The Love Affairs of Great Musicians Volume I Part 2

THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF STRADELLA

There are historians, sour and cynical, who have tried to contradict the truth of the life story of Stradella as Bourdelot tells it in his "Histoire de la Musique et de ses Effets," but they cannot offer us any satisfactory subst.i.tute in its place, and without troubling to give their merely destructive complaints, and without attempting to improve upon the pompously fascinating English of old Sir John Hawkins, I will quote the story for your delectation.

Certain it is that there was a composer named Stradella, and that he was an opera composer to the Venetian Republic, as well as a frequent singer upon the stage to his own harp accompaniments. He occupies a position in musical history of some importance. The following story of his adventures is no more improbable than many a story we read in the daily newspapers--and surely no one could question the credibility of the daily newspapers. But here is the story as Hawkins tells it. As the cook-books say, salt it to your taste.

"His character as a musician was so high at Venice, that all who were desirous of excelling in the science were solicitous to become his pupils. Among the many whom he had the instruction of, was one, a young lady of a n.o.ble family of Rome, named Hortensia, who, notwithstanding her ill.u.s.trious descent, submitted to live in a criminal intimacy with a Venetian n.o.bleman. The frequent access of Stradella to this lady, and the many opportunities he had of being alone with her, produced in them both such an affection for each other, that they agreed to go off together for Rome. In consequence of this resolution they embarked in a very fine night, and by the favour of the wind effected their escape.

"Upon the discovery of the lady's flight, the Venetian had recourse to the usual method in that country of obtaining satisfaction for real or supposed injuries: he despatched two a.s.sa.s.sins, with instructions to murder both Stradella and the lady, giving them a sum of money in hand, and a promise of a larger if they succeeded in the attempt. Being arrived at Naples, the a.s.sa.s.sins received intelligence that those whom they were in pursuit of were at Rome, where the lady pa.s.sed as the wife of Stradella. Upon this they determined to execute their commission, wrote to their employer, requesting letters of recommendation to the Venetian emba.s.sador at Rome, in order to secure an asylum for them to fly to, as soon as the deed should be perpetrated.

"Upon the receipt of letters for this purpose, the a.s.sa.s.sins made the best of their way toward Rome; and being arrived there, they learned that on the morrow, at five in the evening, Stradella was to give an oratorio in the church of San Giovanni Laterano. They failed not to be present at the performance, and had concerted to follow Stradella and his mistress out of the church, and, seizing a convenient opportunity, to make the blow. The performance was now begun, and these men had nothing to do but to watch the motions of Stradella, and attend to the music, which they had scarce begun to hear, before the suggestions of humanity began to operate upon their minds; they were seized with remorse, and reflected with horror on the thought of depriving of his life a man capable of giving to his auditors such pleasure as they had just then felt.

"In short, they desisted from their purpose, and determined, instead of taking away his life, to exert their endeavours for the preservation of it; they waited for his coming out of the church, and courteously addressed him and the lady, who was by his side, first returning him thanks for the pleasure they had received at hearing his music, and informed them both of the errand they had been sent upon; expatiating upon the irresistible charms, which of savages had made them men, and had rendered it impossible for them to effect their execrable purpose; and concluded with their earnest advice that Stradella and the lady should both depart from Rome the next day, themselves promising to deceive their employer, and forego the remainder part of their reward, by making him believe that Stradella and his lady had quitted Rome on the morning of their arrival.

"Having thus escaped the malice of their enemy, the two lovers took an immediate resolution to fly for safety to Turin, and soon arrived there.

The a.s.sa.s.sins being returned to Venice, reported to their employer that Stradella and Hortensia had fled from Rome, and taken shelter in the city of Turin, a place where the laws were very severe, and which, excepting the houses of emba.s.sadors, afforded no protection for murderers; they represented to him the difficulty of getting these two persons a.s.sa.s.sinated, and, for their own parts, notwithstanding their engagements, declined the enterprise. This disappointment, instead of allaying, served to sharpen the resentment of the Venetian: he had found means to attach to his interest the father of Hortensia, and, by various arguments, to inspire him with a resolution to become the murderer of his own daughter. With this old man, no less malevolent and vindictive than himself, the Venetian a.s.sociated two ruffians, and dispatched them all three to Turin, fully inspired with a resolution of stabbing Stradella and the old man's daughter wherever they found them. The Venetian also furnished them with letters from Mons. l'Abbe d'Estrades, then emba.s.sador of France at Venice, addressed to the Marquis of Villars, the French emba.s.sador at Turin. The purport of these letters was a recommendation of the bearers of them, who were therein represented to be merchants, to the protection of the emba.s.sador, if at any time they should stand in need of it.

"The d.u.c.h.ess of Savoy was at that time regent; and she having been informed of the arrival of Stradella and Hortensia, and the occasion of their precipitate flight from Rome; and knowing the vindictive temper of the Venetians, placed the lady in a convent, and retained Stradella in her palace as her princ.i.p.al musician. In a situation of such security as this seemed to be, Stradella's fears for the safety of himself and his mistress began to abate, till one evening, walking for the air upon the ramparts of the city, he was set upon by the three a.s.sa.s.sins above mentioned, that is to say, the father of Hortensia, and the two ruffians, who each gave him a stab with a dagger in the breast, and immediately betook themselves to the house of the French emba.s.sador as to a sanctuary.

"The attack on Stradella having been made in the sight of numbers of people, who were walking in the same place, occasioned an uproar in the city, which soon reached the ears of the d.u.c.h.ess: she ordered the gates to be shut, and diligent search to be made for the three a.s.sa.s.sins; and being informed that they had taken refuge in the house of the French emba.s.sador, she went to demand them. The emba.s.sador insisting on the privileges which those of his function claimed from the law of nations, refused to deliver them up. In the interim Stradella was cured of his wounds, and the Marquis de Villars, to make short of the question about privilege, and the rights of emba.s.sadors, suffered the a.s.sa.s.sins to escape.

"From this time, finding himself disappointed of his revenge, but not the least abated in his ardour to accomplish it, this implacable Venetian contented himself with setting spies to watch the motions of Stradella. A year was elapsed after the cure of his wounds; no fresh disturbance had been given to him, and he thought himself secure from any further attempts on his life. The d.u.c.h.ess regent, who was concerned for the honour of her s.e.x, and the happiness of two persons who had suffered so much, and seemed to have been born for each other, joined the hands of Stradella and his beloved Hortensia, and they were married.

"After the ceremony Stradella and his wife having a desire to visit the port of Genoa, went thither with a resolution to return to Turin: the a.s.sa.s.sins having intelligence of their departure, followed them close at their heels. Stradella and his wife, it is true, reached Genoa, but the morning after their arrival these three execrable villains rushed into their chamber, and stabbed each to the heart. The murderers had taken care to secure a bark which lay in the port; to this they retreated, and made their escape from justice, and were never heard of more.

"Mr. Berenclow says that when the report of Stradella's a.s.sa.s.sination reached the ears of Purcell, and he was informed jealousy was the motive to it, he lamented his fate exceedingly; and, in regard of his great merit as a musician, said he could have forgiven him any injury in that kind; which, adds the relater, 'those who remember how lovingly Mr.

Purcell lived with his wife, or rather what a loving wife she proved to him, may understand without farther explication.'"

CHAPTER VII.

GIOVANNI AND LUCREZIA PALESTRINA

Almost exactly a century before Purcell died in England, there died in Italy, at Rome, a composer who has made his birthplace immortal, though his own name has almost been lost to public recognition in the process.

That is the man whose name in English would be John Peter Lewis, or as his father called him, Giovanni Pier Luigi, who was born at Palestrina, at some date between 1514 and 1530, and who died in the fulness of his fame February 2, 1594, when Shakespeare was thirty years old, and was, it seems, just getting into print for the first time.

The man whom all posterity knows by the name of his birthplace, as Palestrina, was the greatest composer the Catholic Church ever had. He was a younger contemporary of Willaert's, but was born an Italian. And all his glory belongs to Italy. Of his youth nothing is known. He first appears as the organist and director at the chief church in Palestrina from 1544 to 1551.

Of his early love-making nothing is known; it is only certain that he married young, and it would seem very happily. Yet this marriage brought him the greatest shock of his life. His wife's name was Lucrezia, "his equal and an honest damsel" (_donzella onesta e sua para_), according to the biographer Baini, who adds:

"With her, Giovanni divided the pleasure of seeing himself elected the first Maestro of the Vatican; with her he suffered the most strait penuries of his life; with her he sustained the most cruel afflictions of his spirit, and with her also he ate the hard crust of sorrow: yet with her again he rested in the sunlight that beamed from time to time to his glory and to his gain. And so they pa.s.sed together, these two faithful consorts, nearly thirty years."

Lucrezia bore him four children, all sons, Angelo, Ridolfo, Silla, and Igino. The first three died in early manhood, after showing themselves in some sort heirs of their father's genius: in the second book of his motets Palestrina has included some of their compositions. The last son, Igino, outlived his parents and his own welfare; he was "_un' anima disarmonica"_ After his father's death he attempted to complete and market an unfinished and rejected composition of his father's, but he was legally restrained. He lost some of his father's unpublished works, while certain noddings of genius, better lost, and refused even by the Pope, Palestrina dedicated them to, still remain, with a dedication to yet another Pope, put on them by the scapegrace Igino.

A certain writer Pitoni, by a bit of careless reading, multiplied Palestrina's wives by two, and divided his sons by the same number, claiming that Lucrezia, the first wife of Palestrina, was the mother of Angelo, that after her death he married one Doralice, and that she was the mother of Igino. But Baini exposes Pitoni's carelessness, proves the existence of Ridolfo and Silla by the inclusion of their works in the father's book, and shows that Doralice was the wife of Palestrina's son Angelo.

It being established, then, that Palestrina was married but once, and it being a.s.sumed that he was happily married, it is strange to see how this happy marriage came near proving fatal to him. Palestrina, who was, like Michelangelo, intimate with various Popes, dedicated in 1554 his first printed book of ma.s.ses to Pope Julius III. As a reward, the careless pontiff made him one of the singers of his Sistine Chapel, omitting the usual severe examination, and overlooking as a small matter the fact that Palestrina was so far from being a priest that he was very much married and very much the father, and furthermore had no voice. But Palestrina resigned his post as maestro at Saint Peter's and entered the chapel. The Pope died shortly afterward and was succeeded by a cardinal who was a patron of Palestrina's and continued his favour as Pope Marcellus II. Three weeks later this Pope also died, and was followed by Paul IV.

Unfortunately for Palestrina, the new Pope was a strict constructionist, and he found it "indecent that there should be married men (_ammogliati_) interfering in holy offices." In spite of the action of the two previous pontificates, he determined to expel the three Bened.i.c.ks who had entered the choir, Leonardo Bare, Domenico Ferrabosco, and Palestrina, "uomini ammogliati, e chi con grandissimo scandalo, ed in vilipendio del divin culto, contro le disposizioni dei sagri canoni, e contro le cost.i.tuzioni e le consuetudini della cappella apostolica cantano i medesimi tre ammogliati imitamente ai capellani cantori." He then declares that, after mature deliberation, "ca.s.siamo, discacciamo, e togliamo" from the list of chappellary singers these three, and that they ought to be "ca.s.sati, discacciati, e tolti dalla cappella," and that after the present order they "ca.s.sino, discaccino, e tolgano." And excommunication was threatened if any more married men (_uxorati_) were received in the chapel.

This was on the 30th of July, 1555, just six months after Palestrina had resigned his important post at Saint Peter's. He was a young man with a family, and apparently keenly sensitive, for when this sonorous thunderbolt was launched at his head, he immediately fell ill of a fever and came nigh to death. But he recovered, and two months later found another post as canon of the Lateran, of which by the 1st of October, 1555, he was maestro. Eleven years later, a year after he had written his immortal Improperia, we find him begging on account of the needs of his family to be given an increase of salary, or the acceptance of his resignation. They gave him the acceptance. Again he found another post, and ten years later was back again as maestro of the Vatican after his many wanderings and vicissitudes.

In the meanwhile he had written his famous ma.s.s named after his old friend, Pope Marcellus II. The ten years between 1561 and 1571 had marked an epoch not merely in the life of Palestrina, but in the history of religious music.

The reform Palestrina undertook, or was entrusted with, was the ending of the old scandal brought upon the Church by the elaborate lengths to which contrapuntal composers had gone in using popular melodies, and often even street songs of an obscene nature, as a foundation melody or cantus firmus for their vocal gymnastics. The churchmen of that day did in a more elaborate fas.h.i.+on what Wesley did in his day and the Salvation Army in ours for the popular ballad of the streets. The trouble was that many of the congregation would think only of the original words of these catchy tunes, and in the general uproar some of the priests would sing the actual texts, thinking that the people would not hear them, and forgetting that they were supposed to be for an all-hearing ear.

I find an interesting example of this custom in the career of a musician, a contemporary of Palestrina's mentioned by Van der Straeten; his name was Ambrosio de Cotes. He was the Maestro de Capilla of the King's Chapel at Grenada; he was of either Flemish or English birth, and, though he was a churchman, was a gambler and drunkard; he kept a mistress, who ought to have been pretty to fit her pretty name, Juana de Espinosa. Besides, De Cotes caroused miscellaneously, he ran the streets at night, in bad company, and singing bad songs. In 1591 he was officially reproved for these habits, and for singing improper words to sacred music (_y cantan muchos rezes letras profanas, yndecentes_).

So great was the scandal throughout the whole world of church music that contrapuntal music came near being abandoned entirely. It was given a last chance in a proposition to Palestrina to see if it were worthy and capable of redemption. He composed three ma.s.ses, and the third of them, dedicated to the memory of Pope Marcellus II., was accepted, not only as the rescue of the old school of vocal wors.h.i.+p, but also as the final word and ultimate model for future church music.

Some years later, at the very height of his glory, Palestrina's heart suffered its final blow. In the words of Baini, "Lucrezia, _la sua dolce consorte_, after having piously accompanied the solemn procession for the transport of the body of Saint Gregory n.a.z.ianzeno from the church of the monks of S. Maria Campa Marzo to the Vatican the fourth of June, 1580, was a.s.sailed by a most oppressive malady."

The attentions of her husband and the remedies of the medical art of that day kept her alive up to the first of July. Then the sickness began anew and "neither the tears nor the voice of the loving companion prevailed against the inexorable scythe of death." On the 21st of July Lucrezia died. The next day her body was received at the Vatican, Giovanni watching in the schoolroom of the chapel.

It is easy to picture the wild grief of this man, whom a previous anxiety had thrown into an almost mortal fever. Yet he lived fourteen busy years, and in his old age he felt both fatigue and want, and was compelled to join the long list of those musicians who have appealed to their patrons for charity. But at least his life, like Bach's and that of many another, had proved that marriage is not always and necessarily a failure when set to music.

CHAPTER VIII.

BACH, THE PATRIARCH

The genealogy of the Bachs shows them to have been in the habit of marrying at least two or three times apiece, and of being very prolific.

Johann Ambrosius Bach, the father of "the Father of Modern Music," had a twin brother, Johann Cristoph. They were astonis.h.i.+ngly alike in mind and manner and mien. They suffered the same disorders and died nearly together. Their wives, it is said--_horresco referens_!--could not tell them apart. J. Christoph was sued for breach of promise by a girl whom he said he had discussed matrimony with and exchanged rings with, but tired of. The Consistory ordered him to marry her, but he appealed to a higher court and was absolved from the tenacious woman whom he said he "hated so that he could not bear the sight of her." He married another woman four years later.

The great Bach, Johann Sebastian, was the youngest of six children. His mother died when he was nine years old, but with Bachic haste his father remarried; the new wife was a widow and seemed to be in the habit of it, for she buried J. Ambrosius two months after the wedding. The boy Sebastian was put in charge of an uncle.

At eighteen he was organist at Arnstadt--at twenty-one he went on foot fifty miles to Lubeck to hear the great Buxtehude play the organ. He had been given four weeks' leave and took sixteen. He was severely reproved for this by the Consistory; and the reproof is in existence still. While they were about it, they reproved him for his wild modulations and variations, also for having played too long interludes, and then, when rebuked, playing them too short. He was given eight days to answer, and waited eight months. Then they remonstrated with him mildly again, adding, that they "furthermore remonstrate with him on his having latterly allowed the stranger maiden to show herself and to make music in the choir." His answer to this was simply that he had spoken about it to the parson. Further explanation we have none.

Spitta speculates on the ident.i.ty of this "stranger maiden." In the older church-cantata women did not sing: in the newer form they occasionally did. She might have been a professional from the Brunswick opera. But Spitta decides that it must have been Maria Barbara Bach, his cousin from a neighbouring town. She is known to have had relatives and friends in Arnstadt, and Bach married her a year later. a.s.suming this to be true, Spitta notes that a delightful episode in the courts.h.i.+p of the young couple is disclosed to our view. Perhaps, too, when Bach "spoke to the parson," he confessed his love and his betrothal.

Further Spitta comments: "The plan on which Bach wished to found his own family shows how he, too, was filled with that patriarchal feeling by which his race was distinguished and brought to such flouris.h.i.+ng conditions. Without straying into foreign circles he found, in a relation who bore his name, the person whom he felt to be the most certain of understanding him. If we must call it a coincidence, it is, at any rate, a remarkable one, that Sebastian, in whom the gifts of his race reached their highest perfection, should also be the only one of its members to take a Bach to wife. If we are right in regarding the marriage union of individuals from families not allied in blood as the cause of a stronger growth of development in the children, Bach's choice may signify that in him the highest summit of a development had been reached, so that his instinct disdained the natural way of attempting further improvement, and attracted him to his own race. His second wife, indeed, was not allied with him in blood, but that with the first he found, in some respects, his more natural development may perhaps be concluded from the fact that the most remarkable of his sons were all the children of his first marriage."

Upton says that Bach loved Maria Barbara when he was only eighteen and they agreed to wait till he got a better post. This was not till three years had pa.s.sed and then his salary was only eighty-five gulden (about 7, or $35) besides a little corn and wood and some kindling-wood.

It was on October 17, 1707, that, according to the record, "the respectable Herr J.S. Bach, the surviving lawful son of the late most respectable Herr Ambrosius Bach, the famous town-organist and musician of Eisenach, was married to the virtuous maiden Maria Barbara Bach, the youngest surviving unmarried daughter of the late very respectable and famous artist Herr Johann Michael Bach."

A little inheritance of fifty gulden (4 or $20) aided the new couple.

But it is small wonder that we find Bach sighing later: "Modest as is my way of life, with the payment of house-rent and other indispensable articles of consumption, I can with difficulty live." A year after his marriage, however, he was appointed court organist to the Grand Duke of Weimar, a post he held nine years. Then he became musical director with the Prince of Anhalt-Kothen. In 1720 he went to Carlsbad with his prince. When he returned to the bosom of his family, he found that his wife was not only dead, but buried. Spitta imagines his grief as he stood over the grave of the woman who had followed him from humility to success and had not been able to wish him a last G.o.dspeed. She had borne him seven children, three of whom died; of the sons were Wilhelm Friedemann, the father's favourite, and Karl Philipp Emanuel, whom the world long preferred to Sebastian himself, and whom later times spitefully underrate.

The shock of coming home to his dead wife did not annul Bach's powers, and his next cantata with the suggestive t.i.tle, "He that exalteth himself shall be abased," shows a larger grasp of resource and power. In the same year he made a sensation by his playing in Hamburg, winning the high praise of the eminent organist Reinken (whom by the way Mattheson accused of being "a constant admirer of the fair s.e.x, and much addicted to the wine-cellar of the Council").

For all they may say of the superior genius of Bach's first wife's children, it was in his second wife that he seems to have found his more congenial and appreciative helpmeet. Bach's father had remarried after seven months of widowering, and lived two months longer. Bach waited from July 7, 1720, to December 3, 1721, and he lived nearly thirty years more. His new wife bore him thirteen children, six of them sons, none of whom were remarkable musically, though their mother was more musical than the mother of Bach's first children. Perhaps the newcomers thought it time to take the name out of the rut.