Music-Study in Germany Part 13

Count S. rattled on, but I didn't hear more than half of what he said.

He is a pleasure-loving man of the world, fond of music, but a perfect materialist, and untroubled by the "_souffle vers le beau_" which torments so many people. At the same time he is appreciative and very amusing, and one has no chance to indulge in melancholy with _him_. We sauntered about till late in the afternoon, and then returned to the hotel for coffee before going to the concert, which began at seven. The concert hall was behind the palace and seemed to form a part of it.

Liszt, the Countess von X., and Count S. sat in a box, aristocratic-fas.h.i.+on.

The rest of us were in the parquet. I was amazed at the orchestra, which was very large and played gloriously. It seemed to me as fine as that of the Gewandhaus in Leipsic, though I suppose it cannot be.--"Why has no one ever mentioned this orchestra to me?" I asked of Kellermann, who sat next, "and how is it one finds such an orchestra in such a place?" "Oh,"

said he, "this orchestra is very celebrated, and the Prince of Sondershausen is a great patron of music." This is the way it is in Germany. Every now and then one has these surprises. You never know when you are going to stumble upon a jewel in the most out-of-the-way corner.

We were all greatly excited over Fraulein Fichtner's playing, and it seemed very jolly to be behind the scenes, as it were, and to have one of our own number performing. We applauded tremendously when she came out. She was not nervous in the least, but began with great _aplomb_, and played most beautifully. The concerto made a generally dazzling and difficult impression upon me, but did not "take hold" of me particularly. I do not know how Liszt was pleased with her rendering of it, for I had no opportunity of asking him. She also played his Fourteenth Rhapsody with orchestral accompaniment in most bold and das.h.i.+ng style. Fraulein Fichtner is more in the bravura than in the sentimental line, and she has a certain breadth, grasp, and freshness.

The last piece on the programme was Liszt's Choral Symphony, which was magnificent. The chorus came at the end of it, as in the Ninth Symphony.

Mrs. S. said she was familiar with it from having heard Thomas's orchestra play it in New York.--That orchestra, by the way, from what I hear, seems to have developed into something remarkable. It is a great thing for the musical education of the country to have such an organization travelling every winter. And what a revelation is an orchestra the first time one hears it, even if it be but a poor one!--Music come bodily down from Heaven! And here in their musical darkness, the Americans in the provinces are having an orchestra of the very highest excellence burst upon them in full splendour. What _could_ be more American? They always have the best or none!

At nine o'clock in the evening the concert was over, and we all returned to the hotel for supper. We were all desperately hungry after so much music and enthusiasm. Everybody wanted to be helped at once, and the waiters were nearly distracted. Count S. sat next me and was very funny.

He kept rapping the table like mad, but without any success. Finally he exclaimed, "_Jetzt geh'_ ICH _auf Jagd_ (Now _I'm_ going hunting)!" and sprang up from his chair, rushed to the other end of the dining-room, possessed himself of some dishes the waiters were helping, and returned in triumph. I couldn't help laughing, and he made a great many jokes at the expense of the waiters and everybody else. I could not hear any of Liszt's conversation, which I regretted, but he seemed in a quiet mood.

I do not think he is the same when he is with aristocrats. He must be among _artists_ to unsheathe his sword. When he is with "swells," he is all grace and polish. He seems only to toy with his genius for their amus.e.m.e.nt, and he is never serious. At least this is as far as _my_ observation of him goes on the few occasions I have seen him in the _beau monde_. The presence of the proud Countess von X. at Sondershausen kept him, as it were, at a distance from everybody else, and he was not overflowing with fun and gayety as he was at Jena. She, of course, did not go with us to see Fraulein Fichtner, which was fortunate. After supper one and all went to bed early, quite tired out with the day's excitement.

This haughty Countess, by the way, has always had a great fascination for me, because she looks like a woman who "has a history." I have often seen her at Liszt's matinees, and from what I hear of her, she is such a type of woman as I suppose only exists in Europe, and such as the heroines of foreign novels are modelled upon. She is a widow, and in appearance is about thirty-six or eight years old, of medium height, slight to thinness, but exceedingly graceful. She is always attired in black, and is utterly careless in dress, yet nothing can conceal her innate elegance of figure. Her face is pallid and her hair dark. She makes an impression of icy coldness and at the same time of tropical heat. The pride of Lucifer to the world in general--entire abandonment to the individual. I meet her often in the park, as she walks along trailing her "sable garments like the night," and surrounded by her four beautiful boys--as Count S. says, "each handsomer than the other." They have such romantic faces! Dark eyes and dark curling hair. The eldest is about fourteen and the youngest five.

The little one is too lovely, with his brown curls hanging on his shoulders! I never shall forget the supercilious manner in which the Countess took out her eye-gla.s.s and looked me over as I pa.s.sed her one day in the park. Weimar being such a "_kleines Nest_ (little nest)," as Liszt calls it, every stranger is immediately remarked. She waited till I got close up, then deliberately put up this gla.s.s and scrutinized me from head to foot, then let it fall with a half-disdainful, half-indifferent air, as if the scrutiny did not reward the trouble.--I was so amused. Her arrogance piques all Weimar, and they never cease talking about her. I can never help wis.h.i.+ng to see her in a fas.h.i.+onable toilet. If she is so _distinguee_ in rather less than ordinary dress, what _would_ she be in a Parisian costume? I mean as to grace, for she is not pretty.--But as a psychological study, she is more interesting, perhaps, as she is. She always seems to me to be gradually going to wreck--a burnt-out volcano, with her own ashes settling down upon her and covering her up. She is very highly educated, and is preparing her eldest son for the university herself. What a subject she would have been for a Balzac!

We stayed over the next day in Sondershausen, as there was to be another orchestral concert--this time with a miscellaneous programme. Fraulein Fichtner had already departed, but the first violinist played Mendelssohn's famous concerto for violin.--Not in Wilhelmj's masterly style, but extremely well. We took the train for Weimar about five P. M.

Going back I was in the carriage with Liszt. He sat opposite me, and gradually began to talk. The conversation turned upon Weitzmann, my former harmony teacher, who, you remember, was so determined to make me learn. Liszt remarked upon the extent of his knowledge and said, "If I were not so old I should like to go to school again to Weitzmann." He was talking to Weitzmann one day, he said, and Weitzmann proposed to him that he should write a canon. "I sat down and worked over it a good while, but finally gave it up.--I know not why, but I never had any success in writing canons. Weitzmann then sat down, and in half an hour had produced two excellent ones." He gave this as an instance of Weitzmann's readiness.--A canon, you know, is a sort of musical puzzle.

The right hand plays the theme. The left hand takes it up a little later and imitates the right. The two interweave, and the theme forms the melody and the accompaniment at the same time, according as it is played by the right or left hand--something on the principle of singing rounds.

The difficulty consists in avoiding monotony with this continual iteration of the theme, which can be brought on at different intervals, inverted, etc., at will. It seems to be more a mathematical than a musical style of composition. I should suppose that _Bach_ could fire off canons without end! He developed it in every imaginable form.--Liszt, however, is of rather a different school!

We got back to Weimar about eight in the evening, and this delicious excursion, like all others, _had to end_. But the quiet old town, with its musical name and its great orchestra, will long remain in my memory.

Adieu, Sondershausen!

CHAPTER XXII.

Farewell to Liszt! German Conservatories and their Methods. Berlin Again. Liszt and Joachim.

WEIMAR, _September 24, 1873_.

We had our last lesson from Liszt a few days ago, and he leaves Weimar next week. He was so hurried with engagements the last two times that he was not able to give us much attention. I played my Rubinstein concerto.

He accompanied me himself on a second piano. We were there about six o'clock P. M. Liszt was out, but he had left word that if we came we were to wait. About seven he came in, and the lamps were lit. He was in an awful humour, and I never saw him so out of spirits. "How is it with our concerto?" said he to me, for he had told me the time before to send for the second piano accompaniment, and he would play it with me. I told him that unfortunately there existed no second piano part. "Then, child, you've fallen on your head, if you don't know that at least you must have a second copy of the concerto!" I told him I knew it by heart.

"Oh!" said he, in a mollified tone. So he took my copy and played the orchestra part which is indicated above the piano part, and I played without notes. I felt inspired, for the piano I was at was a magnificent grand that Steinway presented to Liszt only the other day. Liszt was seated at another grand facing me, and the room was dimly illuminated by one or two lamps. A few artists were sitting about in the shadow. It was at the twilight hour, "_l'heure du mystere_," as the poetic Gurickx used to say, and in short, the occasion was perfect, and couldn't happen so again. You see we always have our lessons in the afternoon, and it was a mere chance that it was so late this time. So I felt as if I were in an electric state. I had studied the piece so much that I felt perfectly sure of it, and then with Liszt's splendid accompaniment and his beautiful face to look over to--it was enough to bring out everything there was in one. If he had only been himself I should have had nothing more to desire, but he was in one of his bitter, sarcastic moods. However, I went rus.h.i.+ng on to the end--like a torrent plunging down into darkness, I might say--for it was the end, too, of my lessons with Liszt!

In answer to your musical questions, I don't know that there is much to be told about conservatories of which you are not aware. The one in Stuttgardt is considered the best; and there the pupils are put through a regular graded method, beginning with learning to hold the hand, and with the simplest five finger exercises. There are certain things, studies, etc., which _all_ the scholars have to learn. That was also the case in Tausig's conservatory. First we had to go through Cramer, then through the Gradus ad Parna.s.sum, then through Moscheles, then Chopin, Henselt, Liszt and Rubinstein. I haven't got farther than Chopin, myself, but when I went to Kullak I studied Czerny's School for Virtuosen a whole year, which is the book he "swears by." I'm going on with them this winter. It takes years to pa.s.s through them all, but when you _have_ finished them, you are an artist.

I think myself the "Schule des Virtuosen" is indispensable, much as I loathe it. First, there is nothing like it for giving you a technique.

It consists of pa.s.sages, generally about two lines in length, which Czerny has the face to request you to play from twenty to thirty times successively. You can imagine at that rate how long it takes you to play through one page! Tedious to the _last_ degree! But it greatly equalizes and strengthens the fingers, and makes your execution smooth and elegant. It teaches you to take your time, or as the Germans call it, it gives you "_Ruhe_ (repose)," the _grand sine qua non_! You learn to "play out" your pa.s.sages ("_aus-spielen_," as Kullak is always saying); that is, you don't hurry or blur over the last notes, but play clearly and in strict time to the end of the pa.s.sage. I saw Lebert, the head of the Stuttgardt conservatory, here this summer, and had several long conversations with him, and he told me he considered Bach the best study, and put the Well-Tempered Clavichord at the foundation of everything. The Stuttgardters study Bach every day, and I think it a capital plan myself. I have begun doing it, too. It was a great thing for me, that quarter of Bach that I took with Mr. Paine in Cambridge, and was one of your inspirations, when you "builded better than you knew."--I never _saw_ a person with such an instinct to find out the right thing as you have! If it hadn't been for that, I should never have got so familiarized with Bach, or got into the way of studying him for myself, as I have done a great deal. It is as great for the fingers as it is "good for the soul." Lenz, in his sketch of Chopin, says that Chopin told him when he prepared for a concert he never studied his own compositions at all, but shut himself up and practiced Bach!

However, I suppose it comes to the same thing in the end if one studies Bach, Czerny, or Gradus, only you must _keep at_ one of them all the while. The grand thing is to have each of your five fingers go "dum, dum," an equal number of times, which is the principle of all three!

Tausig was for Gradus, you know, and practiced it himself every day. He used to transpose the studies in different keys, and play just the same in the left hand as in the right, and enhance their difficulties in every way, but _I_ always found them hard enough as they were written!

Bach strengthens the fingers and makes them independent. Czerny equalizes them and gives an easy and elegant execution, and Gradus is not only good for finger technique--it trains the arm and wrist also, and gives a much more powerful execution.

I think that in all conservatories they have at least six lessons a week, two solo, two in reading at sight, and two in composition. Then there are often lectures held on musical subjects by some of the Professors, or by some one who is engaged for that purpose. All large conservatories have an orchestra, composed generally out of the scholars themselves, with a few professionals hired to eke out deficiencies. With this the best piano scholars play their concertos once a month, or once in six weeks. The number of public representations varies in every conservatory. In the Hoch Schule in Berlin they have two yearly in the Sing-Akademie. Kullak _professes_ to have _one_, but he has so little interest in his scholars that he omits it when it suits his convenience.

In Stuttgardt I believe they have four. I don't know much about the interior arrangements of Kullak's conservatory, because I only went to his own cla.s.s. I lived too far away to attempt the theory and composition cla.s.s. Liszt says that Kullak's pupils are always the best schooled of any, which rather surprised me, because there is a certain intimacy between him and Stuttgardt, and he always recommends scholars to the Stuttgardt conservatory.

The Stuttgardters do have immense technique, and I think they are better taught how to study. It strikes me as if Stuttgardt were the place to get the machine in working order, but I rather think that Kullak trains the head more. There is a young American here named Orth, who studied two years with Kullak, then he spent a year in Stuttgardt, and now he is going to return to Kullak. He says he thinks that not Lebert, but Pruckner, is the real backbone of the Stuttgardt conservatory, but that even with _him_ one year is sufficient. Fraulein Gaul, on the contrary, with whom Lebert has taken the greatest possible pains, thinks him a magnificent master, and certainly he has developed her admirably. It is probably with him as with them all. If they take a fancy to you, they will do a great deal for you; if not, _nothing_! Liszt is no exception to this rule. I've seen him snub and entirely neglect young artists of the most remarkable talent and virtuosity, merely because they did not please him personally.

BERLIN, _October 8, 1873_.

_Voila!_ as Liszt always says. Here I am back again in old Berlin, and if I ever felt "like a cat in a strange garret," I do now. I left dear little Weimar two days ago, and parted from our adored Liszt a week ago to-day. He has gone to Rome. _Never_ did I feel leaving anybody or any place so much, and Berlin seems to me like a great roaring wilderness.

The distances are so _endless_ here. You either have to kill yourself walking, or else spend a fortune in droschkies. The houses all seem to me as if they had grown. There is an immense number of new ones going up on all sides, and the noise, and the crowd, and the confusion are enough to set one distracted, after the idyllic life I've been leading. Ah, well! _Es war eben_ ZU _schon!_ (It was _too_ beautiful!)

Yesterday and to-day I've been looking about for a new boarding-place.

I've had two invitations to dinner since my return, but everybody and everything seems so dull and stupid, prosaic and tedious to me, that I declined them both, and haven't given any of my friends my address until I have had a little time to let myself down gradually from the delights of Weimar.

Liszt was kindness itself when the time came to say good-bye, but I could scarcely get out a word, nor could I even thank him for all he had done for me. I did not wish to break down and make a scene, as I felt I should if I tried to say anything. So I fear he thought me rather ungrateful and matter-of-course, for he couldn't know that I was feeling an excess of emotion which kept me silent. I miss going to him inexpressibly, and although I heard my favourite Joachim last night, even _he_ paled before Liszt. He is on the violin what Liszt is on the piano, and is the only artist worthy to be mentioned in the same breath with him.

Like Liszt, he so vitalizes everything that I have to take him in all over again every time I hear him. I am always astonished, amazed and delighted afresh, and even as I listen I can hardly believe that the man _can_ play so! But Liszt, in addition to his marvellous playing, has this unique and imposing personality, whereas at first Joachim is not specially striking. Liszt's face is all a play of feature, a glow of fancy, a blaze of imagination, whereas Joachim is absorbed in his violin, and his face has only an expression of fine discrimination and of intense solicitude to produce his artistic effects. Liszt never looks at his instrument; Joachim never looks at anything else. Liszt is a complete actor who intends to carry away the public, who never forgets that he is before it, and who behaves accordingly. Joachim is totally oblivious of it. Liszt subdues the people to him by the very way he walks on to the stage. He gives his proud head a toss, throws an electric look out of his eagle eye, and seats himself with an air as much as to say, "Now I am going to do just what I please with you, and you are nothing but puppets subject to my will." He said to us in the cla.s.s one day, "When you come out on the stage, look as if you didn't care a rap for the audience, and as if you knew more than any of them.

That's the way I used to do.--Didn't that provoke the critics though!"

he added, with an ineffable look of malicious mischief. So you see his principle, and that was precisely the way he did at the rehearsal in the theatre at Weimar that I wrote to you about. Joachim, on the contrary, is the quiet gentleman-artist. He advances in the most unpretentious way, but as he adjusts his violin he looks his audience over with the calm air of a musical monarch, as much as to say, "I repose wholly on my art, and I've no need of any 'ways or manners.'" In reality I admire Joachim's principle the most, but there is something indescribably fascinating and subduing about Liszt's willfulness. You feel at once that he is a great genius, and that you _are_ nothing but his puppet, and somehow you take a base delight in the humiliation! The two men are intensely interesting, each in his own way, but they are extremes.

[Beside his playing and his compositions, what Liszt has done for music and for musicians, and why, therefore, he stands so pre-eminently the greatest and the best beloved master in the musical world, may appear to the general reader in the following extract taken from a translation in _Dwight's Journal_, Oct. 23, 1880, of "Franz Liszt, a Musical Character Portrait" by La Mara, in the _Gartenlaube_: "We must count it among the exceptional merits of Liszt, that he has paved the way to recognition for innumerable aspirants, as he always shows an open heart and open hands to all artistic strivings. He was the first and most active furtherer of the immense Bayreuth enterprise, and the chief founder of the Musical Societies or Unions that flourish throughout Germany. And for how many n.o.ble and philanthropic objects has he not exerted his artistic resources! If, during his earlier virtuoso career, he made his genius serve the advantage of others far more than his own--saving out of the millions that he earned only a modest sum for himself, while he alone contributed many thousands for the completion of Cologne Cathedral, for the Beethoven monument at Bonn, and for the victims of the Hamburg conflagration--so since the close of his career as a pianist his public artistic activity has been exclusively consecrated to the benefit of others, to artistic undertakings, or to charitable objects.

Since the end of 1847, not a penny has come into his own pocket either through piano-playing and conducting, or through teaching. All this, which has yielded such rich capital and interest to others, has cost only sacrifice of time and money to himself."]--ED.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Kullak as a Teacher. The Four Great Virtuosi, Clara Schumann, Rubinstein, Von Bulow, and Tausig.

BERLIN, _November 7, 1873_.

I've been in a sort of mental apathy since I got back--the result, I suppose, of so much artistic excitement all summer. Of course I am practicing very hard, and I am taking private lessons of Kullak again. I played him my Rubinstein concerto two weeks ago and told him I wanted to play it in a concert. He says I need more power in it in many places, and by practicing it every day I hope I shall at last work up to it, as I've conquered the technical difficulties in it. There were two pages in it I thought I never _could_ master. It is the same with all concertos.

They are fearfully difficult things to play, and far more difficult, _I_ think, than solos are, because the effort is so sustained. They are to me the most interesting things to listen to of all, and I can't imagine how you can think that piano and orchestra are "not made to go together." However, I never myself appreciated concertos until I came to Germany. Kullak is the most awfully discouraging teacher that can be imagined. When you play to him, it is like looking at your skin through a magnifying gla.s.s. All your faults seem to start out and glare at you.

I don't think, though, that I ever fairly do myself justice when I play to him, because he has a sort of benumbing effect on me, and I feel to him something the way that Owen did to old Peter in Hawthorne's story of "The Artist of the Beautiful." I can't help acknowledging the truth of his observations even when I am wincing under them, and I yet feel at the same time that he does not wholly get at the soul of the thing.

Kullak is _so_ pedantic! He _never_ overlooks a technical imperfection, and he ties you down to the technique so that you never can give rein to your imagination. He sits at the other piano, and just as you are rus.h.i.+ng off he will strike in himself and say, "Don't hurry, Fraulein,"

or something like that, and then you begin to think about holding back your fingers and playing every note even, etc. Now I never expect to get that perfection of technique that all these artists have who have been training throughout their childhood while their hand was forming.

Kullak's own technique is magnificent, but now that I've graduated, as it were, he ought to let me play my own way, and not expect me to play as _he_ does, and then I could produce my own effects. That is just the difference between him and Liszt. Liszt's grand principle is, to leave you your freedom, and when you play to him, you feel like a Pegasus caracoling about in the air. When you play to Kullak, you feel as if your wings were suddenly clipped, and as if you were put into harness to draw an express wagon! However, I don't think it would be well to go to Liszt without having been through such a training first, for you want to know what you are about when you study with _him_. You must have a good solid _basis_ upon which to raise his airy super-structures. Kullak I regard as the basis.

You ask me in your letter to write you a comparison--a summing up--between Clara Schumann, Bulow, Tausig and Rubinstein, but I don't find it very easy to do, as they are all so different. Clara Schumann is entirely a cla.s.sic player. Beethoven's sonatas, and Bach, too, she plays splendidly; but she doesn't seem to me to have any _finesse_, or much poetry in her playing. There's nothing subtle in her conception. She has a great deal of fire, and her whole style is grand, finished, perfectly rounded off, solid and satisfactory--what the Germans call _gediegen_.

She is a _healthy_ artist to listen to, but there is nothing of the a.n.a.lytic, no Balzac or Hawthorne about her. Beethoven's Variations in C minor are, perhaps, the best performance I ever heard from her, and they are immensely difficult, too; I thought she did them better than Bulow, in spite of Bulow's being such a great Beethovenite. I think she repeats the same pieces a good deal, possibly because she finds the modern fas.h.i.+on of playing everything without notes very trying. I've even heard that she cries over the necessity of doing it; and certainly it is a foolish thing to make a point of, with so very great an artist as Clara Schumann.--If people could _only_ be allowed to have their own individuality!

Bulow's playing is more many-sided, and is chiefly distinguished by its great vigor; there is no end to his nervous energy, and the more he plays, the more the interest increases. He is my favourite of the four.

But he plays Chopin just as well as he does Beethoven, and Schumann, too. Altogether he is a superlative pianist, though by no means unerring in his performance. I've heard him get dreadfully mixed up. I think he trusts _too_ much to his memory, and that he does not prepare sufficiently. He plays everything by heart, and such programmes! He always. .h.i.ts the nail plump on the head, and such a grasp as he has! His chords take firm hold of you. For instance, in the beginning of the two last movements of the Moonlight Sonata, you should hear him run up that arpeggio in the right hand so lightly and pianissimo, every note so delicately articulated, and then _crash-smash_ on those two chords on the top! And when he plays Bach's gavottes, gigues, etc., in the English Suites, a laughing, roguish look comes over his face, and he puts the most indescribable drollery and originality into them. You see that "he sees the point" so well, and that makes _you_ see it, too. Yes, it is good fun to hear Bulow do these things.--Perhaps the best summing up of his peculiar greatness would be to say that he impresses you as using the instrument only to express ideas. With him you forget all about the piano, and are absorbed only in the thought or the pa.s.sion of the piece.

Rubinstein you've heard. Most people put him next to Liszt. Your finding him cold surprised me, for if there is a thing he is celebrated here for, it is the fire and pa.s.sion of his playing, and for his imagination and spontaneity. I think that Tausig, Bulow, and Clara Schumann, all three, have it all cut and dried beforehand, how they are going to play a piece, but Rubinstein creates at the instant. He plays without _plan_.

Probably the afternoon you heard him he did not feel in the mood, and so was not at his best. As a composer he far outranks the other three.