Music-Study in Germany Part 16

My lessons with Deppe are a genuine musical excitement to me, always. In every one is something so new and unexpected--something that I never dreamed of before--that I am lost in astonishment and admiration. The weeks fly by like days before I know it. Deppe gives me the most beautiful music, and never wastes time over things which will be of no use to me afterward. Every piece has an _aim_, and is lovely, also, to play to people. Now, in Tausig's and Kullak's conservatories I wasted quant.i.ties of time over things which are beautiful enough, and do to play to one's self, but which are not in the least effective to play to other people either in the parlour or in the concert-room--as Bach's Toccata in C, for example. Such things take a good while to learn, and are of no practical advantage afterward. But Deppe has an organized _plan_ in everything he does.

In my study with Kullak when I had any special difficulties, he only said, "Practice always, Fraulein. _Time_ will do it for you some day.

Hold your hand any way that is easiest for you. You can do it in _this_ way--or in _this_ way"--showing me different positions of the hand in playing the troublesome pa.s.sage--"or you can play it with the _back_ of the hand if that will help you any!" But Deppe, instead of saying, "Oh, you'll get this after years of practice," shows me how to conquer the difficulty _now_. He takes a piece, and while he plays it with the most wonderful _fineness_ of conception, he cold-bloodedly dissects the mechanical elements of it, separates them, and tells you how to use your hand so as to grasp them one after the other. In short, he makes the technique and the conception _identical_, as of course they ought to be, but I never had any other master who trained his pupils to attempt it.

Deppe also hears me play, I think, in the true way, and as Liszt used to do: that is, he never interrupts me in a piece, but lets me go through it from beginning to end, and _then_ he picks out the places he has noted, and corrects or suggests. These suggestions are always something which are not simply for that piece alone, but which add to your whole artistic experience--a _principle_, so to speak. So, without meaning any disparagement to the splendid masters to whom I owe all my previous musical culture, I cannot help feeling that I have at last got into the hands not of a mere piano virtuoso, however great, but, rather, of a profound musical _savant_--a man who has been a violinist, as well as a director, and who, without being a player himself, has made such a study of the piano, that probably all pianists except Liszt might learn something from him. You may all think me "enthusiastic," or even _wild_, as much as you like; but whether or not I ever conquer my own block of a hand--which has every defect a hand _can_ have!--when I come home and begin teaching you all on Deppe's method, you'll succ.u.mb to the genius and beauty of it just as completely as I have. You will _then_ all admit I was RIGHT!

July 22.--I have finally made up my mind to go to Pyrmont when Deppe does, and spend several weeks, keeping right on with my lessons, and perhaps, giving a little concert there. I have always had a curiosity to visit one of the German watering places, as I'm told they are extremely pleasant.

PYRMONT, _August 1, 1874_.

Here I am in Pyrmont, and there's no knowing where I shall turn up next!

Fraulein Steiniger got here before me, but Deppe has not yet arrived from Brussels, whither he has gone to be present at the yearly exhibition of the Conservatoire there. He has been appointed one of the judges on piano-playing. Pyrmont is a lovely little place. It is in a valley surrounded by hills, heavily wooded, and has a beautiful park, as all German towns have, no matter how small. The avenues of trees surpa.s.s anything I ever saw. The soil has something peculiar about it, and is particularly adapted to trees. They grow to an immense height, and their stems look so strong, and their foliage is so tremendously luxuriant, that it seems as if they were ready to burst for very life!

Fraulein Steiniger went with me to look up some rooms. Every family in Pyrmont takes lodgers, so that it is not difficult to find good accommodations. The women are renowned for being good housekeepers and their rooms are charmingly fitted up, but the prices are very high, as they live the whole year on what they make in summer. People come here to drink the waters of the springs, and to take the baths, which are said to be very invigorating. My rooms are near the princ.i.p.al "_Allee_"

or Avenue, leading from the Springs. About half way down is a platform where the orchestra sit and play three times a day--at seven in the morning (which is the hour before breakfast, when it is the thing to take a gla.s.s or two of the water, and promenade a little), at four in the afternoon, when everybody takes their coffee in the open air, and at seven in the evening. As I don't drink the waters I do not rise early, and am usually awakened by the strains of the orchestra. There is a little piazza outside my window where I take my breakfast and supper.

For dinner I go to "table-d'hote" at a hotel near.--It is a great relief to get out of Berlin and see something green once more. I find the weather very cool, however, and one needs warm clothing here.

There are the loveliest walks all about Pyrmont that you can imagine, and beautiful wood-paths are cut along the sides of the hills. My favourite one is round the cone of a small hill to the right of the town. The path completely girdles it, and you can start and walk round the hill, returning to the point you set out from. It is like a leafy gallery, and before and behind you is always this curving vista.

Whenever I take the walk it reminds me of--

"Curved is the line of beauty, Straight is the line of duty; Follow the last and thou shalt see The other ever following thee."

It is the first time I ever succeeded in combining the carved and the straight line at the same time--because, of course, it is my _duty_ to take exercise!

CHAPTER XXVII.

The Brussels Conservatoire. Steiniger. Excursion to Kleinberg.

Giving a Concert. Fraulein Timm.

PYRMONT, _August 15, 1874_.

Deppe has got back from Brussels, and, as you may imagine, he had much to tell about his flight into the world, particularly as he had also been to London. He had a delightful time with the professors of the Brussels Conservatoire, who were all extremely polite to him, and he heard some talented young pupils. There was one girl about seventeen, whom he said he would give a good deal to have as _his_ pupil, so gifted is she, though her playing did not suit him in many respects. He said he could have made some severe criticisms, but he refrained--partly because he felt the uselessness of it, partly because he says "it _is_ extraordinary how amiable one gets when _young ladies_ are in question!"

He was very enthusiastic over the violin cla.s.ses. "What a bow the youngsters do draw!" he exclaimed. Dupont, the great piano teacher in Brussels, must be a man of considerable "_esprit_," judging from the two of his compositions that I am familiar with--the "Toccata" and the "Staccato." I used to hear a good deal about him from his pupil Gurickx, whom I met in Weimar. Certainly Gurickx played magnificently, and with a _brio_ I have rarely heard equalled. He is like an electric battery.

Quite another school, however, from Deppe's--the severe, the chaste and the cla.s.sic! Extreme _purity of style_ is Deppe's characteristic, and not the pa.s.sionate or the emotional. For instance, he has scarcely given me any Chopin, but keeps me among the cla.s.sics, as he says on that side my musical culture has been deficient. He says that Chopin has been "so played to death that he ought to be put aside for twenty years!"--But if Chopin were really sympathetic to him he could never say _that_! The truth is, the modern "problematische Natur" has no charms for a transparent and simple temperament like his.

Steiniger has been playing most beautifully lately. She has given two concerts of her own here, and has played at another. Then she rehea.r.s.ed with orchestra Mozart's B flat major concerto--the most difficult concerto in the world, and oh, _so_ exquisite! Though I had long wished to do so, I never had heard it before, and as I listened I felt as if I never could leave Deppe until I could play _that_! I wish you could have heard it. It is sown with difficulties--enough to make your hair stand on end! Steiniger played it with an ease and perfection truly astonis.h.i.+ng. The notes seemed fairly to run out of her fingers for fun.

The last movement was Mozart all over, just as merry as a cricket!--I doubt whether anybody can play this concerto adequately who has not studied with Deppe. The beauty of his method is that the greatest difficulties become play to you.

I love to see Deppe direct the orchestra when Steiniger plays a concerto of Mozart. His clear blue eyes dance in his head and look so sunny, and he stands so light on his feet that it seems as if he would dance off himself on the tips of his toes, with his baton in his hand! He is the incarnation of Mozart, just as Liszt and Joachim are of Beethoven, and Tausig was of Chopin. He has a marvellously delicate musical organization, and an instinct how things ought to be played which amounts to second sight. Fraulein Steiniger said to him one day: "Herr Deppe, I don't know why it is, but I can't make the opening bars of this piece sound right. It doesn't produce the impression it ought." "I know why," said Deppe. "It is because you don't strike the chord of G minor before you begin,"--and so it was. When she struck the chord of G minor, it was the right preparation, and brought you immediately into the mood for what followed. It _fixed_ the key.

Aside from music, Deppe, like all artists, has the most childlike nature, and I think Mozart is so peculiarly sympathetic to him because he has such a simple and sunny temperament himself. We made a beautiful excursion the other day in carriages, through the hills, to a little village far distant, where we drank coffee in the open air. Deppe, who knows every foot of the ground about Pyrmont, which he has frequented from his youth up, kept calling our attention to all the points of the scenery over and over again with the greatest delight, quite forgetting that he repeated the same thing fifty times. "That little village over there is called Kleinberg. It has a school and a church, and the pastor's name is Koehler," he would say to me first. Then he would repeat it to every one in our carriage. Then he would stand up and call it over to the carriage behind us. Then when he had got out he said it to the a.s.sembled crowd, and as I walked on in advance with Fraulein Estleben, the last thing I heard floating over the hill-top was, "The pastor's name is Koehler,"--so I knew he was still instructing some one in the fact. "I wonder how often Deppe has repeated that?" I said to Fraulein Estleben. "At least fifty times," said she, laughing. "I'm going back to him and ask him once more what the name of the pastor is."

So I went back, and said, "By the way, Herr Deppe, what did you say the name of the pastor of that village is?" "_Koehler_," said dear old Deppe, with great distinctness and with such simple good faith that I felt reproached at having quizzed him, though the others could scarcely keep their countenances, as they knew what I was after.

I have been preparing for some time to give a concert of Chamber Music in the salon of the hotel here, and expect it to take place a week from to-day. My head feels quite _lame_ from so much practicing, the consequence, I suppose, of so much listening. I am to play a Quintette, Op. 87, in E major, by Hummel, for piano and strings, and a Beethoven Sonata, Op. 12, in E flat, for violin and piano, and the other instruments will play a Quartette by Haydn in between. It is a beautiful little programme, I think--every piece perfect of its kind. If I succeed in this concert as I hope, I shall probably listen to Deppe's implorings and remain under his guidance another season. Deppe believes that one _must_ go through successive steps of preparation before one is fitted to attack the great concert works. I've found out (what he took good care not to tell me in the beginning!) that his "course" is three years!! and you can't hurry either him or his method. Your fingers have got to grow into it.--I do not at all regret, with you, not having hitherto played in concert; on the contrary, I think it providential that I did not. You see, you and I started out with wholly impracticable and ridiculous ideas. We thought that things could be done quickly.

Well, they _can't_ be done quickly and be worth anything. One must keep an end in view for years and gradually work up to it. The length of time spent in preparation has to be the same, whether you begin as a child (which is the best, and indeed the only proper way), or whether you begin after you have grown up. It is a ten years' labour, take it how you will.

PYRMONT, _August 15, 1874_.

My concert came off yesterday evening, and Deppe says it was a complete success. I did not play any solos, after all, though I had prepared some beautiful ones, for Deppe said the programme would be too long, and he was not quite sure of my courage. "You'd be frightened, if you were a _Herr Gott_!" said he; but, contrary to my usual habit, I wasn't frightened in the least, and I think I did as well as such a shaky, trembly concern as I, could have expected, particularly as my hands are two little fiends who _won't_ play if they don't feel like it, do what I will to make them!--My programme was _a la_ Joachim (!)--only three pieces of Chamber Music:--

1. Quintette, Op. 87, E major, Hummel.

2. Quartette, G major, Haydn.

3. Sonata for piano and violin, Op. 12, E flat. Beethoven.

Deppe arranged the whole thing most practically. We had a large _salle_ in the Hotel Bremen which was admirably proportioned, and a new grand piano from Berlin. Deppe had only so many chairs placed as he had given out invitations, and the consequence was that every chair was filled, and there were no rows of empty seats. My "public" was very musical and critical, and there were so many good judges there that I wonder I wasn't nervous; but a sort of inspiration came to me at the moment.

The musicians who accompanied me were exceedingly good ones for such a place as Pyrmont, and my strictly _cla.s.sic_ selections were received with great favour by the audience! That quintette of Hummel's is a most charming composition--so flowing and elegant--and one can display a good deal of virtuosity in the last part of it. I played first and last, and the quartette in between was performed by the stringed instruments alone. After I had finished the quintette, Deppe, who was at the extreme end of the hall, sent me word that I was "doing famously, and that he was delighted," and this encouraged me so that my sonata went beautifully, too. When it was over, ever so many people came up and congratulated me, and Fraulein Timm, Deppe's head teacher in Hamburg, even complimented me on my "extraordinary facility of execution." I couldn't help laughing at that, with my stubborn hand which never will do anything, and which only the most intense study has schooled--but in truth I was quite surprised myself at the plausible way in which it went over all difficulties! Quite a number of Deppe's scholars were present, all of them critics and several of them beautiful pianists. Two nice American girls, sisters, from the West, came on from Berlin on purpose for my concert. They helped me dress, and presented me with an exquisite bouquet. One of them is taking lessons of Deppe, and the other has a great talent for drawing, and has been two years studying in Berlin. She says she has only made a "beginning" now, and that she wishes to study "indefinitely" yet.--So it is in Art! I think her heads are excellent already.

After the concert was over, Deppe gave me a little champagne supper, together with Frauleins Timm, Steiniger, and these two young ladies.

When he poured out the wine he said he was going to propose a toast to two ladies; one of them, of course, was myself, "and the other," said he, "is in America, namely, the friend of Fraulein Fay, whom I judge to be a woman of genius, so truly and rightly does she feel about art (I've translated H's letters to him), and so n.o.bly has she sympathized with and stood by Fraulein Fay.--To Mrs. A., whose acquaintance I long to make!"--You may be sure I drank to _that_ toast with enthusiasm. Ah, it was a pleasant evening, after so many years of fruitless toil! The fat and jolly old landlord came himself to put me into the carriage and to say that everybody in the audience had expressed their pleasure and gratification at my performance. I rather regret now that I did not play my solos, but perhaps it is just as well to leave them until another time. I have "sprung over one little mound"--to use Deppe's simile--and got an idea of the impetus that will be necessary to "carry me over the mountain."

PYRMONT, _September 4, 1874_.

After the unwonted exaltation of the success of my little concert, I have been suffering a corresponding reaction, partly because Fraulein Timm, Deppe's Hamburg a.s.sistant, with whom I am now studying, began her instructions, as teachers always do, by chucking me into a deeper slough of despond than usual. Consequently, I haven't been very bright, though I am gradually coming up to the surface again, for I'm pretty hard to drown!

Fraulein Timm belongs to the single sisterhood, but is one of the fresh and placid kind, and as neat as wax. She's got a great big brain and a remarkable gift for teaching, for which she has a _pa.s.sion_. I quite adore her when she gets on her spectacles, for then she looks the personification of Sagacity! She has been a.s.sociated with Deppe for years in teaching, and "keeps all his sayings and ponders them in her heart." Indeed, she knows his ideas almost better than he does himself, and carries on the whole circle of pupils that he left in Hamburg when he came to Berlin. Every now and then he runs down to see how they are getting on, gives them all lessons, reviews what they have done, and brings Fraulein Timm all the new pieces he has discovered and fingered.

She also comes occasionally to Berlin to see him, takes a lesson every day, fills herself with as many new ideas as possible, and then returns to her post. Together, they form a very strong pair, and I think it a capital ill.u.s.tration of your theory that men ought to a.s.sociate women with them in their work, and that "men should _create_, and women _perfect_."

Deppe makes Fraulein Timm and Fraulein Steiniger his partners and a.s.sociates in his ideas, and the consequence is they add all their ingenuity to impart them to others. This spares him much of the tedious technical work, and leaves him free for the higher spheres of art, as they take the beginners and prepare them for him. _He_ has made _them_ magnificent teachers, and they employ their gifts to further _him_. I don't doubt that through them his method will be perpetuated, and even if he should die it would not be lost to the world. On the other hand, he has given them something to live for.--Curious that the _practicalness_ of this a.s.sociation with women doesn't strike the masculine mind oftener!

So I am going down to Hamburg to study for a time with this Fraulein Timm, as I think she will develop my hand quicker than Deppe, even.

Deppe has always urged me to it, but I never would do it, as I did not know her personally, and did not wish to leave him. Now that I have tried her, however, I find he was right, as he _always_ is! At present she is throwing her whole weight upon my wrist, which I hope will get limber under it! She has an obstinacy and a perseverance in sticking at you that drive you almost wild, but make you learn "lots" in the end. I think my grand trouble all these years has been a stiff wrist and a heavy arm. I have borne down too heavily on wrist and arm, whereas the whole weight and power must be just in the tips of the fingers, and the wrist and arm must be quite light and free, the hand turning upon the wrist as if it were a pivot.

Pyrmont is an exquisite little place, and I regret to leave it. At first I almost perished with loneliness, but now that I have a few acquaintances here I am enjoying it. It is a fas.h.i.+onable watering place, but chiefly visited by ladies. There are about a hundred women to one man! The first week I was here I lived at a Herr S.'s, but finding it too expensive I looked up another lodging and am now living with a jolly old maid. I like living with old maids. I think they are much neater than married women, and they make you more comfortable. As the season is now over, this one's house is quite empty, and it is exquisitely kept. I took two rooms in the third story, small but very cozy, and with a lovely view of the hills.

We have just had the loveliest illumination I ever saw. It was one Sunday evening--"Golden Sunday" they call it here, though why they _should_ call it so, I know not. I accepted the information, however, without inquiry into first causes, and went out in the evening to promenade in the Allee with the rest. The Allee is not all on a level, but descends gradually from the springs to a fountain which is at the opposite end. Rows and rows of j.a.panese lanterns were festooned across the trees. As you walked down the path, you saw the festoons one below the other. The fountain was illuminated with gas jets behind the water.

You could not see the water till you got close up, and at a distance only the rows of gas jets were apparent. As you neared it, however, the watery veil seemed flung over them, like the foamy tulle over a bride.

It was very fascinating to look at, and I kept receding a few paces and then returning. As I receded, the watery veil would disappear, and as I approached it would again take form. It reminded me of some people's characters, of which you see the bright points from the first, and think you know them so well, but when you draw closer, even in the moments of greatest intimacy, you always feel a veil between you and them--a thin, impalpable something which you cannot annihilate, even though you may see _through_ it.

We walked up and down the Allee a long time listening to the orchestra, which was playing. The magnificent great trees looked more beautiful than ever, with their lower boughs lit up by the lanterns, and their upper ones disappearing mysteriously into shadow. At last the tapers in the lanterns burned out one after another, the avenue was wrapped in gloom, and we finished this poetic evening in the usual prosaic manner by returning home and going to bed!

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Music in Hamburg. Studying Chamber Music. Absence of Religion in Germany. South Americans. Deppe once more. A Concert Debut.

Postscript.