpressed by the hidden diabolical inspiration than by the wonderful\ntechnic.\n\n[Illustration: Tartini's Dream.  From painting by James Marshall.]\n\nStrange to say, this composition actually aided Tartini to obtain the\nposition of director of the orchestra in the Church of St. Antony at\nPadua, in 1721.  Before this time, however, he heard in Venice the\nfamous violinist Veracini, whose achievements in bowing impressed\nTartini so much, that he left Venice the next morning for Ancona, where\nhe pursued the study of his art, unmolested, for seven years.  It was\nhere that he created a new method of playing, which, particularly as\nregards the bowing, was the one followed for half a century.\n\nLet us, however, return to Tartini at Assisi, and tell how an\nunforeseen incident at last freed the young artist from his\nhiding-place and gave him back to his family.  On a certain holiday,\nTartini was playing a violin solo, during services, in the choir of the\nchurch, when a sudden gust of wind blew aside the curtains which had\nconcealed him from the assembly.  A man from Padua, who happened to be\nin the church at the time, recognised Tartini, and betrayed his\nhiding-place.  Circumstances had fortunately changed in the course of\ntwo years, the anger of the bishop was pacified, and Tartini was\nallowed to return to his wife at Padua.\n\nIn the year 1723 he was called to Prague to perform during the\nfestivities at the coronation of the Emperor Charles VI.  He went with\nhis friend, the violoncellist, Antonio Nardini, to Prague, where they\nboth accepted a position in the orchestra of Count Kinsky.  After three\nyears in this service, they returned to Padua, which city Tartini never\nleft again.  Invitations flowed in from all the great capitals, but no\nterms tempted him to leave his native soil.\n\nAmong the first of these offers was one from Lord Middlesex, inviting\nTartini to London, and hinting that a visit to England would probably\nbring him in at least three thousand pounds; but it was declined in the\nfollowing disinterested language: \"I have a wife with the same\nsentiments as myself, and no children.  We are perfectly contented with\nour position, and if we wish for anything, it is, certainly, not to\npossess more than we have at present.\"  The remainder of his long and\nfamous career passed quietly, dedicated to study, composition, and\nteaching.  The school founded by him in 1728 soon became famous all\nover Europe, and sent out some of the most noted violinists.  Padua was\nthen the place of pilgrimage for all violinists, and it was not without\ncause that Tartini's countrymen called him \"il maestro delle nazioni.\"\n\nThis period of Tartini's labour is, above all, remarkable for his\ntheoretic researches.  Already, in 1714, he had discovered the\ncombination tones (the so-called \"third\" or Tartini's tone).  This\ndiscovery, a lasting and valuable acquisition to all later\ninvestigations into acoustics, led him further and further, but apart\nfrom the exact road of natural science into the nebulous regions of\nmystic philosophy.  Tartini taught that with the problem of harmony\nwould also be solved the mystery of creation, that divinity itself\nwould be revealed in the mystical symbols of the tone relations.  In\nthese mystical investigations, the composer believed himself\nparticularly favoured by the grace of God.\n\nThe German composer, Naumann, who became Tartini's pupil at an early\nage, and who enjoyed his favour as no other did, has written down many\nremarkable facts concerning the master.  To be initiated into the last\nsecrets of the art of tone and the universe was Naumann's most ardent\nwish, but he was always put off to some future time as not yet being\nquite mature and worthy enough.  Naumann's illustrations of Tartini's\nteachings resemble more a mystic and ecstatic sermon than a musical\ntheory.  Tartini died without having spoken his last word.  His\ncharacter in this last period of his life appears to have been amiable,\nmild, and benevolent.  The sharp and violent disposition of his wife\ndid not make him happy, but he nevertheless always remained considerate\nand tender toward her.  He died in Padua, at the age of seventy-eight,\non the sixteenth of February, 1770, and lies buried in the Church of\nSt. Catherine.  He perfected the art of bowing, composed eighteen\nconcertos for five instruments, as well as several trios and a number\nof sonatas, and left a treatise on music.  Doctor Burney translated and\npublished, in 1779, a long letter of instructions for playing the\nviolin which Tartini wrote from Padua, in 1760, to \"My very much\nEsteemed Signora Maddalena.\"  It can also be found in the life of \"Ole\nBull,\" who had a very high opinion of what Tartini must have been as a\nteacher.\n\nThe splendid collection of modern German pictures owned by Count von\nSchack, at Munich, includes \"Tartini's Dream,\" which was painted by\nJames Marshall.  He was born at Amsterdam in 1838, but studied in\nAntwerp and Paris, and at Weimar under Friedrich Preller.  Most of\nMarshall's life has been spent in Germany.\n\n\n\n\nBACH.\n\nBach's position as one of a numerous family of musicians is unique, for\nit cannot be said of any other composer that his forefathers, his\ncontemporary relations, and his descendants were all musicians, and not\nonly musicians, but holders of important offices as such.\n\nJohann Sebastian Bach, the greatest of all that bore that name,\nconsidered the founder of his family to be Veit Bach, a Thuringian\nmusician who settled in Pressburg in Hungary as a baker and miller.\nLater, because of religious persecution, he returned to his native\ncountry, where he lived at the village of Wechmar near Gotha, dying in\n1619.  Of his numerous musical descendants, Johann (1604-1673) became\norganist at Schweinfurt, and afterward director of the town musicians at\nErfurt.  Here, though the town suffered much from the effects of war, he\nfounded a family which quickly increased and soon filled all the town\nmusicians' places, so that for about a hundred and fifty years, and even\nafter no more of the family lived there, the town musicians were known as\n\"The Bachs.\"\n\n[Illustration: Bach's Preludes.  From painting by E. J. C. Hamman.]\n\nHeinrich Bach (1615-1692) was organist of the Franciscan Church at\nArnstadt for fifty years, composed much, and had six children, three of\nwhom were, in their day, noted musicians.  Of the twin brothers, Johann\nAmbrosius and Johann Christoph, born in 1645, the first was town organist\nof Eisenach, and the second court musician at Arnstadt.  These brothers\nwere remarkably alike, not only in looks, but in character and\ntemperament.  They both played the violin in exactly the same way, they\nspoke alike, and it is said that their own wives could scarcely tell them\napart.  They suffered from the same illnesses, and died within a few\nmonths of one another.  Johann Christoph once figured in an action for\nbreach of promise of marriage brought before the Consistory at Arnstadt\nby Anna Cunigunda Wiener, with whom he had once \"kept company.\"  The\ncourt decided that Bach must marry her, but, with the independence of his\nfamily, he refused to do so, and he kept his word.\n\nAnother Johann Christoph, uncle of the great Sebastian, was organist at\nEisenach for sixty years, and is, together with his brother Michael,\ndistinguished as a composer.  Maria Barbara, the youngest daughter of\nMichael, became Sebastian Bach's first wife.  One Johann Jacob Bach was\nan oboe-player in the Swedish guard, and followed Charles XII. to his\ndefeat at Pultowa, later becoming court-musician at Stockholm.\n\nA vigorous, ambitious, and altogether remarkable family was this of the\nBachs, and one of the most notable things about it is the uniformly high\nmoral character of its members.  Only one, of all those who flourished\nbefore Sebastian, is spoken of as being given to drink.\n\nWilhelm Friedemann, the oldest son of the greatest Bach, unfortunately\nhad the same failing, and died in Berlin in 1789, poor and miserable\nthrough intemperance.  His musical talent was exceptional, authorities\ncalling him the greatest organist in Germany after his father.  He is\nsometimes spoken of as the \"Halle Bach,\" from having been music director\nof a church there.\n\nThe \"father of modern piano music\" was also the father of a large family,\nnot less than twenty children having been born to him.  The most\ncelebrated of his twelve sons was Carl Philipp Emanuel, who is called the\n\"Berlin Bach,\" having lived there in the court service for nearly thirty\nyears.  Emanuel was a prolific composer in all styles, and occupies an\nimportant place in the history of music.  Another son, Johann Christoph\nFriedrich, was a composer and also chamber musician to Count von Lippe at\nBueckeburg, from which circumstance he is called the \"Bueckeburger Bach.\"\nSebastian's youngest boy, Johann Christian (the Bach family evidently\nnever wearied of the name of Johann), called the \"Milanese\" and afterward\nthe \"English\" Bach, composed a large number of works,--songs, operas,\noratorios, what not.  He lived and worked at one time in Milan, where he\nwas organist of the cathedral, and from there went to London, where he\ndied in 1782.  The daughters of Sebastian Bach--there were only eight of\nthem--mostly died young, nor did they exhibit any special musical talent,\nand, after his sons' careers were ended, no one bearing the name has, we\nbelieve, won distinction in the art.\n\nThe Bach family were as a rule both sincerely pious and fond of innocent\npleasure.  Their tribal feeling was strong, and it was a custom to meet\ntogether once a year at Erfurt, Eisenach, or Arnstadt, and spend a day in\nfriendly intercourse, exchanging news and relating experiences.  Of\ncourse on these occasions they devoted some of the happy hours to music,\nand a favourite pastime was the singing of \"quodlibets\"--a kind of\nmusical medley--wherein portions of several well-known songs would be\ndovetailed together.\n\n[Illustration: Morning Devotions in the Family of Bach.  From painting by\nToby E. Rosenthal.]\n\nBach's home life was a happy one.  Both his marriage ventures turned out\nwell, and he was beloved by children and pupils alike.  His large family\ncircle was often added to by friends and visitors, who enjoyed his never\nfailing hospitality, especially toward musicians.  In the midst of all\nhis occupations, he found time for music in the family circle, and a\nGerman-American artist has produced a charming work showing the great\ncomposer seated at the clavichord and surrounded by his children, who are\nsinging their morning hymn.  This painting, which belongs to the Museum\nof Leipsic, the city where Bach laboured so long and where he died, is by\nToby E. Rosenthal, who was born in Germany in 1848, but was brought to\nthe United States by his parents when but a few years old.  He grew up\nhere, but, at the age of seventeen returned to study art in the land of\nhis birth, where he became a pupil of Professor Raupp and also of the\ncelebrated Piloty.  Most of his life since then has been spent in Germany.\n\nThe dead Elaine, passing to Lancelot on her funeral barge, and Constance\nde Beverley, before her judges in the Vault of Penitence, have been\nfinely pictured by Rosenthal, who has also treated lighter topics in\n\"Grandmother's Dancing-lesson,\" \"The Alarmed Boarding-school,\" and \"The\nCardinal's Portrait.\"\n\nThe last visit which Bach ever made was to the court of Frederick the\nGreat at Potsdam, in 1747.\n\nHis son Emanuel had been capellmeister to Frederick since 1740, and the\nking had frequently, and always with more insistence, thrown out hints\nthat he would like to hear the great artist.  Bach, being much occupied,\nand disinclined for travelling, did not accede to the king's wishes until\nthey amounted to a positive command.  Then, taking Friedemann with him,\nhe started for Potsdam, which he reached early in May.  The story of the\nmeeting with Frederick is variously told.  We will tell it in\nFriedemann's own words: \"When Frederick II. had just prepared his flute,\nin the presence of the whole orchestra, for the evening's concert, the\nlist of strangers who had arrived was brought him.  Holding his flute in\nhis hand, he glanced through the list.  Then he turned around with\nexcitement to the assembled musicians, and, laying down his flute, said,\n'Gentlemen, old Bach is come.'  Bach, who was at his son's house, was\nimmediately invited to the castle.  He had not even time allowed him to\ntake off his travelling clothes and put on his black court dress.  He\nappeared, with many apologies for the state of his dress, before the\ngreat prince, who received him with marked attention, and threw a\ndeprecating look toward the court gentlemen, who were laughing at the\ndiscomposure and numerous compliments of the old man.  The flute concerto\nwas given up for this evening; and the king led his famous visitor into\nall the rooms of the castle, and begged him to try the Silbermann pianos,\nwhich he (the king) thought very highly of, and of which he possessed\nseven.  The musicians accompanied the king and Bach from one room to\nanother; and after the latter had tried all the pianos, he begged the\nking to give him a fugue subject, that he could at once extemporise upon.\nFrederick thereupon wrote out the subject, and Bach developed this in the\nmost learned and interesting manner, to the great astonishment of the\nking, who, on his side, asked to hear a fugue in six parts.  But since\nevery subject is not adapted for so full a working out, Bach chose one\nfor himself, and astounded those present by his performance.  The king,\nwho was not easily astonished, was completely taken by surprise at the\nunapproachable mastery of the old cantor.  Several times he cried, 'There\nis only one Bach!'  On the following day Bach played on all the organs in\nthe churches of Potsdam.\"\n\n[Illustration: Frederick the Great and Bach.  From painting by Herman\nKaulbach.]\n\nRosenthal portrayed the composer making music among his family; Hermann\nKaulbach has depicted him playing before Frederick.  The artist has given\nsuch a look of naturalness to the scene, that we are quite satisfied to\naccept his presentment and believe that thus the king and his court\nlistened\n\n  \"While the majestic organ rolled\n  Contrition from its mouths of gold.\"\n\n\nHermann Kaulbach is a son of the renowned painter, Wilhelm von Kaulbach.\nA pupil of Piloty, he was born at Munich in 1846, and has produced some\nworks of a historic character, such as \"Lucrezia Borgia,\" \"Voltaire at\nParis,\" \"Louis XI. and His Barber,\" and \"The Last Days of Mozart,\" but is\nperhaps still more successful with his admirable pictures of childhood.\nWe must not forget to mention his \"Madonna,\" a work which should add much\nto his fame.\n\n\n\n\nHANDEL.\n\nLike many other children who grew up to fame, Handel was not intended\nby his parents to follow the art in which he is renowned.  His father,\nwho was body surgeon to the Prince of Saxony, wished him to become a\nlawyer.\n\nAll accounts of Handel's childhood \"agree in representing him as\nbright, clever, energetic, and singularly tenacious of purpose.  These\nqualities he inherited; the special genius on which they were brought\nto bear was all his own.  Unlike Bach, the flower and crown of a race\nof born musicians, there seems no record in Handel's case of his having\na single musical or artistic progenitor.  From infancy, however, he\nlived in music, its attraction for him was irresistible, and he began\nto 'musicise' for himself (to quote Chrysander's expression) almost as\nsoon as he could walk, and before he could speak.  This inspired all\nthe family and friends with wonder and admiration, in which his parents\nat first shared; but, as time went on, the thing began to wear a\ndifferent aspect, and the father grew alarmed.  The boy was a\ncuriosity, no doubt, and music as a pastime was all very well, but it\nhad never occurred to the worthy surgeon to look on it as a serious\nprofession for a child of his, least of all for this, his last, most\npromising and favourite son.  For the others he had been contented with\nsituations in his own station of life; for this one he nourished more\nambitious designs.  He was to be a doctor of laws, a learned man, and\nthe child's intelligence and thirst for knowledge favoured the hope.\n\n\"The father set to work to stifle his son's musical proclivities in\nevery possible way, to separate him from musical society, to banish all\nmusic from the house, to prevent him even from going to school, for\nfear he should learn notes as well as letters there.  He had set\nhimself a difficult task, for the boy's inclination was obstinate, and\namong his doting admirers were some who conspired in his behalf so\nsuccessfully as to convey into the house, undiscovered, a little\nclavichord, or dumb spinet.  This instrument, much used at that time in\nconvent cells, is so tiny that a man can carry it under his arm, and as\nthe strings are muffled with strips of cloth, the tone is diminutive in\nproportion.  It was safely established in a garret under the roof, and\nhere, while the household slept, the boy taught himself to play.  If\nthe master of the house ever suspected what was going on, he connived\nat it, thinking that probably no very dangerous amount of art-poison\ncould be imbibed under such difficulties.  It proved, however, but the\nthin edge of the wedge, and resulted before long in a collision between\nthe wills of father and son, in which the former sustained his first\nreal defeat.  He had occasion to visit Weissenfels, where a grandson of\nhis first marriage was chamberlain to the reigning duke.  George, who\nwas seven or eight years old, and was very fond of this grown-up nephew\nof his, begged to be taken, too; but his father refused, turned a deaf\near to all his entreaties, and set off alone.  Not to be baffled, the\npertinacious boy followed the carriage on foot, and after a\nconsiderable time overtook it.  The father's vexation and wrath were\nextreme, but futile; scolding and threats were thrown away on this\nchild.  He owned his fault, cried bitterly, promised endless good\nbehaviour in the future, but stuck all the time to his original point,\nwhich was that this time he must go.  The end was that the father had\nto give in and take him, and this journey practically decided Handel's\ncareer.\n\n\"Music at Weissenfels was held in high esteem.  The duke, a generous\nand enlightened prince, was a friend to musicians.  And though Heinrich\nSchuetz had been twenty years dead, his long life and noble labours were\nfresh in the memory of his fellow townsmen, who were justly proud of\ntheir burgomaster's son.  He, too, had been educated for the law, and\nnot till after long doubts and severe struggles did he abandon it to\nfollow his true vocation.\n\n\"Little Handel soon found allies.  The choir of the ducal chapel\nadmitted him to their practices, and encouraged him to try his hand at\nthe organ.  Finding him soon quite able to manage it, they lifted him\nup to the organ-stool, one Sunday afternoon at the conclusion of the\nservice, and let him play away as best he could.  This attracted the\nnotice of the duke, who listened with astonishment to the performance,\nand, at its close, inquired who the brave little organist might be.  On\nhearing the whole story from his chamberlain, he summoned father and\nson to his presence.  With the former he expostulated on the folly of\ncoercing a child in the choice of a profession, and assured him, with\nall due respect for his conscientious scruples, that to restrain the\nactivity of a heaven-born genius like this was to sin against nature\nand the public good.  As to the boy, he filled his pockets with gold\npieces, and exhorted him to be industrious.  Here was a change!  Music\nwas to be not only suffered, but furthered; his father was to lose no\ntime in finding him a good teacher.  Often as old Handel must have\nstopped his ears to these very same arguments before, he could not\nchoose but listen, now that they fell from ducal lips.  He did not\nchange his mind,--a doctorship of law remained the goal of his\nambition,--but he practically acquiesced, and, on his return to Halle,\nsent his son to study music with Zachau, organist of the Frauenkirche.\"\n\n[Illustration: The Child Handel.  From painting by Margaret Dicksee.]\n\nThe legend that accompanied, in the catalogue of the Royal Academy of\n1893, Miss Dicksee's picture of the boy Handel, varied somewhat from\nthe version just quoted.  It says that the father forbade the child\nfollowing his bent, and banished all the musical instruments in the\nhouse to the attic, where, however, the little musician discovered\nthem, and, under cover of night, resumed his beloved pursuit.  The\nsounds thus produced, and the flitting of the little white-clad figure\nover the stairs, started the story that the house was haunted, which\nwas believed until the truth was revealed, as shown in the picture.\n\nMiss Dicksee, an Englishwoman, and the sister of Frank Dicksee, R. A.,\nhas painted several deservedly popular pictures, having for their\nsubjects episodes in the lives of those who have reared themselves\nabove the common mass of humanity.  Such are her \"Swift and Stella,\"\n\"The First Audience--Goldsmith and the Misses Horenck,\" and \"Sheridan\nat the Linleys.\"\n\nHandel, whom the Elector of Hanover had made his capellmeister, first\ncame to England in the autumn of 1710, having been granted a year's\nleave of absence by his royal patron.  In the following February his\nopera of \"Rinaldo\" was produced in London with great success, and at\nonce established the composer's reputation with the English public.  At\nthe close of the season he returned to Hanover, where he remained over\na year, but was back in England again toward the end of 1712.  In July\nof the following year, his Te Deum and Jubilate, for the service of\nthanksgiving held in celebration of the Peace of Utrecht, was performed\nin St. Paul's, and Queen Anne bestowed a life pension of 200 pounds a\nyear upon him.  In August, 1714, the queen died, and Handel, who had\nlong out-stayed his leave of absence from Hanover, felt some qualms of\nconscience while awaiting the coming of his master, who arrived within\nsix weeks after Anne's death to be crowned as George I.  George had\nsome reason to be vexed with both \"his principal musicians: with the\ncapellmeister for neglect, with Farinelli, the concert-master at\nHanover, for obtrusiveness.  In the thick of all the bustle consequent\non the court's leaving Hanover, this gentleman wrote and thrust into\nthe elector's notice a composition to the words, 'Lord, remember me\nwhen thou comest into thy kingdom.'  Handel was somewhat afraid to go\nnear his injured master, who, however, could not help hearing of him.\nThe new royal family cared for music, and for no other form of art.\nThey were not edified by entertainments in a language they did not\nunderstand, and the English drama drooped while the Italian opera\nrevived, the Prince and Princess of Wales being present nearly every\nnight.\n\n\"'Rinaldo' was remounted, with Nicolini, who had returned, in the\nprincipal part.  'Amadigi,' by Handel, was produced toward the end of\nthe season, and repeated four times.  At the second performance the\nconcerto now known as the 'Fourth Hautboy Concerto' was played between\nthe acts.  A great deal of the opera is adapted from 'Silla;' the whole\nstands high among the series to which it belongs.  It may be an\nindirect testimony to its popularity that parodies and burlesques in\nimitation of it drew crowded audiences to other theatres.  Meanwhile,\nthe awkwardness of the situation between the king and Handel increased\nevery day.  The account of the manner in which a reconciliation was at\nlast brought about has been repeated and believed by every biographer\nsince Mainwaring, including Chrysander, in his first volume, who,\nhowever, by the time he wrote his third volume had discovered some\nevidence tending to throw doubt on its veracity.  The story goes that\nBaron Kielmansegge, the common friend of both king and capellmeister,\ntook occasion of a grand water-party, attended by the whole court, to\nengage Handel to compose some music expressly for this festivity, the\nresult being the celebrated 'Water Music,' of which Handel secretly\nconducted the performance in a boat that followed the royal barge.  The\nking, as delighted as he was surprised by this concert, inquired at\nonce as to the author of the music, and then heard all about it from\nKielmansegge, who took upon himself to apologise most humbly for\nHandel's bad behaviour, and to beg in his name for condonation of his\noffence.  Whereupon his Majesty made no difficulties, but at once\nrestored him to favour, and 'honoured his compositions with the most\nflattering marks of royal approbation.'\n\n\"A water-party did take place in August, 1715, but the brilliant\noccasion when a concert of music was given, for which special music was\nwritten 'by Mr. Handel,' and when Kielmansegge was present, and when\nprobably, therefore, the 'Water Music' was produced, only happened in\n1717, when peace had long been made, and pardon sealed with a grant to\nHandel of 200 pounds a year.  The ice was, perhaps, broken by\nGeminiani, the great violinist, who, when he was to play his concertos\nat court, requested to be accompanied on the harpsichord by Handel, as\nhe considered no one else capable of doing it.  The petition was\npowerfully seconded by Kielmansegge, and acceded to by George I.\"\n\n[Illustration: Handel and George I.  From painting by E. J. C. Hamman.]\n\nHandel was not only honoured by those who were kings by birth, but also\nby the rulers in his own art.  Beethoven always declared that Handel\nwas \"the monarch of the musical kingdom;\" Haydn said of him, \"He is the\nfather of us all,\" and at another time, \"There is not a note of him but\ndraws blood.\"  Scarlatti followed Handel all over Italy, and in after\nyears, when speaking of the great master, would cross himself in token\nof admiration; and Mozart said, \"Handel knows better than any of us\nwhat will produce a grand effect.\"\n\n\n\n\nGLUCK.\n\nMarie Antoinette, married at fourteen and Queen of France at eighteen,\nfound herself wearied and annoyed by the excessive etiquette of the\nFrench court, so different from the comparatively simple life she had\nled at Vienna.  While dauphiness, she often expressed a wish for a\ncountry-house of her own where she could find freedom at times from the\npomp and intrigues of the court, and very soon after his accession\nLouis XVI. offered her Little Trianon, which she joyfully accepted.\n\nBuilt by Louis XV. for Madame du Barry, this charming residence lay in\nthe midst of a park which was intended to serve both as a school of\ngardening and as a botanical garden, and united the various kinds of\ngardens then known,--French, Italian, and English.  Marie Antoinette\nsacrificed the botanical garden, for which she did not much care, in\norder to improve and extend the English gardens, which she most\nadmired, and which were then becoming the fashion on the Continent.\n\nThe world was taxed to furnish specimens of trees and plants for her\ngarden.  From North America alone came two hundred and thirty-nine\nkinds of trees and shrubs.  Besides these, there were everywhere and\nalways flowers; in the spring, lilacs, then syringas, snowballs,\ntuberoses, irises, tulips, hyacinths, and so through the floral\ncalendar.  In addition to these beauties, the park of Trianon was\nenhanced by all that the art of the landscape gardener could devise.\nArchitecture added its gifts in the theatre, the Temple of Love, the\nBelvedere, and the palace, where the art of Lagrenee, of Gouthiere,\nHoudon, and Clodion found expression.  And there still remained the\nqueen's favourite creation, the little hamlet of eight cottages, where\nshe and her ladies played at farming, with its dairy, its mill, and its\npoultry yard.\n\n\"At Trianon there was no ceremony, no etiquette, no household, only\nfriends.  When the queen entered the salon, the ladies did not quit\ntheir work nor the men interrupt their game of billiards or of\n_trictrac_.  It was the life of the chateau, with all its agreeable\nliberty, such as Marie Antoinette had always dreamed, such as was\npractised in that patriarchal family of the Hapsburgs, which was, as\nGoethe has said, 'Only the first _bourgeoise_ family of the empire.'\"\n\nIn spite of Marie Antoinette's many kindnesses to authors, it seems\ndoubtful if she really cared for literature, but of music she was a\nconstant lover.  As a child she had played with Mozart and had received\nlessons from Gluck, and when she became queen she still took lessons\nboth in music and singing.\n\nGluck was to her not only a great composer, he was one of the dear\nmemories of her youth, her home, and her country, and also a hope for\nreform in French music, which she found monotonous.  It was to please\nher that the directors of the Grand Opera invited Gluck to come to\nParis and produce some of his works.  The great reformer of opera had\nlong wished for this opportunity, which he seized with alacrity, and\nset out from Vienna for Paris in the autumn of 1773.  He was received\nwith every kindness and encouragement by Marie Antoinette and the\ncourt, and proceeded to rehearse his \"Iphigenia in Aulis\"--not without\ndifficulties, as he found the French singers and musicians even less\ninclined to reforms than those of Vienna.  Gluck, however, supported by\nthe protection of the dauphiness, made short work of those who held\nback.  To the lady who sang the music of \"Iphigenia,\" and who refused\nto obey him at rehearsal, he said, \"Mademoiselle, I am here to bring\nout 'Iphigenia.'  If you will sing, nothing can be better; if not, very\nwell, I will go the queen and say, 'It is impossible to have my opera\nperformed;' then I will take my seat in my carriage and return to\nVienna.\"  Doubtless this result would have been much to the prima\ndonna's liking, but she had to submit.\n\n[Illustration: Gluck at the Trianon.  From painting by E. J. C. Hamman.]\n\n\"Iphigenia\" was produced on April 19, 1774, and Marie Antoinette\napplauded from the royal box without ceasing.  On the first\nrepresentation, opinions were divided, but at the second performance\nthe approval was unanimous.  When Marie Antoinette became queen shortly\nafterward, she gave the composer a pension of six thousand francs, with\nthe entree to her morning receptions.  He often visited her at Trianon,\nwhere the daughter of Maria Theresa was always gracious to the\nforester's gifted son.  The next work of Gluck to be given in Paris was\nhis \"Orpheus and Eurydice,\" whose success was greater than that of the\n\"Iphigenia,\" and caused Rousseau to publicly acknowledge that he was\nmistaken in asserting that the French language was unsuitable to set to\nmusic.  He also said that the music of \"Orpheus\" had reconciled him to\nexistence, and met the reproach that Gluck's work was lacking in melody\nwith the words, \"I believe that melody proceeds from every pore.\"\n\nWhen the composer's next opera, \"Alcestis,\" was produced, in 1776, the\nqueen gave it her decided approbation, and loyally supported Gluck\nagainst the king's preference for the older form of opera, and the\npartisans of the Italian composer Piccini, who was Gluck's rival for\nthe favour of the Parisians.  Great was the battle between the warring\nfactions, the \"Gluckists\" and the \"Piccinists,\" whose differences of\nopinion sometimes even resulted in personal encounters in the theatre.\nBetween the two composers themselves, matters were more pleasant.  When\nPiccini's \"Roland\" was being studied, the composer, unused to\nconducting and unfamiliar with the French language, became confused at\na rehearsal.  Gluck happened to be present, and, rushing into the\norchestra, threw off his wig and coat, and led the performance with\nsuch energy and skill that all went smooth again.  On the other hand,\nPiccini, when he learned of the death of his whilom rival, expressed\nhis respect for Gluck by starting a subscription for the establishment\nof an annual concert to be given upon the anniversary of the composer's\ndeath, at which nothing but his music should be performed.\n\nGluck's \"Armida\" was given its first presentation in 1777, and\nincreased his fame so much that his bust was placed in the Grand Opera\nbeside those of Lulli, Rameau, and Quinault.  \"Iphigenia in Tauris\" was\nproduced in 1779, with great success, but \"Echo and Narcissus,\" the\nlast opera which Gluck gave in Paris, was a failure.  He left France\nfor Vienna in the same year, never to return, though his royal pupil\npressed him to do so in the most flattering manner.\n\nBefore taking leave of Gluck, let us read the eloquent words with which\nErnest Newman closes his book on \"Gluck and the Opera.\"  \"The musician\nspeaks a language that is in its very essence more impermanent than the\nspeech of any other art.  Painting, sculpture, architecture, and poetry\nknow no other foe than external nature, which may, indeed, destroy\ntheir creations and blot out the memory of the artist.  But the\nmusician's material is such that, however permanent may be the written\nrecord of his work, it depends not upon this, but upon the permanency\nin other men of the spirit that gave his music birth, whether it shall\nlive in the minds of future generations.  Year after year the language\nof the art grows richer and more complex, and work after work sinks\ninto ever-deepening oblivion, until music that once thrilled men with\ndelirious ecstasy becomes a dead thing, which here and there a student\nlooks back upon in a mood of scarcely tolerant antiquarianism.  In the\ntemple of the art a hundred statues of the gods are overthrown; and a\nhundred others stand with arrested lips and inarticulate tongues, pale\nsymbols of a vanished dominion which men no longer own.  Yet here and\nthere, through the ghostly twilight, comes the sound of some clear\nvoice that has defied the courses of the years and the mutations of\ntaste; and we hear the rich canorous tones of Gluck, not, perhaps, with\nall the vigour and the passion that once was theirs, but with the\nmellowed splendour given by the touch of time.  Alone among his fellows\nhe speaks our modern tongue, and chants the eternal passions of the\nrace.  He was, indeed, as Sophie Arnould called him, 'The musician of\nthe soul;' and if we have added new strings to our lyre, and wrung from\nthem a more poignant eloquence than ever stirred within the heart of\nGluck, none the less do we perceive that music such as his comes to us\nfrom the days when there were giants in the land.\"\n\n\n\n\nMOZART.\n\nIt was in 1762 that Leopold Mozart, father of the two musical\nprodigies, Maria Anna and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, first began to turn\nto account his children's talent.  Wolfgang was then six years old, and\nhis sister between four and five years older.  By easy stages the\nfamily journeyed to Vienna in the month of September, and it is told\nthat upon their arrival the wonderful boy-musician saved his father the\npayment of customs duties.  He made friends with the custom-house\nofficer, showed him his harpsichord, played him a minuet on his little\nfiddle, and the thing was done,--\"Pass--free of duty.\"\n\nThe imperial family were sincere lovers of music.  Charles VI., the\nfather of Maria Theresa, had two passions, hunting and music, and was\nan accomplished musician.  He used to accompany operatic or other\nperformances at court upon the clavier, and also composed pieces.  At\none time he wrote an opera, which was performed with great splendour in\nthe theatre of his palace.  On this occasion the emperor led the\norchestra, and his two daughters, Maria Theresa and Maria Anne, danced\nin the ballet.  Lady Mary Wortley Montagu speaks of an opera which she\nsaw at Vienna in 1716, the decorations and dresses of which cost the\nemperor thirty thousand pounds.  He called Metastasio from Italy to\ncompose the operas for his court.  Maria Theresa inherited this love of\nmusic, and in 1725, when only seven years old, sang in an opera by Fux,\nat a fete given in honour of her mother, the Empress Elizabeth.\nAlluding to this, she once said in a joking way to the celebrated\nsinger, Faustina Hasse, that she believed herself to be the first of\nliving vocalists.  In 1739 she sang a duet with Senesino so beautifully\nthat the famous old singer was melted to tears.  Her husband, Francis\nI., was also a lover of music, and her daughters were carefully\ninstructed in singing, and often appeared in operatic performances at\ncourt.  Maria Theresa's son, afterward the Emperor Joseph, also sang\nwell, and played both the harpsichord and the violoncello.\n\n[Illustration: Mozart and His Sister before Maria Teresa.  From\npainting by A. Borckmann.]\n\n\"With a court so favourably disposed toward music, it is not surprising\nthat Leopold, a few days only after his arrival, should have received a\ncommand to bring his children on the 13th of October to Schoenbrunn, an\nimperial palace near Vienna, and this without any solicitation on his\npart.  The children remained three hours with the court, and were then\nobliged to repeat their performance.  The Emperor Francis I., the\nhusband of Maria Theresa, took a peculiar interest in the little\n'sorcerer.'\n\n\"He made the little fellow play with only one finger, in which he\nperfectly succeeded.  An attempt which little Mozart made at the\nspecial request of the emperor, to play with the keys covered by a\npiece of cloth, was also a brilliant success.  It was, perhaps, owing\nto the imperial fancy that this species of artistic trick obtained\nconsiderable celebrity, and played a not unimportant part in the little\n'sorcerer's' repertoire on all his long journeys.  Wolfgang entered\nreadily into any joke that was made with him, but sometimes he could be\nvery serious, as, for instance, when he called for the court composer,\nGeorg Christoph Wagenseil, a thorough connoisseur of the harpsichord,\nand himself a performer.  The emperor stepped back and made Wagenseil\ncome forward, to whom Mozart said, quite seriously, 'I play a concerto\nby you: you must turn over the pages for me.'  The emperor ordered a\nhundred ducats to be paid to his father.  The empress was very kind to\nthe Mozarts, and sent them costly dresses.  'Would you like to know,'\nwrites Leopold to Hagenauer, his host at Salzburg, 'what Wolferl's (a\npet name for Wolfgang) dress is like?  It is of the finest cloth,\nlilac-coloured, the vest of moire of the same colour.  Coat and\ntop-coat with a double broad border of gold.  It was made for the\nHereditary Duke Maximilian Franz.'  In the picture which is preserved\nin the Mozart collection at Salzburg, Mozart is painted in this dress.\nWolfgang never showed the least embarrassment in the society of the\ngreat.\"\n\n\"At court, as elsewhere, Mozart was a bright, happy child.  He would\nspring on the empress's lap, throw his arms around her neck, and kiss\nher, and play with the princesses on a footing of equality.  He was\nespecially devoted to the Archduchess Marie Antoinette.  Once, when he\nfell on the polished floor, she lifted him from the ground and consoled\nhim, while one of her sisters stood by.  'You are good,' said Wolfgang,\nI will marry you.'  The empress asked him why.  'From gratitude,'\nanswered he; 'she was good to me, but her sister stood by and did\nnothing.'\"\n\nNor was he shy with the Crown Prince Joseph, who, in after years, when\nemperor, reminded him of his playing duets with Wagenseil, and of\nMozart's standing in the audience and calling out, \"Fie!\" or \"That was\nfalse!\" or \"Bravo!\" as the case might be.\n\nAs was to be expected, the children became the rage in society, and all\nthe ladies fell in love with little Mozart.  No musical entertainments\ncould be given without him and Maria Anna, and they appeared in company\nwith the most celebrated performers, being everywhere petted, feasted,\nand flattered, and receiving many costly gifts.\n\nTheir successes induced Leopold Mozart to plan a more extended tour,\nand in the summer of the next year he and his children set out on a\njourney which was intended to include visits to Paris and London.  The\ntrio arrived in Paris in November, and were greatly befriended by their\ncountryman, Grimm, the encyclopaedist, secretary to the Duke of\nOrleans.  Leopold wrote home thus, about the help this powerful friend\nhad been to them: \"He has done everything; he has introduced the matter\nat court, and arranged the first concert.  He, alone, paid me eighty\nlouis-d'ors, then sold three hundred and twenty tickets, and, moreover,\nbore the expense of lighting with wax.  We burnt more than sixty\ncandles.  It was he who obtained permission for the concert, and now he\nis getting up a second, for which a hundred tickets have already been\ndistributed.  You see what one man can do, who possesses sense and a\nkind heart.  He is a native of Ratisbon, but has been more than fifteen\nyears in Paris, and knows how to guide everything in the right\ndirection, so that all must happen as he intends.\"\n\n[Illustration: Mozart and Madame de Pompadour.  From painting by V. de\nParedes.]\n\nLittle Wolfgang had played before Maria Theresa; now he performed\nbefore her ally, Madame de Pompadour, then within a few months of her\nend, for the all-powerful favourite of Louis XV. died in the following\nApril.  Leopold Mozart, writing home to Salzburg, speaks thus of the\nPompadour; \"She must have been very beautiful, for she is still comely.\nShe is tall and stately; stout, but well proportioned, with some\nlikeness to her Imperial Majesty about the eyes.  She is proud, and has\na remarkable mind.\"  Mozart's sister remembered in after days how she\nplaced little Wolfgang on the table before her, but pushed him aside\nwhen he bent forward to kiss her, on which he indignantly asked: \"Who\nis this that does not want to kiss me?  The empress kissed me.\"  The\nking's daughters were much more friendly, and, contrary to all\netiquette, kissed and played with the children, both in their own\napartments and in the public corridors.\n\nAs before at Vienna and afterward in London, the little Mozarts made a\ngreat hit in Paris, and performed before the most distinguished\naudiences.  Grimm relates in his correspondence \"a truly astonishing\ninstance of the boy's genius.\"  Wolfgang accompanied a lady in an\nItalian air without seeing the music, supplying the harmony for the\npassage which was to follow from that which he had just heard.  This\ncould not be done without some mistakes, but when the song was ended he\nbegged the lady to sing it again, played the accompaniment and the\nmelody itself with perfect correctness, and repeated it ten times,\naltering the character of the accompaniment for each.  On a melody\nbeing dictated to him, he supplied the bass and the parts without using\nthe clavier at all; he showed himself in all ways so accomplished that\nhis father was convinced he would obtain service at court on his return\nhome.  Leopold Mozart now thought the time was come for introducing the\nboy as a composer, and he printed four sonatas for the piano and\nviolin, rejoicing at the idea of the noise which they would make in the\nworld, appearing with the announcement on the title-page that they were\nthe work of a child of seven years old.  He thought well of these\nsonatas, independently of their childish authorship; one andante\nespecially \"shows remarkable taste.\"  When it happened that, in the\nlast trio of Opus 2, a mistake of the young master, which his father\nhad corrected (consisting of three consecutive fifths for the violin),\nwas printed, he consoled himself by reflecting that \"they can serve as\na proof that Wolfgangerlf wrote the sonatas himself, which, naturally,\nnot everyone would believe.\"\n\n[Illustration: Mozart at the Organ.  From painting by Carl Herpfer.]\n\nLess than thirty years had passed since these triumphant days in the\nlife of the child Mozart, when there came the end of that wonderful\ncareer.  In the summer of Mozart's last year,--1791,--he was at work on\nthe concluding portions of \"The Magic Flute,\" when one day he received\na visit from a stranger.  This man, tall, gaunt, and solemn in manner,\nclad all in gray, handed the composer an anonymous letter, sealed in\nblack, requesting him to write a \"Requiem\" as quickly as possible, and\nasking the price.  Mozart agreed to do the work and received from the\nmessenger fifty (some say a hundred) ducats, with a promise of more\nupon completion of the piece, he agreeing to make no effort to discover\nwho his patron was.  The unknown messenger then went away, saying, \"I\nshall return when it is time.\"\n\nIt is known now that this mysterious go-between was Leutgeb, the\nsteward of Count Franz von Walsegg of Stuppach, who often obtained\nmusical compositions in this way, copied them, and had them performed\nas his own.  The count desired the \"Requiem\" for his wife, who had died\nin the preceding February, and it was sung as his own production and\nunder his direction on the 15th of December, 1793.\n\nBut Mozart knew nothing of patron or steward; his spirits were\ndepressed by trouble, and he grew superstitious over the strange\naffair.  Near the end of August, he was about to set out for Prague to\nattend the coronation of Leopold II., upon which occasion the\ncomposer's music to Metastasio's festival opera was to be performed.\nJust as he was stepping into the carriage the mysterious messenger\nappeared suddenly and inquired as to the \"Requiem,\" to which Mozart\nanswered by excuses.  \"When will it be ready?\"  \"I will work on it\nwithout ceasing on my return.\"  \"Good,\" said the stranger, \"I shall\nrely on your promise.\"  True to his word, upon again reaching home,\nMozart, though feeling melancholy and far from well, worked steadily\nupon the \"Requiem.\"  Always cheerful until now, his low spirits\nincreased, and he imagined that he was writing his own death-mass.  In\nNovember, his illness grew alarming, and a consultation of physicians\nwas held.  \"Mozart's only consolation during his suffering was to hear\nof the repeated performances of 'Die Zauberfloete.'  He would follow the\nrepresentations in spirit, laying his watch beside him, and saying,\n'Now the first act is over.  Now they are come to the place, \"The great\nQueen of Night,\"' etc.  Only the day before his death he expressed a\nwish that he might hear 'Die Zauberfloete' once more.  He hummed to\nhimself the song, 'Der Vogelfaenger bin ich ja.'  Capellmeister Roser,\nwho happened to be with him, went to the harpsichord and played and\nsang the song, which appeared greatly to cheer Mozart.  Nevertheless,\nthe 'Requiem' occupied him continually.  As soon as he had finished a\npiece, he had it rehearsed by the friends who happened to be present.\nAt two o'clock in the afternoon of the day before his death, Schack,\nwho was the first 'Tamino,' sang soprano, Mozart himself contralto,\nHofer, his brother-in-law, tenor, and Geri, who was the first\n'Sarastro,' bass.  At the 'Lacrymosa' Mozart began to weep violently,\nand laid down the score.  Toward evening, when his sister-in-law,\nSophie Haibl, came in, Mozart begged her to remain and help Constance,\nas he felt death approaching.  She went out again just to tell her\nmother and to fetch a priest.  When she returned she found Mozart in\nlively conversation with Suessmayer.  'Did I not say that I was writing\nthe \"Requiem\" for myself?' he said; and then, with a sure presentiment\nof approaching death, he charged his wife instantly to inform\nAlbrechtsberger, on whom his post at St. Stephen's would devolve.  Late\nin the evening he lost consciousness.  But the 'Requiem' still seemed\nto occupy him, and he puffed out his cheeks as if he would imitate a\nwind instrument, the 'Tuba mirum spar gens sonum.'  Toward midnight his\neyes became fixed.  Then he appeared to fall into slumber, and about\none o'clock in the morning of the 5th of December he died.\"\n\n[Illustration: The Last Days of Mozart.  From painting by Herman\nKaulbach.]\n\nThe \"Requiem\" was left incomplete, and Mozart's widow entrusted to\nSuessmayer the task of finishing the imperfect portions.  But the\ngreatest part of it is the work of Mozart.\n\n\n\n\nLINLEY.\n\nWhile making a tour of Italy with his father in 1770, Mozart stayed a\nfew days in Florence, and there formed a warm friendship with Thomas\nLinley, an English boy of about his own age, who was studying under\nNardini, the celebrated violinist, and played so finely as almost to\nsurpass his teacher.  The two boys met at the house of Signora\nMaddelena Morelli, who was famed as an improvisatrice under the name of\nCorilla, and had been crowned as a poetess on the Capitol in 1776, and\nwhen they parted, Tommasino, as Linley was called in Italy, gave the\nyoung Mozart, for a souvenir, a poem which Corilla had written for him.\nLinley was unfortunately drowned a few years after his return to\nEngland, but not before he had given proof of the possession of talent\nas composer as well as musician.\n\nHis father, Thomas Linley the elder, was born at Wells in 1732, and was\nby trade a carpenter.  But being one day at work at Badminton, the seat\nof the Duke of Beaufort, he heard Thomas Chilcot, the organist of Bath\nAbbey Church, play and sing, and, feeling that he had now found his\ntrue vocation in life, determined to become a musician.  At first he\nreceived instruction from Chilcot at Bath, and then proceeded to Italy\nand studied under Paradies.  Upon his return to England, he set up in\nBath as a singing-master, and he became a leader in his profession.\nWith the aid of his children, he carried on a series of concerts at the\nBath assembly rooms, paying special attention to the rendition of the\nworks of Handel.  Linley removed to London in 1775, and was manager\nwith Doctor Arnold of the Drury Lane Oratorios.  With his son Thomas,\nhe composed the music for his son-in-law Sheridan's comic opera of \"The\nDuenna,\" and his other works include the music for \"The Camp,\" and\nother pieces by Tickell, another son-in-law, for a version of Allan\nRamsay's \"Gentle Shepherd,\" and for \"Selima and Azor,\" and \"Richard\nCoeur de Lion,\" two adaptions from Gretry.  He wrote new accompaniments\nto the airs in the \"Beggar's Opera,\" also various elegies, ballads,\nanthems, glees, and madrigals.  Doctor Burney praised him as a masterly\nperformer on the harpsichord, and his music, which is distinguished by\nadmirable taste and simplicity of design, gained for him a high place\namong English composers.  During his last years his health was\nundermined by money difficulties and grief at the loss of his\nchildren,--of whom he had twelve, only three surviving him,--especially\nThomas.  He died suddenly, in London in 1795, and was buried in Wells\nCathedral, where a monument was erected to him and his two daughters.\n\nSeveral of his children made their mark in music, especially his\nyoungest son, William Linley.  A younger daughter, Maria, a favourite\nat the Bath concerts, died at an early age from brain fever.  After one\nsevere paroxysm, she rose up in bed and began to sing the air, \"I know\nthat my Redeemer liveth,\" in as full and clear a tone as when in\nperfect health.\n\nMary, the second daughter, who was also an excellent vocalist, married\nSheridan's friend, Richard Tickell, a wit, author, and man of pleasure,\nand, after her older sister's retirement, filled her place in concert\nand oratorio.  The sisters were very fond of each other, and one of\nGainsborough's finest paintings is that in the Dulwich gallery, which\nshows them together.  In the same collection are the same artist's\nportraits of the father and the son Thomas.\n\nLittle Elizabeth Ann Linley, the composer's eldest daughter, used to\nstand at the Pump-room door, in Bath, with a basket, selling tickets,\nwhen only a girl of nine.  She was very lovely, gentle, and good, and\ncame to be known as the \"Maid of Bath.\"  After she sang before the king\nand queen at Buckingham House in 1773, George III. told her father that\nhe never in his life heard so fine a voice as his daughter's, nor one\nso well instructed.  Her beauty was praised in high terms by John\nWilkes, Horace Walpole, and Miss Burney, and the Bishop of Meath styled\nher \"the connecting link between woman and angel.\"  Of course she had\nmany admirers.  The Duke of Clarence persecuted her with his\nattentions, and her parents wished her to marry Mr. Long, an old\ngentleman of considerable fortune.  The latter, when Elizabeth told him\nshe could not love him, had the magnanimity to take upon himself the\nburden of breaking the engagement, and settled 3,000 pounds on her as\nan indemnity for his supposed breach of covenant.\n\nA certain rascally Captain Mathews, a married rake, and a so-called\nfriend of her father, had the effrontery to follow her with his\nsolicitations, from which she was rescued by the young Sheridan, who\nfell in love with Elizabeth and persuaded her to fly with him to\nFrance.  There, at Calais, they went through a formal ceremony of\nmarriage, separating immediately afterward, the lady entering a\nconvent, and Sheridan returning to England.  Here he fought two duels\nwith Captain Mathews, in the second of which he was quite seriously\nwounded.  Mr. Linley went to France and brought his daughter home, and\nfinally, about a year from the time of the Calais episode, the young\ncouple were married again, this time in full sight of the world.\n\nThe future author of \"The Rivals\" and \"The School for Scandal,\"\naddressed to his Eliza, among other early productions, this pretty\nsnatch of song:\n\n  \"Dry be that tear, my gentlest love,\n    Be hush'd that struggling sigh;\n  Nor seasons, day, nor fate shall prove\n    More fix'd, more true than I.\n  Hush'd be that sigh, be dry that tear;\n  Cease boding doubt, cease anxious fear;\n      Dry be that tear.\n\n  \"Ask'st thou how long my love will stay,\n    When all that's new is past?\n  How long, ah!  Delia, can I say\n    How long my life will last?\n  Dry be that tear, be hush'd that sigh;\n  At least I'll love thee till I die.\n      Hush'd be that sigh.\n\n  \"And does that thought affect thee too,\n    The thought of Sylvio's death,\n  That he who only breath'd for you\n    Must yield his faithful breath?\n  Hush'd be that sigh, be dry that tear,\n  Nor let us lose our heaven here.\n      Dry be that tear.\"\n\nFor some eighteen years the Sheridans lived together,--Elizabeth never\nsang in public again after her marriage,--and then their union was\nbroken by death.  The devoted wife to this brilliant, but selfish,\nunreliable, and extravagant genius died in 1792, of consumption.\n\n  \"Music, when soft voices die,\n  Vibrates in the memory,\"\n\nand surely during the years of life left to Richard Brinsley Sheridan,\nhe must often have recalled the happy days when he listened in delight\nto the music of his loved one's voice.\n\n[Illustration: Sheridan at the Linleys.  From painting by Margaret\nDicksee.]\n\nSir Joshua Reynolds painted her as St. Cecilia in a lovely picture\nwhich he sent to the Royal Academy exhibition in 1775,--the year of\n\"The Rivals.\"  It remained in the artist's possession till 1790, when\nSheridan bought it for one hundred and fifty guineas.  It is now owned\nby the Marquis of Lansdowne.\n\n\n\n\nHAYDN.\n\nIn 1790 Haydn had been capellmeister at Esterhaz, the magnificent\npalace which Prince Nicolaus Esterhazy had created in imitation of\nVersailles.  For nearly a quarter of a century, Esterhaz, though built\non an unhealthy site, was the favourite residence of the prince, who\nnever tired of altering, extending, and improving the palace and\ngrounds, and whose greatest ambition was to make the musical and\ntheatrical entertainments given there the best of their kind.  In many\nways Haydn was most happily situated at Esterhaz, and though his\nisolated position there became more irksome to him as time went on, he\nwould not, though frequently approached with flattering offers from\nabroad, leave his well-beloved master, of whom he wrote, in 1776, \"My\ndearest wish is to live and die with him.\"\n\nThe King of Naples, an ardent admirer of the composer, had urged him to\ngo to Naples with him.  Haydn's presence was also much desired in\nParis, and from London, especially, he had received many overtures.\nCramer, the violinist, had written to Haydn in 1781, offering to engage\nhim at his own figure for the Professional Concerts, and Gallini, the\nowner and manager of the King's Theatre in Drury Lane, urged him to\ncompose an opera for him.  Salomon, still more enterprising, in 1789,\nsent Bland, a well-known music publisher, to treat with Haydn, but\nwithout success.  The composer gave him the copyright of several of his\nproductions, among them the \"Stabat Mater\" and \"Ariadne,\" and the\n\"Razirmesser\" quartette.  This composition is said to derive its name\nfrom Haydn's exclaiming one morning, while shaving, \"I would give my\nbest quartette for a good razor!\"  Bland happened to enter the room at\nthat moment, and at once hurried back to his lodgings and, returning\nwith his own razors of good English steel, gave them to Haydn, who\nthereupon kept his word by tendering in exchange his latest quartette.\n\nThe death of Prince Esterhazy, in September, 1790, gave Haydn the\nopportunity he had long wished for, as Prince Anton, who succeeded\nNicolaus, had little taste for music, and dismissed most of the\nperformers, at the same time, however, increasing Haydn's pension of a\nthousand florins a year, left him by Prince Nicolaus, by the addition\nof four hundred florins.\n\nHaydn, being now his own master, went to live at Vienna, with his old\nfriend Bamberger, and, declining an invitation to become capellmeister\nto Count Grassalcovics, was working with his usual industry when, one\nday, a visitor was announced.  He turned out to be Salomon, the London\nmanager, who, on his way back from Italy, whither he had been to engage\nsingers for the Italian opera in London, had heard of the prince's\ndeath, and hastened at once to Vienna in the hope of inducing Haydn to\nvisit England.  This, after much negotiation, was at last accomplished.\nMozart, to whom Haydn was like a father, felt the separation deeply,\nand vainly strove to prevent it.  He said to Haydn: \"Papa, you have not\nbeen brought up for the great world; you know too few languages.\" Haydn\nreplied: \"But my language is understood by the whole world.\" Mozart\nspent the day of his departure with him, and bade him farewell in\ntears, saying, \"We shall see each other no more in this world!\" a\npresentiment which was sadly fulfilled.\n\nHaydn and Salomon left Vienna on the 15th of December, 1790, and\njourneyed by way of Munich, Bonn, and Brussels to Calais, where they\narrived on the evening of December 31st.  At half-past seven the next\nmorning they embarked for Dover, but, the wind being contrary, they had\na stormy passage, and did not reach the English port until five in the\nafternoon.  Haydn, whose first voyage it was, remained on deck the\nwhole time, in spite of the unfavourable weather.\n\n[Illustration: Haydn Crossing the English Channel.  From painting by E.\nJ. C. Hamman.]\n\nHis first impressions of London, then a city of less than a million\npeople, were of its great size and its noise.  Many times the composer\nmust have longed for the comparative quiet of Esterhaz, or of his own\nstudy in Vienna.\n\nAn amusing anecdote is told of Haydn in London.  One morning he came\nupon a music shop, and, going in, asked to be shown any novelties that\nmight be for sale.\n\n\"Certainly,\" answered the salesman, who forthwith brought out \"some\nsublime music of Haydn's,\" as he termed it.\n\n\"Oh, I'll have nothing to do with that,\" said the customer.\n\n\"Why not?\" asked the man, who happened to be a warm admirer of Haydn's\nmusic.  \"Have you any fault to find with it?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the composer, \"and if you can show me nothing better than\nthat, I must go without making a purchase.\"\n\n\"Well, then, you had better go, for I've nothing that I can supply as\nsuitable for such as you,\" and Mr. Shopman walked away.\n\nBefore Haydn could reach the door, however, a gentleman entered, who\nwas known not only to him, but to the music publisher.  He greeted the\ncomposer by name, and began to congratulate him upon his latest\nsymphony produced at Salomon's concerts.  The music seller turned\naround upon hearing the name of Haydn, and said, \"Ah! here's a musician\nwho does not like that composer's music.\"\n\nThe gentleman at once saw the joke, and, explaining the matter to the\ndealer, they all had a hearty laugh over the incident.\n\nHaydn was received with the warmest hospitality in London, and, like\nmany other \"lions,\" was at no little pains to secure sufficient time\nfor his work amid the pressure of social engagements and the visits of\ncelebrities of all kinds.  Doctor Burney, the musical historian, with\nwhom the composer had corresponded, wrote a poem in his honour.  This\nappeared in the _Monthly Review_, and its concluding stanza runs as\nfollows:\n\n  \"Welcome, great master! to our favoured isle,\n  Already partial to thy name and style;\n  Long may thy fountain of invention run\n  In streams as rapid as it first begun;\n  While skill for each fantastic whim provides,\n  And certain science ev'ry current guides!\n  Oh, may thy days, from human sufferings free,\n  Be blest with glory and felicity,\n  With full fruition, to a distant hour,\n  Of all thy magic and creative power!\n  Blest in thyself, with rectitude of mind,\n  And blessing, with thy talents, all mankind.\"\n\n\nLess pleasant than such tributes was an experience Haydn had with a\nnoble pupil, who called upon him, saying that he was passionately fond\nof music, and would be grateful if the composer would give him a few\nlessons in harmony and counterpoint, at a guinea a lesson.\n\n\"Oh, willingly!\" answered Haydn; \"when shall we begin?\"\n\n\"Immediately, if you see no objection,\" and the nobleman took out of\nhis pocket one of Haydn's quartettes.  \"For the first lesson,\" said he,\ntaking the initiative, \"let us examine this quartette, and you tell me\nthe reason of some modulations which I will point out to you, together\nwith some progressions which are contrary to all rules of composition.\"\n\nHaydn did not object to this course, and the gentleman proceeded.  The\ninitial bar of the quartette was first attacked, and but few of the\nsucceeding ones escaped the critical comments of the _dilettante_.\n\nThe composer's reply as to why he did this or that was very simple.  \"I\ndid it,\" he said, \"because I thought it would have a good effect.\"\n\nSuch a reply did not satisfy \"my lord,\" who declared that his opinion\nof the composition as ungrammatical and faulty would be unchanged\nunless Haydn could give him some better reason for his innovations and\nerrors.\n\nThis nettled Haydn, who suggested that the pupil (?) should rewrite the\nquartette after his own fashion.  But, like many other would-be\ncritics, he declined to undertake the task, contenting himself with\nimpugning the correctness of Haydn's work.  \"How can yours, which is\ncontrary to the rules, be the best?\" he repeatedly asked Haydn.\n\nAt last the composer's patience was exhausted.  \"I see, my lord,\" said\nhe, \"it is you who are so good as to give lessons to me.  I do not want\nyour lessons, for I feel that I do not merit the honour of having such\na master as yourself.  Good morning.\"\n\nHaydn then left the room, and sent his servant to show the man out.\n\nOne of Haydn's biographers says that the composer soon gauged the\nmusical taste of the English public, and rearranged most of his\ncompositions written earlier, before producing them in London.  \"Our\nnational manners in the concert-room would seem to have descended to us\nfrom our grandfathers, for we find Haydn doubting as to which of two\nevils he shall choose: whether to insist on his stipulated composition\nbeing placed in the first or the second part of each concert's\nprogramme.  In the former case its effect would be marred by the\ncontinual noisy entrance of late comers, while in the latter case a\nconsiderable portion of the audience would probably be asleep before it\nbegan.  Haydn chose this, however, as the preferable alternative, and\nthe loud chord (Paukenschlag) of the andante in the 'Surprise' symphony\nis said to have been the comical device he hit upon for rousing the\nslumberers.\"\n\nHaydn was very desirous that one of his compositions should be\nperformed at an Ancient Music Concert in London, but one of their rules\nwas to admit only work by composers who had been dead twenty years.\nThe management would make no exception, even for Haydn, and it was not\nuntil forty-one years later that they produced a composition by\nhim,--the \"Let there be Light,\" from the \"Creation.\"\n\nOne of the pleasantest incidents of Haydn's visit to England occurred\nin November, when he made a visit of three days to Oatlands Park as a\nguest of the Duke of York, who was spending his honeymoon there with\nhis young bride, the Princess of Prussia.  \"The sight of the kind\nGerman face and the familiar sound of the German tongue of the\nmusician, whose name had been a household word to her ever since she\ncould speak, must have been more than welcome to the little\ntransplanted bride (she was only seventeen), and Haydn writes tenderly\nto Frau v. Genzinger (December 20th) how the 'liebe Kleine' sat close\nby his side all the time he was playing his symphony, humming the\nfamiliar airs to herself, and urging him to go on playing until long\npast midnight.\"\n\nUpon his second visit to London, Haydn received many attentions from\nthe royal family, especially from the Prince and Princess of Wales.\nThe prince had a taste for music at once genuine and intelligent.  He\nplayed the violoncello, and took his place in the orchestra in the\nconcerts given at Carlton House, his brothers, the Dukes of Gloucester\nand Cumberland, playing the violin and viola.\n\nWhen Haydn returned to Vienna, he carried with him, besides the\nsubstantial sum gained by his art, many presents from friends and\nadmirers.  One of the most original souvenirs was received from William\nGardiner, a Leicester manufacturer and a great lover of music, who\nwrote a book entitled \"Music and Friends.\"  His gift consisted of six\npairs of stockings, into which were woven airs from Haydn's\ncompositions, the \"Emperor's Hymn,\" the \"Surprise\" andante, and others.\n\n\n\n\nWEBER.\n\nThe picture of Weber sitting among the airy visions evoked by music's\nspell, which is known as \"Weber's Last Thoughts,\" and is supposed to\nrepresent him as composing the waltz so called, is based upon an error.\nFor this popular piece, published in 1824, is not the work of Weber at\nall, but was written by Reissiger.  The probable cause of its being\nascribed to Weber is that a manuscript copy of it, given him by\nReissiger on the eve of the master's departure for London, was found\namong Weber's papers after his death.\n\n[Illustration: The \"Last Thoughts\" of Von Weber.  From painting by E.\nJ. C. Hamman.]\n\nWeber's son, in his life of his father, tells us that when the composer\nwas in London, Miss Stephens, of whose talent he was a great admirer,\noffered to appear at his concert.  \"The celebrated artist, however, was\ndesirous of singing some new composition by the master; and Weber,\nexhausted as he was, could not gainsay her wish.  Miss Stephens herself\nchose the words from Moore's 'Lalla Rookh;' and the composer set\nhimself to work on 'From Chindara's Warbling Fount I Come.'  But\nfearfully painful was the effort now.  Twice Weber flung down his pen\nin utter despair.  At last, on the morning of the 18th of May, the\ngreat artist's flitting genius came back to him, and for the last time\ngave him a farewell kiss upon that noble forehead, now bedewed with the\ncold sweat of death,--for the last time!  The trembling hands were\nunable to write down more than the notes for the voice.  Weber\nrehearsed his last composition with the celebrated artist from this\nsketch, and accompanied the song from memory at his concert.\"\n\nHere we have the true story of the master's last composition.\n\nThe concert spoken of, at which he made his last appearance in public,\nwas, unfortunately, not a pecuniary success, because of the\nindifference of the English aristocracy.  This was a severe blow to the\ncomposer, who knew that he had not long to live, and who had hoped to\nrealise from this concert a substantial sum, which he could add to that\nreceived from his opera of \"Oberon,\" and use all in providing for his\nwife and children.  \"The following day Weber was somewhat better.  He\nwas still supported by the hopes of his benefit; he still found\nsufficient strength to write to his wife in such wise as to place in\nits least painful light his cruel disappointment.  As yet, in spite of\nhis bodily weakness, his handwriting had remained distinct and clear.\nIn this letter, it displays the utter ruin of his strength.  'Writing\nis somewhat painful to me,' runs one phrase of it; 'my hands tremble\nso.'  Fuerstenau saw only too clearly the sinking state of the poor man,\nand generously offered to give up his own concert, in order to hasten\nthe departure of his friend.  'What a word of comfort you have spoken!'\ngasped Weber, clutching the hand of the kind fellow.  He wrote again to\nhis wife, with a last gleam of his spirit: 'You will not have many more\nletters from me; and so receive now my high and mighty commands.  Do\nnot answer this to London, but to the _poste restante_, Frankfurt.  You\nare astounded!  Well!  I am not coming home through Paris.  What should\nI do there?  I cannot walk--I cannot speak.  I will have nothing more\nto do with business for years to come.  So it is far better I should\ntake the straight way home by Calais, through Brussels, Cologne,\nCoblentz, and thus by the Rhine to Frankfurt.  What a charming journey!\nI must travel very slowly, however, and probably rest for half a day,\nnow and then.  I shall gain a good fortnight thus; and by the end of\nJune I hope to be in your arms.'  At this time he was still resolved to\nkeep his promise of conducting at Miss Paton's concert.  But he came\nhome in a state of such feverish agitation and complete exhaustion that\nhis friends came around him, and wrung from him the promise that he\nwould conduct no more, and even give up his own benefit.  This\nresolution, strange to say, appeared to bestow fresh spirits on him; it\nenabled him to hasten his return.  Now that all last earthly interests\nwere laid aside, love and affection for the dear ones at home had alone\npossession of his mind.  One thought alone occupied his whole soul,--to\nbe at home again, amongst his own--to see them, if but once--but once!\nWith this feeling, in which gleamed one last ray of cheerfulness, he\nwrote: 'How will you receive me?  In heaven's name, alone.  Let no one\ndisturb my joy of looking again upon my wife, my children, my dearest\nand my best. . . .  Thank God! the end of all is fast\napproaching.' . . .  The end of all _was_ fast approaching.  On the 1st\nof June, every painful symptom of the poor sufferer had so increased\nthat his friends held counsel with Doctor Kind, who considered his\nstate highly precarious.  Fuerstenau was desirous of watching by his\nbedside.  'No, no,' replied Weber, 'I am not so ill as you want to make\nme out.'  He refused even the attendance of Sir George Smart's servant\nin his anteroom.  Blisters were applied to his chest, and he noted in\nhis diary, 'Thank God, my sleep was sweet!'  He fixed his departure for\nthe 6th, arranged all his pecuniary affairs with minuteness, and\nemployed his friends in purchasing presents for his family and friends\nin Dresden.  He was strongly urged by his friends to postpone his\njourney until he could have recovered some degree of strength.  But\nthis solicitation only irritated him.  'I must go back to my own--I\nmust!' he sobbed, incessantly.  'Let me see them once more--and then\nGod's will be done!'  The attempt appeared impossible to all.  With\ngreat unwillingness he yielded to his friends' request to have a\nconsultation of physicians.  'Be it so!' he answered.  'But come of it\nwhat may, I go!'  His only thought, his only word, was 'Home!'  On the\n2d of June he wrote his last letter to his beloved wife,--the last\nlines his hand ever traced.  'What a joy, my own dear darling, your\nletter gave me!  What a happiness to me to know that you are\nwell! . . .  As this letter requires no answer, it will be but a short\none.  What a comfort it is not to have to answer! . . .  God bless you\nall, and keep you well!  Oh, were I but amongst you all again!  I kiss\nyou with all my heart and soul, my dearest one!  Preserve all your love\nfor me, and think with pleasure on him who loves thee above all, thy\nKarl.'  What an outpouring of the truest affection there was in that\nlast loving prayer!\n\n\"Weber's only thoughts were now concentrated on his journey, and he\neven reproached Fuerstenau with caballing with the others to prevent his\nundertaking it.  'You may do what you will, it is of no avail,' he\nsaid.  On the evening of the 3d of June he asked his friend Goeschen,\nwith a smile, 'Have you anything to say to your father?  At all events\nI shall tell him that his son has been a dear kind friend to me in\nLondon.'  'But you leave many friends and admirers here,' said Goeschen.\n'Hush! hush!' replied Weber, still smiling softly; 'that's not the same\nthing, you know.'  When, on the evening of the 4th, he sat panting in\nhis easy chair, with Sir George Smart, Goeschen, Fuerstenau, and\nMoscheles grouped around him, he could speak only of his journey.  At\nten o'clock they urged him to retire to bed.  But he firmly declined to\nhave any one watch by his bedside, and even to forego his custom of\nbarring his chamber door.  When he had given his white, transparent,\ntrembling hand to all, murmuring gently, but in earnest tones, the\nwords, 'God reward you all for your kind love to me!' he was led by Sir\nGeorge Smart and Fuerstenau into his bedroom.  Fuerstenau, from whom\nalone he would accept such services, helped him to undress; the effort\nwas a painful one to himself.  With his own hand, however, Weber wound\nup his watch, with his usual punctilious care; then, with all that\ncharm of amiability for which he was conspicuous through life, he\nmurmured his thanks to his friend, and said, 'Now let me sleep.'  These\nwere the last words that mortal ear heard the great artist utter.  It\nis clear, however, that Weber must have left his bed later, for, the\nnext morning, the door through which Fuerstenau had passed, was barred.\nFor a long time the friends sat together in Sir George Smart's room,\nfilled with sorrowful presentiments, and earnestly consulting what\nmeans might best be taken to prevent the journey.  About midnight they\nparted.  On their leaving the house, all was dark in Weber's window.\nHis light had been extinguished.\n\n\"The next morning, at the early hour when Weber generally required his\naid, Sir George Smart's servant knocked at his chamber door; no answer\ncame; he knocked again, and louder.  It was strange, for Weber's sleep\nhad always been light.  The alarmed servant rushed to Sir George, who\nsprang out of bed and hurried to the room.  Still, to his repeated\nknocking, no answer was returned.  Fuerstenau was sent for.  He came\nhalf dressed, already anticipating the worst.  It was now resolved to\nforce the door.  It was burst open.  All was still within.  The watch,\nwhich the last movement of the great hand which had written 'Der\nFreischuetz,' 'Euryanthe,' and 'Oberon,' had wound up, alone ticked with\npainful distinctness.  The bed-curtains were torn back.  There lay the\nbeloved friend and master dead.  His head rested on his left hand, as\nif in tranquil sleep,--not the slightest trace of pain or suffering on\nhis features.  The soul, yearning for the dear objects of its love, had\nburst its earthly covering and fled.  The immortal master was not\ndead,--he had gone home.\"\n\nWeber died in London in 1826, but it was not until 1844, and then\nmainly through the efforts of Wagner, that his remains were taken to\nhis native land.  They now rest in Dresden, where a statue was raised\nin 1860 in honour of Carl Maria von Weber, who has been called \"The\noperatic liberator of Germany.\"\n\n\n\n\nBEETHOVEN.\n\n\"No one can conceive,\" Beethoven wrote to the Baroness Droszdick, \"the\nintense happiness I feel in getting into the country, among the woods,\nmy dear trees, shrubs, hills, and dales.  I am convinced that no one\nloves country life as I do.  It is as if every tree and every bush\ncould understand my mute inquiries and respond to them.\"  It was this\nrage for fresh air and fields which made him such a bad stay-at-home\nbird, whether he was sheltered amid the palatial surroundings of some\nprincely patron, or whether sojourning in the less luxurious and\ncomfortless atmosphere of some one of his frequently changed lodgings.\nHe disliked any control, and truly meant it when, at intervals, growing\nimpatient with the constant requests for his company, he complained\noutright that he was forced too much into society.  His favourite\nplaces for ruralising were Moedling, Doebling, Hentzendorf, and Baden;\nwhile there is still cherished in the royal garden of Schoenbrunn a\nfavourite spot, between two ash-trees, where the master is reputed to\nhave composed some of the music of \"Fidelio.\"\n\nA French artist, Paul Leyendecker, has painted the master thus at work\namid nature's peace.  Beethoven is sitting on the outskirts of a wood\nnear his native city of Bonn, absorbed in composition.  A funeral\nprocession is coming up the road, with the coffin borne upon the\nshoulders of the mourners, and preceded by the priest, who recognises\nthe composer and bids the choristers cease chanting for a while in\norder not to disturb his labours.  Turning from the master at work in\nthe open air to him at home, we find that Carl Schloesser, a German\npainter long settled in London, exhibited at the Royal Academy, a few\nyears ago, a striking picture showing Beethoven at the piano absorbed\nin composition, amid a litter of manuscripts and music-sheets.  It was\nthus he must have looked when Weber called upon him in 1823.\n\n[Illustration: Beethoven at Bonn.  From painting by Paul Leyendecker.]\n\n\"All lay in the wildest disorder--music, money, clothing, on the\nfloor--linen from the wash upon the dirty bed--broken coffee-cups upon\nthe table.  The open pianoforte was covered thickly with dust.\nBeethoven entered to greet his visitors.  Benedict has thus described\nhim: 'Just so must have looked Lear, or one of Ossian's bards.  His\nthick gray hair was flung upwards, and disclosed the sanctuary of his\nlofty vaulted forehead.  His nose was square, like that of a lion; his\nchin broad, with those remarkable folds which all his portraits show;\nhis jaws formed as if purposely to crack the hardest nuts; his mouth\nnoble and soft.  Over the broad face, seamed with scars from the\nsmallpox, was spread a dark redness.  From under the thick, closely\ncompressed eyebrows gleamed a pair of small flashing eyes.  The square,\nbroad form of a Cyclops was wrapped in a shabby dressing-gown, much\ntorn about the sleeves.'  Beethoven recognised Weber without a word,\nembraced him energetically, shouting out, 'There you are, my boy; you\nare a devil of a fellow!  God bless you!' handed him at once his famous\ntablets, then pushed a heap of music from the old sofa, threw himself\nupon it, and, during a flow of conversation, commenced dressing himself\nto go out.  Beethoven began with a string of complaints about his own\nposition; about the theatres, the public, the Italians, the talk of the\nday, and, more especially, about his own ungrateful nephew.  Weber, who\nwas nervous and agitated, counselled him to tear himself from Vienna,\nand to take a journey through Germany to convince himself of the\nworld's judgment of him, and more especially to go to England, where\nhis works were more reverenced than in any other country.  'Too late!\ntoo late!' cried Beethoven, making the pantomime of playing on the\npiano, and shaking his head sadly.  Then he seized on Weber's arm, and\ndragged him away to the Sauerhof, where he was wont to dine.  'Here,'\nwrote Weber afterward, 'we dined together in the happiest mood.  The\nrough repulsive man paid me as much attention as if I were a lady to\nwhom he was making court, and served me at table with the most delicate\ncare.  How proud I felt to receive all this kindness and affectionate\nregard from the great master spirit!  The day will remain for ever\nimpressed on my mind, as well as on that of all who were present.'\"\n\n[Illustration: Beethoven in His Study.  From painting by Carl\nSchloesser.]\n\nThree years later the Swedish poet, Atterbom, being in Vienna, went to\nvisit Beethoven.  Atterbom was accompanied by his friend, Doctor\nJeitteles, who has left this account of their odd experience.  He says:\n\"We went one hot afternoon to the Alservorstadt, and mounted to the\nsecond story of the so-called Schwarzspanier house.  We rang, no one\nanswered; we lifted the latch, the door was open, the anteroom empty.\nWe knocked at the door of Beethoven's room, and, receiving no reply,\nrepeated our knock more loudly.  But we got no answer, although we\ncould hear there was some one inside.  We entered, and what a scene\npresented itself!  The wall facing us was hung with huge sheets of\npaper covered with charcoal marks; Beethoven was standing before it,\nwith his back turned toward us, but in what a condition!  Oppressed by\nthe excessive heat, he had divested himself of everything but his\nshirt, and was busily employed writing notes on the wall with a\nlead-pencil, beating time, and striking a few chords on his stringless\npianoforte.  He did not once turn toward the door.  We looked at each\nother in amused perplexity.  It was no use trying to attract the deaf\nmaster's attention by making a noise; and he would have felt\nembarrassed had we gone up to him.  I said to Atterbom, 'Would you, as\na poet, like to take away with you to the north the consciousness of\nhaving, perhaps, arrested the loftiest flight of genius?  You can at\nleast say, \"I have seen Beethoven create.\"  Let us leave, unseen and\nunheard!'  We departed.\"\n\n[Illustration: A Symphony by Beethoven.  From painting by A. Graefle.]\n\nAnother German artist, Graefle, has produced an interesting work\ndepicting Beethoven playing to his friends.\n\n\"At the pianoforte Beethoven seemed a god--at times in the humour to\nplay, at others not.  If he happened not to be in the humour, it\nrequired pressing and reiterated entreaties to get him to the\ninstrument.  Before he began in earnest, he used sportively to strike\nthe keys with the palm of his hand, draw his fingers along the keyboard\nfrom one end to the other, and play all manner of gambols, at which he\nlaughed heartily.  Once at the pianoforte, and in a genial mood with\nhis surroundings, he would extemporise for one and two hours at a\nstretch, amid the solemn silence of his listeners.  He demanded\nabsolute silence from conversation whenever he put his fingers upon the\npianoforte keys to play.  If this was not forthcoming, he rose up,\npublicly upbraided the offenders, and left the room.  This mode of\nresenting a nuisance--one not yet extinct--was once illustrated at\nCount Browne's, where Beethoven and Ries were engaged in playing a\nduet, yet during which one of the guests started an animated\nconversation with a lady.  Exasperated at such an affront to his\nartistic honour, Beethoven rose up, glared at the pair, and shouted\nout, 'I play no more for such hogs,'--nor would he touch another note\nor allow Ries to do so, although earnestly entreated by the company.\n'His improvisation,' Czerny tells us, 'was most brilliant and striking;\nin whatever company he might chance to be, he knew how to produce such\nan effect upon every hearer that frequently not an eye remained dry,\nwhile many would break out into loud sobs, for there was something\nwonderful in his expression in addition to the beauty and originality\nof his ideas and his spirited style of rendering them.'  Ries says: 'No\nartist that I ever heard came at all near the height Beethoven attained\nin this branch of playing.  The wealth of ideas which forced themselves\non him, the caprices to which he surrendered himself, the variety of\ntreatment, the difficulties, were inexhaustible.  Even the Abbe\nVogler's admirers were compelled to admit as much.'\"\n\nTomaschek was greatly impressed by Beethoven.  He writes: \"It was in\n1798, when I was studying law, that Beethoven, that giant among\nplayers, came to Prague. . . .  His grand style of playing, and\nespecially his bold improvisation, had an extraordinary effect upon me.\nI felt so shaken that for several days I could not bring myself to\ntouch the piano.\"\n\n\"His manner was to sit in a quiet way at the instrument, commanding his\nfeelings; but occasionally, and especially when extemporising, it was\nhard to maintain the pose.  At extreme moments he warmed into great\npassions, so that it was impossible for him to hide from his listeners\nthe sacred fires that were raging within him.  Czerny declares that his\nplaying of slow movements was full of the greatest expression,--an\nexperience to be remembered.  He used the pedal largely, and was most\nparticular in the placing of the hands and the drift of the fingers\nupon the keys.  As a pianist, he was surnamed 'Giant among players,'\nand men like Vogler, Hummel, and Woelffl were of a truth great players;\nbut as Sir George Grove aptly says, in speaking of Beethoven's _tours\nde force_ in performance, his transposing and playing at sight, etc.,\n'It was no quality of this kind that got him the name, but the\nloftiness and elevation of his style, and his great power of expression\nin slow movements, which, when exercised on his noble music, fixed his\nhearers, and made them insensible to any fault of polish or mere\nmechanism.'\"\n\nBeethoven has often served as a subject for painters, but, among the\nnumerous pictures dedicated to him, we recall none more impressive than\nAime de Lemud's \"Beethoven's Dream.\"  De Lemud, a Frenchman who died at\nthe age of seventy years, in 1887, first won success as a painter, and\nthen studied engraving.  At the Salon of 1863 he received a medal for\nhis engraving of this picture, which was then entitled, simply,\n\"Beethoven.\"\n\n[Illustration: Beethoven's Dream.  From painting by Aime de Lemud.]\n\nElizabeth Stuart Phelps, in her story of \"The Silent Partner,\" tells\nhow \"a line engraving after De Lemud could make a 'forgetting' in the\nlife of a factory girl.\n\n\"An engraving that lay against a rich easel in a corner of the room\nattracted the girl's attention presently.  She went down on her knees\nto examine it.  It chanced to be Lemud's dreaming Beethoven.  Sip was\nvery still about it.\n\n\"'What is that fellow doing?' she asked, after a while.  'Him with the\nstick in his hand.'\n\n\"She pointed to the leader of the shadowy orchestra, touching the baton\nthrough the glass, with her brown fingers.\n\n\"'I have always supposed,' said Perley, 'that he was only floating with\nthe rest; you see the orchestra behind him.'\n\n\"'Floating after those women with their arms up?  No, he isn't.'\n\n\"'What is he doing?'\n\n\"It's riding over him--the orchestra.  He can't master it.  Don't you\nsee?  It sweeps him along.  He can't help himself.  They come and come.\nHow fast they come!  How he fights and falls!  Oh, I know how they\ncome!  That's the way things come to me; things I could do, things I\ncould say, things I could get rid of if I had the chance; they come in\nthe mills mostly; they tumble over me just so; I never have the chance.\nHow he fights!  I didn't know there was any such picture in the world.\nI'd like to look at that picture day and night.  See!  Oh, I know how\nthey come!'\n\n\"'Miss Kelso--' after another silence, and still upon her knees before\nthe driving dream and the restless dreamer.  'You see, that's it.\nThat's like your pretty things.  I'd keep your pretty things if I was\nyou.  It ain't that there shouldn't be music anywhere.  It's only that\nthe music shouldn't ride over the master.  Seems to me it is like\nthat.'\"\n\n\n\n\nSCHUBERT.\n\nIn the Waehring cemetery in Vienna three monuments of varying design\nstand side by side.  The central one honours Mozart, the name of\nBeethoven is inscribed upon the second, and the last bears that of\nFranz Schubert.  Schubert died aged but thirty-one, in 1828, the year\nafter Beethoven had passed beyond.  He had the greatest reverence for\nthe sublime master, and on the day before his own death spoke of him in\na touching manner in his delirium.  Schubert was one of the\ntorch-bearers at the grave of Beethoven, and after the funeral went\nwith some friends to a tavern, where he filled two glasses of wine.\nThe first he drank to the memory of the great man who had just been\nlaid to rest, and the other to the memory of him who should be first to\nfollow Beethoven to the grave.  In less than two years he himself lay\nbeside him.\n\nSchubert, in his youth, once asked a friend, after the performance of\nsome of his own songs, whether he thought that he (Schubert) would ever\nbecome anything.  His friend replied that he was already something.  \"I\nsay so to myself, sometimes,\" said Schubert, \"but who can do anything\nafter Beethoven?\"  At a later day he said of the master, \"Mozart stands\nin the same relation to him as Schiller does to Shakespeare.  Schiller\nis already understood, Shakespeare still far from being fully\ncomprehended.  Every one understands Mozart; no one thoroughly\ncomprehends Beethoven.\"\n\nAlthough Beethoven lived in Vienna during nearly the whole life of\nSchubert, and for some years very near to his house, the two composers\nwere almost strangers.  Schindler, Beethoven's biographer, does indeed\nstate that they met in 1822, but the story has been much doubted.\nSchindler says that the younger composer, whose \"Variations on a French\nAir\" had just been published by Diabelli and dedicated to Beethoven,\nwent with the publisher to present the offering in person.  He received\nthem kindly, but Schubert was too confused to answer the master's\nquestions, and on Beethoven making some slight criticism upon the\npiece, fled from the room in dismay.  Huttenbrenner says, on the other\nhand, that Beethoven was not at home when Schubert called on him and\nthat they never met.  He, however, states that he, Schubert, and the\nartist Teltscher, went to Beethoven's house during his last illness and\nstood for a long time around his bed.  The dying man was told the names\nof his visitors and made signs to them with his hand which they could\nnot comprehend.  Schubert was deeply touched, for his veneration for\nBeethoven amounted almost to worship.\n\nSchindler, during Beethoven's last illness, brought him a collection of\nSchubert's songs, and he expressed the greatest admiration for their\nbeauty, coupled with regrets that he had not known more of him.  How\ngreat must have been Schubert's delight to learn that Beethoven on this\noccasion said of him, \"Truly, Schubert possesses a spark of the divine\nfire;\" and again, \"Some day he will make a noise in the world.\"\nBeethoven is said to have frequently played the \"Variations\" which\nSchubert dedicated to him.\n\nThe extraordinary fertility and facility of Schubert in composing are\nwell known.  Elson tells the story of the creation of \"Hark, Hark, the\nLark!\" from \"Cymbeline.\"  \"It was a summer morning in 1826 that\nSchubert was returning from a long walk in the suburbs of Vienna, with\na party of friends; they had been out to Potzleindorf, and were walking\nthrough Waehring, when, as they passed the restaurant \"Zum Biersack,\"\nSchubert looked in and saw his friend Tieze sitting at one of the\ntables; he at once suggested that the party enter and join him at\nbreakfast, which was accordingly done.  As they sat together at the\ntable, Schubert took up a book which Tieze had brought with him; it was\nShakespeare's poems in a German translation; he began turning from page\nto page in his usual insatiable search for subjects for musical\nsetting; suddenly he paused and read one of the poems over a few times.\n'If I only had music-paper here,' he cried, 'I have just the melody to\nfit this poem.'  Without a word, Doppler, one of his friends, drew the\nmusical staff on the back of the bill of fare, and handed it to the\ncomposer, and on this bill of fare, while waiting breakfast, amid the\nclatter and confusion of a Viennese outdoor restaurant, Schubert\nbrought forth the beautiful aubade, or morning song, 'Hark, Hark, the\nLark!'\"\n\nUpon the same evening, he set two more of Shakespeare's songs to music,\n\"Who is Sylvia?\" from the \"Two Gentlemen of Verona,\" and the drinking\nsong from the second act of \"Antony and Cleopatra.\"\n\nThe composer played the piano with much expression, but could not be\nconsidered as a performer of great technical attainments.  He once\nattempted to play his \"Fantasia in C, Opus 15,\" to some friends, but\nbroke down twice, and finally sprang up from his chair in a fury,\nexclaiming: \"The devil may play the stuff!\"\n\n[Illustration: Schubert at the Piano.  From painting by Gustav Klimt.]\n\n\"The subtle influence which Schubert exercised over those with whom he\nwas brought into close contact was not to be accounted for by any grace\nof person or manner.  Kreissle says that he was under the average\nheight, round backed and shouldered, with plump arms and hands and\nshort fingers.  He had a round and puffy face, low forehead, thick\nlips, bushy eyebrows, and a short, turned-up nose, giving him something\nof a negro aspect.  This description does not coincide with our ideas\nof one in whom either intellectual or imaginative qualities were\nstrongly developed.  Only in animated conversation did his eye light\nup, and show by its fire and brilliancy the splendour of the mind\nwithin.  Add to this that in society Schubert's manner was awkward, the\nresult of an unconquerable diffidence and bashfulness, when in the\npresence of strangers.  He was even less fitted than Beethoven to shine\nin the salons of the Viennese aristocracy, for his capacity as an\nexecutive musician was more limited.  But he was far more companionable\namong his intimate acquaintances, and perhaps his greatest, and\ncertainly his most frequent, pleasure was to discuss music over a\nfriendly glass in some cosy tavern.  It would be entirely unjust to say\nthat he was a drunkard, but he was not overcautious in his potations,\nand frequently took more than was prudent or consistent with a regard\nto health.  This weakness was purely the result of his fondness for\ngenial society, for he was not a solitary drinker, and invariably\ndevoted the early portion of the day to work.  The enormous mass of his\ncompositions sufficiently proves his capacity for hard and unremitting\nlabour, and no diminution of energy was observable to the very last.\nIt is not easy for us at this distance of time, and with our colder\nNorthern temperament, to comprehend the romantic feelings of attachment\nsubsisting between Schubert and some of his friends,--feelings which,\nhowever, are by no means rare among the impulsive youth of South\nGermany,--but his naive simplicity, cheerful and eminently sociable\ndisposition, insensibility to envy, and incorruptible modesty, were\nqualities calculated to transform the respect due to his genius into a\nstrong personal liking.  Schubert was, in truth, a child of nature, one\nwhom to know was to love; for his faults might be summed up into a\ngeneral incapacity to understand his own interests, and it might be\nsaid of him as truly as of any one that he was no man's enemy save his\nown, thus reversing Shakespeare's words, the good which he did lives\nafter him; the evil was interred with his bones.\"\n\n\n\n\nROUGET DE LISLE.\n\nDuring the great English revolution of 1688, Lord Wharton, as Macaulay\nsays, wrote \"a satirical ballad on the administration of Tyrconnel.  In\nthis little poem an Irishman congratulates a brother Irishman, in a\nbarbarous jargon, on the approaching triumph of popery, and of the\nMilesian race.  The Protestant heir will be excluded.  The Protestant\nofficers will be broken.  The Great Charter, and the praters who appeal\nto it, will be hanged in one rope.  The good Talbot will shower\ncommissions on his countrymen, and will cut the throats of the English.\nThese verses, which were in no respect above the ordinary standard of\nstreet poetry, had for burden some gibberish which was said to have\nbeen used as a watchword by the insurgents of Ulster in 1641.  The\nverses and the tune caught the fancy of the nation.  From one end of\nEngland to the other, all classes were constantly singing this idle\nrhyme.  It was especially the delight of the English army.  More than\nseventy years after the revolution, a great writer delineated, with\nexquisite skill, a veteran who had fought at the Boyne and at Namur.\nOne of the characteristics of the good old soldier is his trick of\nwhistling 'Lillibullero.'\n\n\"Wharton afterward boasted that he had sung a king out of three\nkingdoms.  But in truth the success of 'Lillibullero' was the effect,\nand not the cause, of that excited state of public feeling which\nproduced the revolution.\"\n\nThe English revolution had its \"Lillibullero,\" the French Revolution\nits \"Marseillaise.\"  The former is never heard now; the latter, in\nwhich spirited words are wedded to inspiring music, is undying.\nLamartine said, \"Glory and crime, victory and death, are mingled in its\nstrains.\"  Sir Walter Scott called it \"the finest hymn to which Liberty\nhas ever given birth.\"  Heine exclaimed, \"What a song!  It thrills me\nwith fiery delight, it kindles within me the glowing star of\nenthusiasm;\" and Carlyle pronounced it \"the luckiest musical\ncomposition ever promulgated.\"\n\nIn the spring of 1792, a young officer of artillery was in garrison at\nStrasburg.  His name was Rouget de Lisle, and his talents as poet,\nsinger, and musician had rendered him a welcome guest at the house of\nDietrich, the mayor of the city.  Famine reigned in Strasburg, and one\nday, when the Dietrich family could offer but a scanty repast to the\nyouthful soldier, Dietrich produced a bottle of wine, and said, \"Let us\ndrink to Liberty and to our country.  There will soon be a patriotic\ncelebration at Strasburg; may these last drops inspire De Lisle with\none of those hymns which convey to the soul of the people the\nintoxication from whence they proceed.\"  The wine was drunk and the\nfriends separated for the night.  De Lisle went to his room and sought\ninspiration, \"now in his patriotic soul, now in his harpsichord;\nsometimes composing the air before the words, sometimes the words\nbefore the air, and so combining them in his thoughts that he himself\ndid not know whether the notes or the verses came first, and it was\nimpossible to separate the poetry from the music, or the sentiment from\nthe expression.  He sang all and set down nothing.\"\n\nIn the morning De Lisle wrote down the words and music and went with\nthem to Dietrich's house.  The old patriot invited some friends, who\nwere as fond of music as himself, to listen, and his eldest daughter\nplayed the accompaniment, while Rouget sang.  \"At the first stanza all\nfaces turned pale; at the second tears ran down every cheek, and at the\nlast all the madness of enthusiasm broke forth.  The hymn of the\ncountry, destined also to be the hymn of terror, was found.  A few\nmonths afterward the unfortunate Dietrich went to the scaffold to the\nsound of the very notes which had their origin on his own hearth, in\nthe heart of his friend, and in the voices of his children.\"\n\n[Illustration: Rouget de l'Isle Singing the Marseillaise.  From\npainting by I. A. A. Pils.]\n\nIt was on April 25th that De Lisle's hymn was sung at Dietrich's house.\nThe next day it was copied and arranged for a military band, and on\nApril 29th it was performed by the band of the Garde Nationale at a\nreview.  On June 25th, a singer named Mireur sang it with so much\neffect at a civic banquet at Marseilles that it was at once printed and\ndistributed to the volunteers of the battalion just starting for Paris,\nwhich they entered by the Faubourg St. Antoine on July 30th, singing\ntheir new hymn.  It was heard again on August 10th, when the mob\nstormed the palace of the Tuileries.  From that time the \"_chant de\nguerre pour l'armee du Rhin_,\" as it had been christened, was known as\nthe \"Chanson\" or \"Chant de Marseillais,\" and finally as \"La\nMarseillaise.\"  The original edition contained only six couplets; the\nseventh was added by the journalist Dubois.\n\nRouget de Lisle's authorship of the music has been often contested, but\nit is proven by the conclusive evidence contained in the pamphlet on\nthe subject, by his nephew, published in Paris, in 1865.  Schumann has\nused the \"Marseillaise\" in the overture to \"Hermann and Dorothea,\" and\nalso in his song of the \"Two Grenadiers.\"\n\nIts author, Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, was born at Montaigu,\nLous-le-Saulnier, in 1760.  Entering the school of Royal Engineers at\nMezieres in 1782, in 1789 he was a second lieutenant and quartered at\nBesancon.  Here, a few days after the fall of the Bastille, on July\n14th, he wrote his first patriotic song to the tune of a favourite air.\nThe next year found him at Strasburg, where his \"Hymn to Liberty,\" set\nto music by Pleyel, was sung at the fete of September 25, 1791.  One of\nhis pieces, \"Bayard en Bresse,\" produced at Paris in 1791, was not\nsuccessful.  Being the son of royalist parents and one of the\nconstitutional party, Rouget de Lisle refused to take the oath to the\nconstitution abolishing the crown, and was therefore cashiered,\ndenounced, and imprisoned, not escaping until after the fall of\nRobespierre.  It is told that as he fled through a pass of the Alps he\nheard his own song.  \"'What is the name of that hymn?' he asked his\nguide.  'The Marseillaise,' was the peasant's reply.  It was then that\nhe learned the name of his own work.  He was pursued by the enthusiasm\nwhich he had scattered behind him, and escaped death with difficulty.\nThe weapon recoiled against the hand which had forged it; the\nRevolution in its madness no longer recognised its own voice.\"\n\nDe Lisle afterward reentered the army, made the campaign of La Vendee\nunder Hoche, was wounded, and at length, under the consulate, returned\nto private life at Montaigu.  Poor and alone, he remained there until\nthe second Restoration, when, his brother having sold the little family\nproperty, he came to Paris.  Here he was unfortunate and would have\nstarved but for a small pension granted by Louis XVIII., and continued\nby Louis Philippe, and for the care of his friends, the poet Beranger\nand the sculptor David d'Angers, and especially M. and Madame Voiart.\nAt the house of the Voiarts in Choisy-le-Roi, Rouget de Lisle died in\n1836.\n\nHis other works include a volume of \"Essais en vers et en prose,\"\nissued in 1797, \"Cinquante Chants Francais\" (1825), and \"Macbeth,\" a\nlyrical tragedy (1827).  He also wrote a song called \"Roland at\nRoncesvalles,\" and a \"Hymn to the Setting Sun.\"\n\nTwo statues, if no more, have been erected to him in France,--one at\nLous-le-Saulnier, from the hand of Bartholdi, and another at\nChoisy-le-Roi.\n\nPils, to whom we owe the picture of Rouget de Lisle singing his\nimmortal chant, was a French artist, who died in 1875, at the age of\nsixty-two, having gained many medals and a professorship of painting at\nthe Paris School of Fine Arts.  His fame was mostly won by pictures of\nthe war in the Crimea, notably by his \"Battle of the Alma,\" now in the\ngallery at Versailles.  The \"Rouget de Lisle,\" painted in 1849, belongs\nto the French nation.  Pils decorated the ceiling over the grand\nstaircase in the Paris Opera House.\n\n\n\n\nPAGANINI.\n\nEarth's effective picture of the great violinist in prison is an\ninstance of the use of that license which we are generally willing to\nallow the painter and the poet.  Among the many astounding fictions\nwhich were related about Paganini is one which asserts that, during\nyears spent in confinement on the charge of murdering his wife, he\nsolaced himself and perfected his art by the constant use of his\nbeloved instrument, and this story must serve as the artist's excuse.\nDoubtless as many believers were found for this baseless tale as for\nthese others.\n\n[Illustration: Paganini in Prison.  From painting by Ferdinand Barth.]\n\nSome declared that he had a league with Satan, and held interviews with\nhim in an old Florentine castle, much frequented by the artist, from\nwhich, they said, fearful sounds were heard proceeding on stormy\nnights, and where the great master was known to have lain as one dead\nfor hours together, on different occasions.  These persons believed\nthat at such times Paganini had only come back to life by magical\nagency.  Another swore to having seen a tall, dark shadow bending over\nhim at one of his concerts, and directing his hand; while a third\ntestified that he had seen nine or ten shadowy hands hovering about the\nstrings of the great master's violin.\n\nMany of his admirers warmly upheld it as their opinion that he was in\nreality an angel sent down to this world, in pity, for the purpose of\nlightening the miseries of earthly life by giving man a foretaste of\nwhat the heavenly harmonies will be hereafter.  They said that it was\nas if a choir of sweet-voiced spirits lay hid within the instrument,\nand that at times it seemed as though this choir turned into a grand\norchestra.\n\nIt was not only Paganini's wonderful playing, but his weird appearance\nwhich helped to gain credence for such surprising anecdotes.  Leigh\nHunt has left us a graphic description of the renowned fiddler.\n\n\"Paganini, the first time I saw and heard him, and the first time he\nstruck a note, seemed literally to strike it, to give it a blow.  The\nhouse was so crammed that, being among the squeezers in the\nstanding-room at the side of the pit, I happened to catch the first\nglance of his face through the arm akimbo of a man who was perched up\nbefore me, which made a kind of frame for it; and there, on the stage\nin that frame, as through a perspective glass, were the face bent and\nthe raised hand of the wonderful musician, with the instrument at his\nchin, just going to commence, and looking exactly as I described him:\n\n        His hand,\n  Loading the air with dumb expectancy,\n  Suspending ere it fell a nation's breath,\n  He smote, and clinging to the serious chords,\n  With godlike ravishment drew forth a breath\n  So deep, so strong, so fervid thick with love,\n  Blissful yet laden as with twenty prayers,\n  That Juno yearned with no diviner soul\n  To the first burthen of the lips of Jove.\n  Th' exceeding mystery of the loveliness\n  Sadden'd delight, and with his mournful look,\n  Dreary and gaunt, hanging his pallid face\n  'Twixt his dark flowing locks, he almost seem'd\n  Too feeble, or to melancholy eyes\n  One that has parted with his soul for pride,\n  And in the sable secret lived forlorn.'\n\n\n\"To show the depth and identicalness of the impression which he made\nupon everybody, foreign or native, an Italian, who stood near me, said\nto himself, after a sigh, O Dio!' and this had not been said long when\nanother person in the same manner exclaimed, 'O Christ!'  Musicians\npressed forward from behind the scenes to get as close to him as\npossible, and they could not sleep at night for thinking of him.\"\n\nAnother writer shows us Paganini in his lodgings.\n\n\"Everything was lying in its usual disorder; here one violin, there\nanother, one snuff-box on the bed, another under one of the boy's\nplaythings.  Music, money, caps, letters, watches, and boots were\nscattered about in the utmost confusion.  The chairs, tables, and even\nthe bed had all been removed from their proper places.  In the midst of\nthe chaos sat Paganini, his black silk nightcap covering his still\nblacker hair, a yellow handkerchief carelessly tied around his neck,\nand a chocolate-coloured jacket hanging loose upon his shoulders.  On\nhis knees he held Achillino, his little son of four years of age, at\nthat time in very bad humour because he had to allow his hands to be\nwashed.  His affectionate forbearance is truly wonderful.  Let the boy\nbe ever so troublesome, he never gets angry, but merely turns around\nand observes to those present, 'The poor child is wearied; I do not\nknow what I shall do, I am already quite worn out with playing with\nhim.  I have been fighting with him all the morning; I have carried him\nabout; made him chocolate; I do not know what more to do!'\n\n\"It was enough to make one die of laughing to see Paganini in his\nslippers fighting with his little son, who reached to about his knee.\nSometimes the little Achillino would get into a rage; draw his sabre\nupon his father, who would retreat into the corner of the room and call\nout, 'Enough, enough!  I am wounded already;' but the little fellow\nwould never leave off until he had laid his gigantic adversary\ntottering and prostrate on the bed.  Paganini had now finished the\ndressing of his Achillino, but was himself still in _dishabille_.  And\nnow arose the great difficulty, how to accomplish his own toilet, where\nto find his neckcloth, his boots, his coat.  All were hid, and by\nwhom?--by Achillino.  The urchin laughed when he saw his father pacing\nwith long strides through the apartment, his searching looks glancing\nin all directions; and upon his asking him where he had put his things,\nthe little wag pretended astonishment, and held his tongue, shrugged up\nhis shoulders, shook his head, and signified by his gesture that he\nknew nothing about them.  After a long search, the boots were found;\nthey were hid under the trunk; the handkerchief lay in one of the\nboots; the coat in the box; and the waistcoat in the drawer of the\ntable.  Every time that Paganini had found one of his things, he drew\nit out in triumph, took a great pinch of snuff, and went with new zeal\nto search for the remaining articles, always followed by the little\nfellow, who enjoyed it vastly when he saw his papa searching in places\nwhere he knew nothing was hid.  At last we went out, and Paganini shut\nthe door of the apartment, leaving behind him, lying about upon the\ntables and in the cupboards, rings, watches, gold, and what I most\nwondered at, his most precious violins.  Any idea of the insecurity of\nhis property never entered his head; and, fortunately for him, in the\nlodgings which he occupied the people were honest.\"\n\nThe famous violinist, like the rest of us, had his faults, but we can\neasily find instances to prove the kindness of his heart.\n\nOne day, while walking in Vienna, Paganini came across a poor boy\nplaying upon a violin.  He went up to him and learned that he\nmaintained his mother and a flock of little brothers and sisters by the\nmoney which he picked up as an itinerant musician.  Paganini turned out\nhis pockets, gave the boy all the coins he could find, and then, taking\nthe boy's violin, commenced playing.  A crowd soon assembled, and, when\nhe had finished playing, Paganini went around with his hat, collected a\ngoodly sum, and then gave it to the boy, amid loud acclamations from\nthe bystanders.\n\nIn the autumn of 1832 Paganini was an invalid at Paris, and seldom saw\nany one but Nicette, a merry country girl who waited upon him, and\noften cheered him up in hours of sadness.  One morning she appeared\nwith weeping eyes, and waited upon the musician without saying a word.\n\n\"What's the matter, child?\" said the musician.  \"Has any misfortune\nhappened to you?\"\n\n\"Alas! yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Speak! speak!  What is it?\"\n\nShe was silent.\n\n\"Now, out with it,\" said he.  \"I see it all clearly enough.  After he\nhad made you a thousand promises he has forsaken you.  Is it not so?\"\n\n\"Alas! poor fellow, he has indeed forsaken me, but he is quite\ninnocent.\"\n\n\"How has that happened?\"\n\n\"He has drawn a bad number in the conscription, and must go off for a\nsoldier.  I shall never see him again!\" sobbed the poor girl.\n\n\"But can't you buy a substitute for him?\"\n\n\"How could I get such a large sum?  Fifteen hundred francs is the\nlowest price, for there is a report that a war will soon break out,\"\nsaid she.\n\nPaganini said no more, but when Nicette had left the room, he took his\npocketbook and wrote in it, \"To think what can be done for poor\nNicette.\"\n\nIt was toward Christmas-time, and Paganini's health was improved, when\none afternoon Nicette came into the room where he was, and announced\nthat a box had come, addressed to Signer Paganini.  It was brought in,\nand the first thing which he pulled out was a large wooden shoe.\n\n\"A wooden shoe,\" said Paganini, smiling.  \"Some of these excellent\nladies wish to compare me with a child, who always receives presents\nand never gives any.  Well, who knows but that this shoe may earn its\nweight in gold?\"\n\nNothing now was seen of Paganini for three days, during which time his\nclever hand had transformed the shoe into a well-sounding instrument.\nSoon afterward appeared an advertisement announcing that, on New Year's\neve, Paganini would give a concert, and play five pieces on the violin\nand five on a wooden shoe.  A hundred tickets at twenty francs each\nwere instantly sold.  Paganini duly appeared, and played on his old\nviolin as he alone ever did.  Then, taking up the wooden shoe, he\ncommenced a descriptive fantasia.  There it was,--the departure of the\nconscript, the cries of his betrothed at the parting, the camp life,\nthe battle and victory, the return-rejoicings, and marriage-bells, all\nwere vividly portrayed.\n\nThe company departed, but in the corner of the room stood Nicette,\nsobbing bitterly.\n\n\"Here, Nicette,\" said Paganini, going up to her, \"are two thousand\nfrancs,--five hundred more than you require to purchase a substitute\nfor your betrothed.  That you may be able to begin housekeeping at\nonce, take this shoe-violin and sell it for as much as you can get for\nit.\"\n\nNicette did so, and a wealthy collector of curiosities gave her a very\nlarge sum indeed for Paganini's wooden shoe.\n\nHere is another anecdote of Paganini, as related by one who took part\nin some of the frequent demands upon his goodness of heart.  When\nPaganini was in London, he resided at No. 12 Great Pulteney Street, in\na house belonging to the Novellos, next door to which was a \"young\nladies'\" school, kept by a humpbacked old lady.  The girls were\nperfectly aware who their next-door neighbour was, and, with the\nfondness of female youth for mischief, had nicknamed Paganini \"the\ndevil.\"\n\nNow, in order to avoid being heard from the street, \"the devil\" used to\npractise his violin in a back room, which happened to be divided only\nby a thin partition from the next house.  The adjoining room was one\ndevoted by the old lady to the most advanced of her pupils, and here\nthey were allowed to do their needlework apart from the others, and\nwere frequently left to themselves.\n\nWhen the cat's away, however, the mice will play.  The temptation to\nmake overtures to \"the devil\" was too great for the young ladies; and\nwhenever they heard him in his room, while one kept a lookout at the\ndoor for the intrusions of \"old humpback,\" there was a delicate\n\"tat-tat-tat\" at the partition, and a half-singing, half-speaking call,\n\"Pag-an-in-ee, Pag-an-in-ee--the Carnival--'Carnival de Venise';\"\nwhereupon he would go to his window, open it, and accede to the\nrequest, playing the piece exactly as he did in public, nor did the\nmaestro ever once fail to gratify the wishes of his fair neighbours.\n\n\"Paganini received some enthusiastic receptions in his time, but\nprobably never a more spontaneous outburst than that which came from a\nson of Erin's Isle, after one of his performances in Dublin.  On the\noccasion in question, Paganini had just completed that successful\neffort, the rondo _a la Sicilienne_ from 'La Clochette,' in which was a\nsilver bell accompaniment to the fiddle, producing a most original\neffect (one of those effects, we presume, which have tended to\nassociate so much of the marvellous with the name of this genius).  No\nsooner had the outburst of applause ended, than the excited Paddy in\nthe gallery shouted out as loud as he was able:\n\n\"'Arrah now, Paganini, just take a drop o' whisky, my darling, and ring\nthe bell again like that!'\n\n\"At a soiree given by Troupenas, the music publisher, in Paris, in\n1830, Paganini gave one of the most wonderful exhibitions of his skill.\nRossini, Tamburini, Lablache, Rubini, De Beriot, and Malibran were of\nthe party.  Malibran, after singing one of her spirited arias,\nchallenged Paganini, who said, 'Madam, how could I dare, with all the\nadvantages you possess in beauty and your incomparable voice, take up\nyour glove?'  His declining was of no avail; the whole company, aware\nthat such an opportunity might never occur again, urged him most\nstrongly, and finally persuaded him to send for his violin.  After an\nintroduction, in which gleamed now and then the motive of Malibran's\nsong, he gave the whole melody with additional _fiorituras_, so that\nthe audience, amazed and overwhelmed, could not help confessing that he\nwas the master.  Malibran herself was most emphatic of all in\nproclaiming him the victor.\"\n\nPaganini's favourite violin was a Joseph Guarnerius.  An Italian\namateur, who evidently knew its value, lent it to the great maestro,\nand, after hearing him play upon it, declared that no other hand should\ntouch it, and presented it to Paganini.  He left it to his native city\nof Genoa, where it is preserved in the town hall.\n\nFerdinand Barth, who painted \"Paganini in Prison,\" was the son of a\ncarpenter, and was born in Bavaria in the early forties.  For some time\nhe worked as a wood carver, and then began to paint, and studied at the\nMunich Academy, under Piloty.  Probably his best known picture is\n\"Choosing the Casket,\" in which he has depicted the familiar scene from\nthe \"Merchant of Venice.\"\n\n\n\n\nMENDELSSOHN.\n\nLike Mozart, the composer of the \"Songs without Words\" had a sister, a\nfew years older than himself, who was possessed of great musical talent.\n\nMendelssohn's sister, Fanny, was born in 1805.  In 1829 she became the\nwife of Wilhelm Hensel, a noted historical and portrait painter.\nProbably the most valuable and interesting of his works is the series\nof portraits of all the celebrities who, from time to time, were the\nguests of the Mendelssohn family.  They number more than a thousand\ndrawings, and include, besides likenesses of poets, painters, and\nphilosophers, portraits of many people famous in the annals of\nmusic,--Weber, Paganini, Ernst, Hiller, Liszt, Clara Schumann, Gounod,\nClara Novello, Lablache, and Grisi.\n\nRockstro tells the story of Fanny Mendelssohn's early death in the\nfollowing words:\n\n\"On Friday afternoon, the 14th of May, 1847, Madame Hensel, the beloved\nsister Fanny, to whom, from earliest infancy, Felix, the child, the\nboy, the man, had committed every secret of his beautiful art life; the\nkindred spirit, with whom he had shared his every dream before his\nfirst attempt to translate it into sound; the faithful friend who had\nbeen more to him than any other member of the happy circle in the\nLeipziger Strasse, of which, from first to last, she was the very life\nand soul,--Fanny Hensel, the sister, the artist, the poet, while\nconducting a rehearsal of the music for the next bright Sunday\ngathering, was suddenly seized with paralysis; suffered her hands to\nfall powerless from the piano at which she had so often presided; and,\nan hour before midnight, was called away to join the beloved parents\nwhose death had been as sudden and painless as her own.  She had hoped\nand prayed that she, too, might pass away as they had done, and her\nprayer was granted; to her exceeding gain, but to the endless grief of\nthe brother who had loved her as himself.  On Sunday morning, in place\nof the piano, a coffin, covered with flowers, stood in the well-known\nhall in the Garden House.  And the life, of which that Garden House had\nso long been the cherished home, became henceforth a memory of the\npast.\"\n\nAn English lady, Mrs. Florence Fenwick Miller, known not only as a\nwriter, but as an ardent advocate of woman suffrage, has in one of her\nbooks written a chapter which she entitles \"A Genius Wasted--Fanny\nMendelssohn.\"  She says: \"One of the saddest instances with which the\nworld has ever become acquainted, of gifts repressed and faculties\nwasted because of the sex of their possessor, is that of Fanny\nMendelssohn, the sister of the famous composer, Felix Mendelssohn.\nWith natural powers apparently fully as great as her brother's, Fanny\nwas not, indeed, denied all opportunity of cultivating them, but was\neffectually prevented from utilising them, and, therefore, from fully\ndeveloping her genius or from displaying its force.\"\n\nThese two Jewish children were members of a family in which both\nintellect, in its widest meaning, and musical talent, specifically,\nwere hereditary.  Their mother began to teach music both to the boy and\nthe girl in their early years.  Fanny, who was five years older than\nher brother, was naturally more advanced than he; and when the two\nchildren were allowed to show off their powers as pianists, it was\nFanny who always won the most applause.  They passed from their\nmother's elementary tuition to that of superior teachers, L. Berger and\nafterward Zeiter, and the former of these indicated Fanny as being, in\nhis opinion, the future great musician.\n\nBut a father and mother with a maiden of genius on their hands were\nlike a hen whose duckling takes to the water.  The difference of the\ntraining of Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, as distinguished from their\nmusical education, is effectually indicated by the following letter\nfrom their father to Fanny, written when she was fourteen years old.\nAfter referring in terms of satisfaction to the compositions of both\nhis son and daughter, Abraham Mendelssohn proceeded to say to the\nlatter of his two gifted children:\n\n\"What you wrote to me about your musical occupations, with reference to\nand in comparison with Felix, was both rightly thought and expressed.\nMusic will, perhaps, become _his_ profession (Felix was at this time\nonly nine years old.  Fanny was fourteen), whilst for _you_ it can and\nmust be only an ornament, never the root of your being and doing.  We\nmay, therefore, pardon him some ambition and desire to be acknowledged\nin a pursuit which appears to him important, while it does you credit\nthat you have always shown yourself good and sensible in these matters;\nand your very joy at the praise he earns proves that you might, in his\nplace, have merited equal approval.  Remain true to these sentiments\nand to this line of conduct; they are feminine, and only what is truly\nfeminine is an ornament to your sex.\"\n\nTen more precious years of youth, the years of training and of hope,\npassed by; the different ideal was persistently forced by the parents\nupon the two, although Fanny, more fortunate than many girls, was,\nnevertheless, allowed to study her art as well as she could in\nintervals of housekeeping.  On her twenty-third birthday, her father\nagain felt it necessary to check his gifted daughter in her pursuit of\nher art.  He wrote her a letter in which he praised her conduct in the\nhousehold.\n\n\"However,\" he added, \"you must still improve.  You must become still\nmore steady and collected, and prepare more earnestly and eagerly for\nyour real calling, the _only_ calling of a woman,--I mean the state of\na housewife.  Women have a difficult task; the constant occupation with\napparent trifles, the interception of each drop of rain, that it may\nnot evaporate, but be conducted into the right channel, the unremitting\nattention to every detail,--all these are the weighty duties of a\nwoman.\"\n\nThe time came, at length, for Fanny Mendelssohn to love,--that crisis\ncame which stimulates a man in his work, and nerves him to fresh\nefforts to make himself successful, that he may be worthy and able to\nestablish a home.  But to a woman this brings, only too often, yet\nanother heavy barrier in the way of success in any art or occupation.\nSo it was to Fanny Mendelssohn.\n\n\"Hensel was at first dreadfully jealous . . . even of Fanny's\nart. . . .  Only _her_ letters have been preserved.  With\ncharacteristic energy she refuses to sacrifice her brother to the\njealousy with which Hensel, in the beginning, regards her love for him,\nbut she consents to give up her friends, and even her music. . . .  She\nnever, in her thoughts, loses sight of that letter of her father's, in\nwhich he calls the vocation of a housewife the only true aim and study\nof a young woman, and in thinking of the man of her choice she\nearnestly devotes herself to this aim.\"\n\nWhat reprobation and what just indignation would be showered upon a\nwoman who should try to make the man of her choice give up his art, to\nattend to her private comforts!\n\nAlthough Fanny's good father and mother, yielding to the prejudices of\ntheir day, had struggled to make housekeeping her main interest, and\nmusic only her recreation, yet they had not denied her musical genius a\ncomplete education.  Fanny was not only taught to play the piano in her\nchildhood, in company with Felix, but she was also allowed to receive\nlessons in thorough bass and the theory of composition.  She was thus\nrendered capable of the expression of her musical talents; and in\nbetween her household duties, after, as well as before she became a\nwife and mother, she often found time to compose.  Much of what she\nwrote was of so high a character that her brother Felix felt no\nhesitation in putting it forth to the world as _his_ own composition!\nIt is, apparently, impossible to discover which, amongst the works\npublished as those of Mendelssohn, were really those of his sister; but\nreferences now and again occur in his private letters to the fact,\nwhich thereby becomes incontrovertible, that he has claimed before the\npublic compositions which are hers exclusively.  The most famous of\nsuch passages is one that has became widely known in consequence of its\nquotation in Sir Theodore Martin's \"Life of the Prince Consort.\"\nMendelssohn is telling of his visit to the queen, at Buckingham Palace,\nin 1842.\n\n\"The queen said she was very fond of singing my published songs.  'You\nshould sing one to him,' said Prince Albert, and after a little begging\nshe said she would.  And what did she choose?  'Schoener und schoener\nschmuckt sich;' sang it quite charmingly, in strict time and tune, and\nwith very good execution.  Then I was obliged to confess that Fanny had\nwritten that song (which I found very hard, but pride must have a\nfall), and to beg her to sing one of my own also.\"\n\nAs her father had kept her from appearing before the public when she\nwas young, so her brother strenuously opposed her wish to publish her\nwork in her maturity.  In the spring of 1837, Fanny, in defiance of\nhim, did issue one song with her own name to it.  It had a great\nsuccess, and Felix himself graciously wrote to her after it had been\nperformed at a concert; \"I thank you, in the name of the public, for\npublishing it against my wish.\"  Fanny's husband urged her to follow up\nthis success by issuing more of her works.  \"Her mother was of the same\nopinion, and begged Felix to persuade Fanny to publish.  The success\nhad not altered Felix's views, however, and he declined to persuade his\nsister; and Fanny, who had herself no desire to appear in print,\nreadily gave up the idea.\"\n\nFelix's influence sufficed to debar Fanny from all further attempt to\nobtain recognition, after that one song, until the year 1846, when she\nwas forty-one years old.  Then the persuasions of another musical\nfriend led her to publish a small selection of her best work.  \"Felix\nhad not altered his views, and it went against his wishes when he heard\nthat she had made up her mind to publish.  Some time passed before he\nwrote on the subject at all, but on August 14th the following entry\nappears in her diary: 'At last Felix has written, and given me his\nprofessional blessing in the kindest manner.  I know that he is not\nsatisfied in his heart of hearts, but I am glad he has said a kind word\nto me about it.'\"\n\nThis little volume, too, was warmly received.  Encouraged by the\nsuccess of her published work,--delayed till so sadly late in\nlife,--tasting the stimulating elixir of appreciation, and knowing the\nfascinating encouragement of public applause, she now began composition\non a larger scale than anything she had before attempted.  \"I am\nworking a good deal,\" she wrote, \"and feel that I get on,--a\nconsciousness which, added to the glorious weather, gives me a feeling\nof content and happiness such as I have, perhaps, never before\nexperienced.\"\n\nAlas! it came too late.  In the spring of the next year, Fanny\nMendelssohn died, aged forty-two.  Her grand playing, \"which made\npeople afraid to perform in her presence,\" went down with her into the\nsilence of her grave; and the musical genius and originality which\nshould have left a lasting mark in the world faded, too, leaving but a\nfew small tokens of what might have been.\n\nThe \"Songs without Words\" are more closely associated with Mendelssohn\nthan any other of his works.  The composer considered that music is\nmore definite than words, and these lovely songs had as exact an\nintention as those which were written to accompany poetry.  It was in a\nletter of Fanny Mendelssohn's, dated December 8, 1828, that their title\nfirst appeared, and they are referred to as if Mendelssohn had but\nlately begun to write them.  On the day after his arrival in London,\nApril 24, 1832, he played the first six to Moscheles.  The earliest one\nis No. 2, of Book 2, which Felix sent to his sister Fanny in 1830.  \"In\na Gondola,\" the last song in the first book, is said to be the earliest\nof the six, in date.  A few only were given titles by the composer.\nSix books, each containing six songs, were published during his life,\nand the seventh and eighth after his early death.\n\n[Illustration: Song without Words.  From painting by R. Poetzelberger.]\n\nWe reproduce the charming picture by a German painter, which, entitled\n\"Song without Words,\" is said to represent the young Mendelssohn and\nhis sister Fanny seated at the piano, side by side.  Poetzelberger's\nother works, which he has named \"Con Amore,\" \"Old Songs,\" and\n\"Trifling,\" are also distinguished by their graceful sentiment.\n\n\n\n\nCHOPIN.\n\nLiszt, the friend and rival of Chopin, wrote a biography of him which\nmay almost be ranked among the curiosities of literature.  Liszt was a\ngenius, but not a good biographer, and his life of Chopin is largely a\nrhapsody.\n\nFor instance, Liszt writes thus about Chopin's short-lived passion for\nthe singer Constantia Gladkowska.  \"The tempest, which, in one of its\nsudden gusts, tore Chopin from his native soil, like a bird dreamy and\nabstracted, surprised by the storm, upon the branches of a foreign\ntree, sundered the ties of this first love and robbed the exile of a\nfaithful and devoted wife, as well as disinherited him of a country.\"\nAnd the same tendency to \"gush\" is here again apparent.  \"Chopin,\" he\nsays, \"could easily read the hearts which were attracted to him by\nfriendship and the grace of his youth, and thus was enabled early to\nlearn of what a strange mixture of leaven and cream of roses, of\ngunpowder and tears of angels, the poetic ideal of his nation is\nformed.  When his wandering fingers ran over the keys, suddenly\ntouching some moving chords, he could see how the furtive tears coursed\ndown the cheeks of the loving girl, or the young, neglected wife; how\nthey moistened the eyes of the young man, enamoured of and eager for\nglory.  Can we not fancy some young beauty asking him to play a simple\nprelude, then, softened by the tones, leaning her rounded arms upon the\ninstrument to support her dreaming head, while she suffered the young\nartist to divine in the dewy glitter of her lustrous eyes the song sung\nby her youthful heart?\"\n\nIt has been asserted both by Liszt and others that Chopin owed his\nmusical education to the generosity of Prince Anton Radziwill, but the\nstatement is untrue.  That wealthy and cultured nobleman was, however,\nalways a warm friend and helpful patron of the great Polish pianist,\nwho often visited the prince at his country-seat.  Prince Radziwill was\na musician himself,--a good singer and \"cellist,\" and the composer of\nnumerous pieces, among them being the first portions of Goethe's\n\"Faust.\"  To him Chopin dedicated his first trio for pianoforte,\nviolin, and violoncello, published in 1833.  Chopin seems to have\npassed a very pleasant time with the prince and his family, and,\nindeed, not to have been blind to the fascinations of the prince's\ncharming daughters, one of whom was an excellent pianist.  The prince\nhimself was no mean performer on the violoncello, and he and Chopin\nplayed a good deal together.  Writing from Antonin, Chopin says: \"I\nhave written during my stay here an _Alla Polacca_ with violoncello.\nIt is nothing more than a brilliant salon piece, such as pleases\nladies.  I should like the Princess Wanda to practise it.  She is only\nseventeen years of age, and very beautiful; it would be delightful to\nhave the pleasure of placing her pretty fingers upon the keys.\"  Chopin\nwas a susceptible being and ever a victim to the latest impression, so\nit is not strange that the lovely Wanda was soon forgotten.\n\n[Illustration: Chopin at Prince Radziwill's.  From painting by H.\nSiemiradski.]\n\nA countryman of Chopin's, the distinguished artist, Siemiradski, has\nproduced a picture of the young pianist playing in the salon of Prince\nRadziwill, which itself convinces us of its truthfulness.  The painter\n(born in 1843, and a pupil of Piloty) secured a wide renown through his\npainting of \"The Living Torches of Nero.\"  From a long list of notable\npictures by Siemiradski, we select for mention \"Phryne at Eleusis,\"\n\"The Sword Dance,\" and \"The Cremation of a Russian Chieftain in the\nTenth Century.\"\n\nTwenty years from the time at which Siemiradski has painted Chopin, the\ngreat pianist lay on his death-bed in Paris.  \"His sister never left\nhim for a moment.  His dearest friend and pupil, Gutmann, was also now\nconstantly with him, and both friend and sister felt that the end was\nnot far off.  On the 15th of October, his friend, the Comtesse Delphine\nPotocka, arrived in Paris, having hastened from Nice, where she was at\nthe time, directly she heard of the master's illness.  No sooner was he\nmade aware of her presence than he implored her to sing to him.\"  Says\nLiszt; \"Who could have ventured to oppose his wish?  The piano was\nrolled to the door of his chamber, while with sobs in her voice and\ntears streaming down her cheeks his gifted countrywoman sang.  She sang\nthe famous 'Canticle to the Virgin,' which, it is said, once saved the\nlife of Stradella.  'How beautiful it is!' he exclaimed.  'My God, how\nvery beautiful!  Again, again!'  Though overwhelmed with emotion, the\ncountess had the noble courage to comply with the last wish of a friend\nand compatriot.  She again took a seat at the piano, and sang a hymn\nfrom Marcello.  Chopin now feeling worse, everybody was seized with\nfright; by a spontaneous impulse all who were present threw themselves\nupon their knees--no one ventured to speak; the sacred silence was only\nbroken by the voice of the singer floating, like a melody from heaven,\nabove the sighs and sobs which formed its mournful earth\naccompaniment.\"  Since the publication of Professor Niecks's biography,\nconsiderable doubt must be felt as to the accuracy of Liszt's statement\ntouching upon what the lady sang; for he states that \"Gutmann\npositively asserted that she sang a psalm by Marcello, and an air by\nPergolesi, while Franchomme insisted on her having sung an air from\nBellini's 'Beatrice di Tenda,' and that only once, and nothing else.\"\nWe know that both the authors of these statements were present, whereas\nLiszt was not; but while that leaves no doubt as to the incorrectness\nof the abbe in this particular, it does not help us in deciding between\nthe relative statements of the two witnesses.  This, of course, is\nimpossible, as there is nothing whatever to guide us to a trustworthy\ndecision.  To Professor Niecks, also, do we owe much of interest\nconcerning these last hours of the master, inasmuch as he has brought\nto light much new testimony of a further witness, M. Gavard, who\nrelates how, on the day following, Chopin called around him those\nfriends who were with him in his apartment.  To the Princess\nCzartoryska and Mlle. Gavard, he said, \"You will play together, you\nwill think of me, and I shall listen to you.\"  Beckoning to Franchomme,\nhe said to the princess, \"I recommend Franchomme to you; you will play\nMozart together, and I shall listen to you!\"  How well he was cared\nfor, and how much devotion and tenderness were lavished upon him, we\ncan judge from another letter of M. Gavard, quoted by Professor Niecks,\nin which he says: \"In the back room lay the poor sufferer, tormented by\nfits of breathlessness, and only sitting in bed resting in the arms of\na friend could he procure air for his oppressed lungs.  It was Gutmann,\nthe strongest amongst us, who knew best how to manage the patient, and\nwho mostly thus supported him.  At the head of his bed sat Princess\nCzartoryska; she never left him, guessing his most secret wishes,\nnursing him like a Sister of Mercy, with a serene countenance which did\nnot betray her deep sorrow.  Other friends gave a helping hand to\nrelieve her,--every one according to his power; but most of them stayed\nin the two adjoining rooms.  Every one had assumed a part; every one\nhelped as much as he could,--one ran to the doctor's, to the\napothecary; another introduced the persons asked for; a third shut the\ndoor on intruders.\n\n\"But, alas! the door was not to be shut upon the greatest of all\nintruders, and on the evening of the 16th of October the Abbe Alexander\nJelowicki, the Polish priest, was sent for, as Chopin, saying that he\nhad not confessed for many years, wished to do so now.  After the\nconfession was over, and the absolution pronounced, Chopin, embracing\nhis confessor, exclaimed, 'Thanks! thanks to you, I shall not now die\nlike a pig.'  The same evening two doctors examined him.  His\ndifficulty in breathing now seemed intense; but on being asked whether\nhe still suffered, he replied, 'No longer.'  His face had already\nassumed the pure serenity of death, and every minute was expected to be\nthe last.  Just before the end--at two o'clock of the morning of the\nseventeenth--he drank some wine handed to him by Gutmann, who held the\nglass to his lips.  '_Cher ami_!' he said, and, kissing his faithful\npupil's hands, he died.  'He died as he had lived,' says Liszt, 'in\nloving.'\"\n\n[Illustration: The Death of Chopin.  From painting by Felix Joseph\nBarrias.]\n\nBarrias has worthily painted the last scene in the life of Chopin.  A\nnative of Paris, where he was born in 1822, this artist has to his\ncredit a long list of meritorious works which have secured him many\nhonours.  They include the \"Exiles under Tiberius,\" in the Luxembourg,\n\"The Death of Socrates,\" \"Sappho,\" \"Dante at Ravenna,\" \"The Fairy of\nthe Pearls,\" \"The Sirens,\" \"The Triumph of Venus,\" and \"Camille\nDesmoulins at the Palais Royal,\" in addition to a number of important\ndecorative works.  The \"Death of Chopin\" was exhibited in 1885.  A gold\nmedal was bestowed upon Barrias at the Paris Exposition of 1889, when\nthe artist was in his sixty-seventh year.  The critic, Roger Ballu,\nsaid of him: \"A painter of style, very careful of the dignity of his\nart, he has never made a compromise with the taste of the day.\"\n\n\n\n\nMEYERBEER.\n\nAmong the chief mourners at Chopin's funeral was Meyerbeer, who, though\nGerman by birth and training, passed the most important years of his\nlife in Paris, as did the gifted Pole.  In our picture Hamman has\nrepresented the composer enthroned amid the characters of his chief\noperas, doubtless as real to him as creatures of flesh and blood.\n\n[Illustration: Mayerbeer.  From painting by E. J. C. Hamman.]\n\nIn the foreground, at Meyerbeer's right hand, are seen Nelusko and\nSelika, from \"L'Africaine,\" his last opera, which was not produced\nuntil the year after his death.  \"Vasco da Gama, the famous discoverer,\nis the betrothed lover of a maiden named Inez, the daughter of Don\nDiego, a Portuguese grandee.  When the opera opens he is still at sea,\nand has not been heard of for years.  Don Pedro, the president of the\ncouncil, takes advantage of his absence to press his own suit for the\nhand of Inez, and obtains the king's sanction to his marriage on the\nground that Vasco must have been lost at sea.  At this moment the\nlong-lost hero returns, accompanied by two swarthy slaves, Selika and\nNelusko, whom he has brought home from a distant isle in the Indian\nOcean.  He recounts the wonders of the place, and entreats the\ngovernment to send out a pioneer expedition to win an empire across the\nsea.  His suggestions are rejected, and he himself, through the\nmachinations of Don Pedro, is cast into prison.  There he is tended by\nSelika, who loves her gentle captor passionately, and has need of all\nher regal authority--for in the distant island she was a queen--to\nprevent the jealous Nelusko from slaying him in his sleep.  Inez now\ncomes to the prison to announce to Vasco that she has purchased his\nliberty at the price of giving her hand to Don Pedro.  In the next act\nDon Pedro, who has stolen a march on Vasco, is on his way to the\nAfrican island, taking with him Inez and Selika.  The steering of the\nvessel is entrusted to Nelusko.  Vasco da Gama, who has fitted out a\nvessel at his own expense, overtakes Don Pedro in mid-ocean, and\ngenerously warns his rival of the treachery of Nelusko, who is steering\nthe vessel upon the rocks of his native shore.  Don Pedro's only reply\nis to order Vasco to be tied to the mast and shot, but before the\nsentence can be carried out, the vessel strikes upon the rocks, and the\naborigines swarm over the sides.  Selika, once more a queen, saves the\nlives of Vasco and Inez from the angry natives.  In the next act the\nnuptials of Selika and Vasco are on the point of being celebrated, with\ngreat pomp, when the hero, who has throughout the opera wavered between\nthe two women who love him, finally makes up his mind in favour of\nInez.  Selika thereupon magnanimously despatches them home in Vasco's\nship, and poisons herself with the fragrance of the deadly manchineel\ntree.\"\n\nBehind Selika appear Robert and Bertram, from \"Robert le Diable,\" the\nfirst work of the composer's French period, produced in 1831.  Its\nlibretto, by Scribe, tells how \"Robert, Duke of Normandy, the son of\nthe Duchess Bertha by a fiend who donned the shape of man to prosecute\nhis amour, arrives in Sicily to compete for the hand of the Princess\nIsabella, which is to be awarded as the prize at a magnificent\ntournament.  Robert's dare-devil gallantry and extravagance soon earn\nhim the sobriquet of 'Le Diable,' and he puts the coping-stone to his\nfolly by gambling away all his possessions at a single sitting, even to\nhis horse and the armour on his back.  Robert has an _ame damnee_ in\nthe shape of a knight named Bertram, to whose malign influence most of\nhis crimes and follies are due.  Bertram is in reality his\ndemon-father, whose every effort is directed to making a thorough-paced\nvillain of his son, so that he may have the pleasure of enjoying his\nsociety for all eternity.  In strong contrast to the fiendish\nmalevolence of Bertram stands the gentle figure of Alice, Robert's\nfoster-sister, who has followed him from Normandy with a message from\nhis dead mother.  Isabella supplies Robert with a fresh horse and arms;\nnevertheless, he is beguiled away from Palermo by some trickery of\nBertram's, and fails to put in an appearance at the tournament.  The\nonly means, therefore, left to him of obtaining the hand of Isabella is\nto visit the tomb of his mother, and there to pluck a magic branch of\ncypress, which will enable him to defeat his rivals.  The cypress grows\nin a deserted convent haunted by the spectres of profligate nuns, and\nthere, amidst infernal orgies, Robert plucks the branch of power.  By\nits aid, he sends the guards of the princess into a deep sleep, and is\nonly prevented by her passionate entreaties from carrying her off by\nforce.  Yielding to her prayers, he breaks the branch, and his magic\npower at once deserts him.  He seeks sanctuary from his enemies in the\ncathedral, and there the last and fiercest strife for the possession of\nhis soul is waged between the powers of good and evil.  On the one hand\nis Bertram, whose term of power on earth expires at midnight.  He has\nnow discovered himself as Robert's father, and produced an infernal\ncompact of union, which he entreats his son to sign.  On the other is\nAlice, pleading and affectionate, bearing the last words of Robert's\ndead mother, warning him against the fiend who had seduced her.  While\nRobert is hesitating between the two, midnight strikes, and Bertram\nsinks with thunder into the pit.  The scene changes, and a glimpse is\ngiven of the interior of the cathedral, where the marriage of Robert\nand Isabella is being celebrated.\"\n\nNext to the evil Bertram is portrayed, in his coronation robes, John of\nLeyden, the chief character in \"Le Prophete,\" which had its first\nrepresentation in 1849.  \"John, an innkeeper of Leyden, loves Bertha, a\nvillage maiden, who dwells near Dordrecht.  Unfortunately, her liege\nlord, the Count of Oberthal, has designs upon the girl himself, and\nrefuses his consent to the marriage.  Bertha escapes from his clutches\nand flies to the protection of her lover, but Oberthal secures the\nperson of Fides, John's old mother, and, by threats of putting her to\ndeath, compels him to give up Bertha.  Wild with rage against the vice\nand lawlessness of the nobles, John joins the ranks of the Anabaptists,\na revolutionary sect pledged to the destruction of the powers that be.\nTheir leaders recognise him as a prophet promised by Heaven, and he is\ninstalled as their chief.  The Anabaptists lay siege to Munster, which\nfalls into their hands, and in the cathedral John is solemnly\nproclaimed the Son of God.  During the ceremony he is recognised by\nFides, who, believing him to have been slain by the false prophet, has\nfollowed the army to Munster in hopes of revenge.  She rushes forward\nto claim her son, but John pretends not to know her.  To admit an\nearthly relationship would be to prejudice his position with the\npopulace, and he compels her to confess that she is mistaken.  The\ncoronation ends with John's triumph, while the hapless Fides is carried\noff to be immured in a dungeon.  John visits her in her cell, and\nobtains her pardon by promising to renounce his deceitful splendour,\nand to fly with her.  Later he discovers that a plot against himself\nhas been hatched by some of the Anabaptist leaders, and he destroys\nhimself and them by blowing up the palace of Munster.\"\n\nIn front of John of Leyden are the leading personages in \"Les\nHuguenots.\"  Raoul is kneeling to Valentine, while the wounded Marcel\nstands by, sword in hand.  Eugene Scribe was the author of the words of\nthis opera, which dates from 1836, and is thus summarised: \"Marguerite\nde Valois, the beautiful Queen of Navarre, who is anxious to reconcile\nthe bitterly hostile parties of Catholics and Huguenots, persuades the\nComte de Saint Bris, a prominent Catholic, to allow his daughter\nValentine to marry Raoul de Nangis, a young Huguenot noble.  Valentine\nis already betrothed to the gallant and amorous Comte de Nevers, but\nshe pays him a nocturnal visit in his own palace, and induces him to\nrelease her from her engagement.  During her interview with Nevers, she\nis perceived by Raoul, and recognised as a lady whom he lately rescued\nfrom insult and has loved passionately ever since.  In his eyes there\nis only one possible construction to be put upon her presence in\nNevers's palace, and he hastens to dismiss her from his mind.\nImmediately upon his decision comes a message from the queen, bidding\nhim hasten to her palace in Touraine upon important affairs of state.\nWhen he arrives she unfolds her plan, and he, knowing Valentine only by\nsight, not by name, gladly consents.  When, in the presence of the\nassembled nobles, he recognises in his destined bride the presumed\nmistress of Nevers, he casts her from him, and vows to prefer death to\nsuch intolerable disgrace.  The scene of the next act is in the Pre aux\nClercs, in the outskirts of Paris.  Valentine, who is to be married\nthat night to Nevers, obtains leave to pass some hours in prayer in a\nchapel.  While she is there she overhears the details of a plot devised\nby Saint Bris for the assassination of Raoul, in order to avenge the\naffront put upon himself and his daughter.  Valentine contrives to warn\nMarcel, Raoul's old servant, of this, and he assembles his Huguenot\ncomrades hard by, who rush in at the first _cliquetis_ of steel and\njoin the general _melee_.  The fight is interrupted by the entrance of\nthe queen.  When she finds out who are the principal combatants, she\nreproves them sharply, and _en passant_ tells Raoul the real story of\nValentine's visit to Nevers.  The act ends with the marriage\nfestivities, while Raoul is torn by an agony of love and remorse.  In\nthe next act Raoul contrives to gain admittance to Nevers's house, and\nthere has an interview with Valentine.  They are interrupted by the\nentrance of Saint Bris and his followers, whereupon Valentine conceals\nRaoul behind the arras.  From his place of concealment he hears Saint\nBris unfold the plan of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, which is to\nbe carried out that night.  The conspirators swear a solemn oath to\nexterminate the Huguenots, and their daggers are consecrated by\nattendant priests.  Nevers alone refuses to take part in the butchery.\nWhen they all have left, Raoul comes out of his hiding-place, and, in\nspite of the prayers and protestations of Valentine, leaps from the\nwindow at the sound of the fatal tocsin, and hastens to join his\nfriends.  In the last act, Raoul first warns Henry of Navarre and the\nHuguenot nobles, assembled at the Hotel de Sens, of the massacre, and\nthen joins the _melee_ in the streets.  Valentine has followed him,\nand, after vainly endeavouring to make him don the white scarf, which\nis worn that night by all Catholics, she throws in her lot with him,\nand dies in his arms, after they have been solemnly joined in wedlock\nby the wounded and dying Marcel.\"\n\n\n\n\nWAGNER.\n\n\"Had it not been for Meyerbeer, my wife and I would have starved in\nParis,\" Wagner once told a friend, in speaking of his dark days, and he\nalways esteemed the composer as a man, though his honesty in art\nmatters forced him to condemn Meyerbeer's music.\n\nWagner wandered over Europe for many years.  Born in Leipsic and dying\nin Venice, he lived in many cities during the years between.  His youth\nwas spent at Leipsic and Dresden; then he was choir-master at Wurzburg;\nnext musical director at the Magdeburg theatre, conductor at Koenigsberg\nand at Riga.  Proceeding thence by way of London to Paris, in 1839, he\nremained in the French capital until the spring of 1842, thence going\nto Dresden, where he served as court conductor for seven years.  Forced\nto fly from Dresden because of his part in the uprising of 1849, he at\nfirst went to Liszt at Weimar, and then to Zurich by way of Paris.  At\nZurich he stayed, with some intermission, until 1861, when he received\npermission to return to Germany.  The misfortunes he met there decided\nhim, after three years, to return to Switzerland, and he was on his way\nthither when Ludwig II. ascended the throne of Bavaria, and invited him\nto go to Munich and work.  The end of 1865 found Wagner at the lovely\nVilla Triebschen, on Lake Lucerne, where he composed the\n\"Meistersinger,\" and worked on the \"Nibelungen.\"  In 1872, Wagner\nsettled in Bayreuth, where, soon after, the house which he called\n\"Wahnfried\" was built for him.\n\nAt last the great composer's wanderings were coming to an end, but, as\nwe have said, he died in Venice, and not at his own home.  He was,\nhowever, buried there, in the garden of the villa.\n\nIt is at \"Wahnfried\" that the artist has drawn Wagner discussing some\nmusical question with Liszt, Frau Wagner seated near by.\n\n[Illustration: Wagner at Home.  From painting by W. Beckmann.]\n\nWagner's first wife was a beautiful and talented actress and singer, by\nname Wilhelmina Planer, whom he married at Riga in 1834.  She was a\nfaithful helpmate for years, sacrificing to him her own career, but did\nnot comprehend his genius, and as years went by they drifted apart.\nThe composer's professional intercourse with Hans von Buelow led to an\nintimacy with the latter's wife, Cosima von Buelow, who was an\nillegitimate daughter of Liszt by the Countess d'Agoult.  In 1861\nRichard and Wilhelmina Wagner separated, and in 1866 she died.  Four\nyears later, Cosima, then divorced from Von Buelow, was married to\nWagner, whom she both worshipped and well understood.  Their union was\na very happy one, blest with one son named Siegfried, and Madame Wagner\nlong survived her illustrious husband, and laboured indefatigably to\ncarry on his work and increase his fame.\n\nWagner owed much to Cosima, born Liszt, and still more to her father,\nwho was a never-failing friend.  In a work published in 1851, Wagner\nsays: \"I was thoroughly disheartened from undertaking any artistic\nscheme.  Only recently I had proofs of the impossibility of making my\nart intelligible to the public, and all this deterred me from beginning\nnew dramatic works.  Indeed, I thought that everything was at an end\nwith artistic creativeness.  From this state of mental dejection I was\nraised by a friend.  By most evident and undeniable proofs, he made me\nfeel that I was not deserted, but, on the contrary, understood deeply\nby those even who were otherwise most distant from me; in this way he\ngave me back my full artistic confidence.\n\n\"This wonderful friend, Franz Liszt has been to me.  I must enter a\nlittle more deeply into the character of this friendship, which to many\nhas seemed paradoxical; indeed, I have been compelled to appear\nrepellent and hostile on so many sides, that I almost feel the want of\ndisclosing all that relates to this sympathetic intercourse.\n\n\"I met Liszt for the first time in Paris, and at a period when I had\nrenounced the hope, nay, even the wish, of a Parisian reputation; and,\nindeed, was in a state of internal revolt against the artistic life I\nfound there.  At our meeting Liszt appeared the most perfect contrast\nto my own being and situation.  In the Parisian society, to which it\nhad been my desire to fly from my narrow circumstances, Liszt had grown\nup from his earliest age, so as to be the object of general love and\nadmiration, at a time when I was repulsed by general coldness and want\nof sympathy.  In consequence, I looked upon him with suspicion.  I had\nno opportunity of disclosing my being and work to him, and therefore\nthe reception I met with on his part was altogether of a superficial\nkind, as indeed was quite natural in a man to whom every day the most\ndivergent impressions claimed access.  But I was not in a mood to look\nwith unprejudiced eyes for the natural cause of his behaviour, which,\nfriendly and obliging in itself, could not but hurt me in that state of\nmy mind.  I never repeated my first call on Liszt, and, without knowing\nor even wishing to know him, I was prone to look upon him as strange\nand adverse to my nature.\n\n\"My repeated expression of this feeling was afterward reported to\nLiszt, just at the time when the performance of my 'Rienzi,' at\nDresden, attracted general attention.  He was surprised to find himself\nmisunderstood with such violence by a man whom he had scarcely known,\nand whose acquaintance now seemed not without value to him.  I am still\ntouched at recollecting the repeated and eager attempts he made to\nchange my opinion of him, even before he knew any of my works.  He\nacted not from any artistic sympathy, but led by the purely human wish\nof discontinuing a casual disharmony between himself and a fellow\ncreature; perhaps he also felt an infinitely tender misgiving of having\nhurt me unconsciously.  He who knows the terrible selfishness and\ninsensibility in our social life, and especially in the relations of\nmodern artists to each other, cannot but be struck with wonder, nay,\ndelight, by the treatment I experienced from this extraordinary man.\n\n\"Liszt soon afterward witnessed a performance of 'Rienzi,' at Dresden,\non which he had almost to insist, and after that I heard from all the\ndifferent corners of the world, where he had been on his artistic\nexcursions, how he had everywhere expressed his delight with my music,\nand indeed had--I would rather believe unintentionally--canvassed\npeople's opinions in my favour.\n\n\"This happened at a time when it became more and more evident that my\ndramatic works would have no outward success.  But just when the case\nseemed desperate, Liszt succeeded by his own energy in opening a\nhopeful refuge to my art.  He ceased his wanderings, settled down in\nthe small and modest Weimar, and took up the conductor's _baton_, after\nhaving been at home so long in the splendour of the greatest cities of\nEurope.  At Weimar I saw him for the last time, when I rested a few\ndays in Thuringia, not yet certain whether my threatening prosecution\nwould compel me to continue my flight from Germany.  The very day when\nmy personal danger became a certainty, I saw Liszt conducting a\nrehearsal of my 'Tannhaeuser,' and was astonished at recognising my\nsecond self in his achievements.  What I had felt in inventing the\nmusic, he felt in performing it; what I wanted to express in writing it\ndown, he proclaimed in making it sound.  Strange to say, through the\nlove of this rarest friend, I gained, at the moment of becoming\nhomeless, a real home for my art, which I had longed and sought for\nalways in the wrong place.\n\n\"At the end of my last stay at Paris, when ill, broken down, and\ndespairing, I sat brooding over my fate, my eyes fell on the score of\nmy 'Lohengrin,' totally forgotten by me.  Suddenly I felt something\nlike compassion that this music should never sound from off the\ndeath-pale paper.  I wrote two lines to Liszt; his answer was the news\nthat preparations for the performance were being made on the largest\nscale the limited means of Weimar would permit.  Everything that men\nand circumstances could do was done in order to make the work\nunderstood. . . .  Errors and misconceptions impeded the desired\nsuccess.  What was to be done to supply what was wanted, so as to\nfurther the true understanding on all sides, and with it the ultimate\nsuccess of the work?  Liszt saw it at once and did it.  He gave to the\npublic his own impression of the work in a manner the convincing\neloquence and overpowering efficacy of which remain unequalled.\nSuccess was his reward, and with this success he now approaches me,\nsaying: 'Behold, we have come so far, now create us a new work that we\nmay go still further.'\"\n\n\n\n\nLISZT.\n\nIn a letter written to Franz von Schober, the poet and writer, and the\nintimate friend of Schubert, in 1840, Liszt says: \"Most affectionate\nremembrances to Kriehuber.  His two portraits of me have been copied in\nLondon.  They are without doubt the best.\"\n\nJoseph Kriehuber, whose fine drawing of Liszt at the piano, playing\nBeethoven's C sharp minor sonata to some friends, we reproduce, was a\nViennese artist of great talent, who made many excellent portraits in\npencil, lithography, water-colours, and miniatures.  In this work,\nKriehuber has introduced a portrait of himself seated at the left of\nthe pianist, with pencil and sketchbook in hand.  Behind the piano\nstands Berlioz, and next him is Czerny, the celebrated music teacher\nand composer, and the teacher of Liszt.\n\n[Illustration: A Morning with Liszt.  From drawing by Joseph Kriehuber.]\n\nWe will quote here an interesting letter, written from Paris by Liszt\nto Czerny.  At this time Liszt was but seventeen years old.\n\n\n\"MY VERY DEAR MASTER:--When I think of all the immense obligations\nunder which I am placed toward you, and at the same time consider how\nlong I have left you without a sign of remembrance, I am perfectly\nashamed and miserable, and in despair of ever being forgiven by you!\n'Yes,' I said to myself, with a deep feeling of bitterness, 'I am an\nungrateful fellow, I have forgotten my benefactor, I have forgotten\nthat good master to whom I owe both my talent and my success.' . . .\nAt these words a tear starts to my eyes, and I assure you that no\nrepentant tear was ever more sincere!  Receive it as an expiation, and\npardon me, for I cannot any longer bear the idea that you have any\nill-feeling toward me.  You will pardon me, my dear master, won't you?\nEmbrace me then . . . good!  Now my heart is light.\n\n\"You have doubtless heard that I have been playing your admirable works\nhere with the greatest success, and all the glory ought to be given to\nyou.  I intended to have played your variations on the 'Pirate' the day\nafter to-morrow, at a very brilliant concert, that I was to have given\nat the theatre of H. R. H. Madame, who was to have been present as well\nas the Duchess of Orleans; but man proposes and God disposes.  I have\nsuddenly caught the measles, and have been obliged to say farewell to\nthe concert; but it is not given up because it is put off, and I hope,\nas soon as ever I am well again, to have the pleasure of making these\nbeautiful variations known to a large public.\n\n\"Pixis and several other people have spoken much to me of four\nconcertos that you have lately finished, and the reputation of which is\nalready making a stir in Paris.  I should be very much pleased, my dear\nmaster, if you would commission me to get them sold.  This would be\nquite easy for me to do, and I should also have the pleasure of playing\nthem from first hand, either at the opera or at some big concerts.  If\nmy proposition pleases you, send them to me by the Austrian Embassy,\nmarking the price that you would like to have for them.  As regards any\npassages to be altered, if there are any, you need only mark them with\na red pencil, according to your plan which I know so well, and I will\npoint them out to the editor with the utmost care.  Give me at the same\ntime some news about music and pianists in Vienna; and finally tell me,\ndear master, which of your compositions you think would make the best\neffect in society.\n\n\"I close by sending you my heartfelt greetings, and begging you once\nmore to pardon the shameful silence I have kept toward you: be assured\nthat it has given me as much pain as yourself!\n\n\"Your very affectionate and grateful pupil,\n\n\"F. LISZT.\n  \"_December 23, 1828_.\n\n\"P. S.--Please answer me as soon as possible, for I am longing for a\nletter from you; and please embrace your excellent parents from me.  I\nadd my address (Rue Montholon, No. 7bis).\"\n\nReturning to Kriehuber's picture, we see, on the master's right, Ernst,\nthe famous violinist.  Writing to his pupil and friend, Franz Kroll,\nfrom Weimar in 1845, Liszt speaks thus of Ernst:\n\n\"Ernst has just been spending a week here, during which he has played\nsome hundred rubbers of whist at the 'Erbprinz.'  His is a noble,\nsweet, and delicate nature, and more than once during his stay I have\ncaught myself regretting _you_ for him, and regretting _him_ for you.\nLast Monday he was good enough to play, in his usual and admirable\nmanner, at the concert for the Orchestral Pension Fund.  The pieces he\nhad selected were his new 'Concerto Pathetique' (in F sharp minor) and\nan extremely piquant and brilliant 'Caprice on Hungarian Melodies.'\n(This latter piece is dedicated to me.)  The public was in a good\nhumour, even really warm, which is usually one of its least faults.\"\n\nThe following epistle, written by Liszt to Ernst, and dated at Weimar,\nMay 30, 1849, is of special interest because of its references to\nWagner.\n\n\n\"DEAR FRIEND:--Weimar has not forgotten you, and I hope soon to be\nable, after the return of the hereditary prince, whom we expect for the\nday of his _fete_, by the 24th of May at the very latest, to forward to\nyou the token of the distinguished remembrance in which you are held.\nIt pleases me to think that it will be agreeable to you, and that it\nwill tend to attach you more in the sequel to people worthy to\nappreciate you.\n\n\"I should have desired to tell you sooner of this, but the inevitable\ndelays in present circumstances postpone more than one wish.\n\n\"After the deplorable days in Dresden Wagner came here, and only\ndeparted again in order to escape from a warrant (_lettre de cachet_)\nwith which the Saxon government is pursuing him.  I hope that at the\npresent moment he will have arrived safe and well in Paris, where his\ncareer of dramatic composer cannot fail to be extended, and in grand\nproportions.  He is a man of evident genius, who must of necessity\nobtrude himself on the general admiration, and hold a high place in\ncontemporary art.  I regret that you have not had the opportunity of\nhearing his 'Tannhaeuser,' which is for me the most lyric of dramas, the\nmost remarkable, the most harmonious, the most complete, the most\noriginal and _selbstwuerdig_ (the most worthy of his country), both in\nfoundation and form, that Germany has produced since Weber.  Belloni\nhas, I believe, written to you on the subject of Wagner, to ask for\ninformation as to the actual state of the English opera in London.\n\n\"I make no doubt that if it were possible for Wagner to obtain from the\ndirectors a tour of performances in the course of the year for a new\nwork ('Lohengrin,' the subject of which, having reference to the\nKnights of the Round Table who went to search for the Holy Grail, is of\nthe most poetic interest), he would make a great sensation and large\nreceipts by it.  As soon as he tells me the news of his arrival in\nParis, allow me to induce him to write to you direct, if his plans do\nnot change in this matter.\"\n\nAs for Berlioz, we find Liszt in 1854 endeavouring to aid him in\nsecuring a production of \"Benvenuto Cellini.\"  Liszt writes about it to\nWilhelm Fischer, chorus director at Dresden, thus:\n\n\n\"DEAR SIR AND FRIEND:--Your letter has given me real pleasure, and I\nsend you my warmest thanks for your artistic resolve to bring 'Cellini'\nto a hearing in Dresden.  Berlioz has taken the score with him to Paris\nfrom Weimar, in order to make some alterations and simplifications in\nit.  I wrote to him the day before yesterday, and expect the score with\nthe pianoforte edition, which I will immediately send you to Dresden.\nTichatschek is just made for the title role, and will make a splendid\neffect with it; the same with Mitterwurzer as Fieramosca, and Madame\nKrebs as Ascanio, a mezzo-soprano part.  From your extremely effective\nchoruses, with their thorough musicianly drilling, we may expect a\nforce never yet attained in the great carnival scene (finale of the\nsecond act); and I am convinced that, when you have looked more closely\ninto the score, you will be of my opinion that 'Cellini,' with the\nexception of the Wagner operas,--and they should never be put into\ncomparison with one another,--is the most important, most original\nmusical dramatic work of art which the last twenty years have to show.\n\n\"I must also beg for a little delay in sending you the score and the\npianoforte edition, as it is necessary entirely to revise the German\ntext and to have it written out again.  I think this work will be ready\nin a few weeks, so you may expect the pianoforte edition at the\nbeginning of February.  At Easter Berlioz is coming to Dresden to\nconduct a couple of concerts in the theatre there.  It would be\nsplendid if you should succeed in your endeavours to make Herr von\nLuttichau fix an early date for the 'Cellini' performance, and if you\ncould get Berlioz to conduct his own work when he is in Dresden.  In\nany case, I shall come to the first performance, and promise myself a\nvery satisfactory and delightful result.\n\n\"Meanwhile, dear friend, accept my best thanks once more for this\nproject, and for all that you will do to realise it successfully, and\nreceive the assurance of the high esteem of\n\nYours very truly,\n  \"F. LISZT,\n\n\"_Weimar, January 4 (1854)._\"\n\n\nA few years later, in 1862, Liszt addresses his friend, Dr. Franz\nBrendel, the writer on music, saying:\n\n\"I have just received a few lines from Berlioz.  Schuberth, whom I\ncommissioned before I left to send the dedication copy of the 'Faust'\nscore to Berlioz, has again in his incompetent _good nature_ forgotten\nit, and perhaps even from motives of economy has not had the\n_dedication plate_ engraved at all!  Forgive me, dear friend, if I\ntrouble you once more with this affair, and beg you to put an\n_execution_ on Schuberth in order to force a copy with the _dedication\npage_ from him.  The dedication shall be just as simple as that of the\nDante symphony, containing only the name of the dedicatee, as follows:\n\n    \"'To Hector Berlioz.'\n\n\"After this indispensable matter has been arranged, I beg that you will\nbe so kind as to have a tasteful copy, _bound in red or dark green_,\nsent perhaps through Pohl (?) to Berlioz at Baden (where he will be at\nthe beginning of August).\"\n\nLiszt was always generous to a fault; he carried charity almost to\nexcess.  If it were possible that his art could be forgotten, his name\nwould still be gratefully remembered for his numberless deeds of\nkindness.  We have quoted Wagner's acknowledgment of Liszt's exertions\nin his cause, and his efforts on behalf of Robert Franz rescued that\ncomposer from poverty when old age was coming upon him.  Beethoven was\nalways the object of Liszt's worship, and the monument to the master at\nBonn was reared chiefly through his labours of love.\n\n\n\n\nTHE END.","title":"Among the Great Masters of Music: Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":36961}