Auld lang syne

Thus wrote Shakespeare; but with all due respect for the immortal bard, he was wrong for once. Did not my dear friend, Arthur Stanley, hate music, and was he not to be trusted? Were his affections dark as Erebus?

True it is, music gives us a new life, and to be without that life is the same loss as to be blind, and not to know the infinite blue of the sky, the varied verdure of the trees, or the silver sparkle of the sea. Music is the language of the soul, but it defies interpretation. It means something, but that something belongs not to this world of sense and logic, but to another world, quite real, though beyond all definition. How different music is from all other arts! They all have something to imitate which is brought to us by the senses. But what does music imitate? Not the notes of the lark, nor the roar of the sea; they cannot be imitated, and if they are, it is but a caricature. The melodies of Schubert were chosen, not from the Prater, but from another world.

For educational purposes music is invaluable. It softens the young barbarian, it makes him use his fingers deftly, it lifts him up, it brings him messages from another world, it makes him feel the charm of harmony and beauty. There is no doubt an eternal harmony that pervades every kind of music, and there are the endless varieties of music, some so strange that they seem hardly to deserve to be called a gift of the Muses. There is in music something immortal and something mortal. There is even habit in music; for the music that delights us sounds often hideous to uneducated ears.

Indian music is thoroughly scientific, based on mathematics, and handed down to the present age after many centuries of growth. But when we hear it for the first time, it seems mere noise, without melody, without harmony, without rhythm. The Maoris have their own music too, but send a New Zealander to hear a long symphony of Beethoven, and, if he can, he will certainly run away long before the finale.

In a lesser degree it is the same with us. Beethoven’s compositions were at first considered wild and lawless. Those who admired Mozart and Haydn could not endure him. Afterwards the world was educated up to his Ninth Symphony, but some of his later sonatas for pianoforte and violin were played by Mendelssohn and David in my hearing, and they both shrugged their shoulders, and thought that the old man had been no longer quite himself when he wrote them. We have grown into them, or up to them, and now many a young man is able to enjoy them, and to enjoy them honestly. I remember the time when Schumann’s songs were published at Leipzig, and the very same songs which now delight us were then by the best judges called curious, strange, interesting, promising, but no more. Yes, there is habit in music, and we are constantly passing through a musical education; nay, the time comes when our education seems finished, and we can learn and take in no more. I have passed through a long school. I began with Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, lived on with Mendelssohn, rose to Schumann, and reached even Brahms; but I could never get beyond, I could never learn to enjoy Wagner except now and then in one of his lucid intervals. No doubt this is my fault and my loss, but surely the vulgus profanum also has its rights and may protest against being tired instead of being refreshed and invigorated by music. Would Mendelssohn have admired Wagner? Would Beethoven have listened to his music, would Bach have tolerated it? Yet these were musicians too, though perhaps not sufficiently educated. To be honest, a great deal of Wagner’s music seems tiresome to me, and I do not see why it should ever end.

My musical education began very early, so early that I cannot remember ever passing through any drudgery. As long as I remember I could play, and I was destined to become a musician, till I went to the University, and Mendelssohn advised me to keep to Greek and Latin. I was born and brought up in Dessau, a small German town in an oasis of oak-trees where the Elbe and the Mulde meet, a town then overflowing with music. Such towns exist no longer.

When I went to school at Dessau, this small capital of the small Duchy of Anhalt-Dessau counted, I believe, not more than ten or twelve thousand inhabitants. Everybody knew everybody. As a boy I knew not only the notables of Dessau, I knew the shops and the shopmen, the servants, the day-labourers (Tagelöhner) who sawed and split wood in the street, every old woman that sold apples, every beggar that asked for a Pfennig—mark, not a penny, but the tenth part of a penny. It was a curious town, with one long street running through it, the Cavalierstrasse, very broad, with pavements on each side. But the street had to be weeded from time to time, there being too little traffic to prevent the grass from growing up between the chinks of the stones. The houses had generally one storey only; those of two or three storeys were mostly buildings erected by the Duke for his friends and his higher officials. Many houses were mere cottages, consisting of a ground floor and a high roof. Almost every house had a small mysterious looking-glass fastened outside the window in which the dwellers within could watch and discuss an approaching visitor long before he or she came within speaking distance. It was the fashion not only to whitewash the plastered walls of houses, but to green-wash, or to blue-wash, or to pink-wash them. All this is changed now; few people remember the old streets, with distant lamps swinging across to make darkness more visible at night, and with long waterspouts frowning down on the pavement like real gurgoyles, and not frowning only, but during a thunderstorm pouring down buckets of water on the large red and green umbrellas of the passers-by.

Dessau was then a very poor town, but a læta paupertas reigned in it; everybody knew how much everybody else possessed or earned, and no one was expected to spend more than was justified by his position. We can hardly understand now with how little people then managed, not only to live, but thoroughly to enjoy the highest pleasures of life. My grandfather, who was the Duke’s Prime Minister, received, I believe, no more than two thousand thalers (£300) salary, though there may have been additional allowances for rent, carriages and horses. But there was a curious mixture of simplicity of life and enjoyments of the highest kind. I remember in my grandfather’s house delightful social gatherings, musical and literary performances. I remember Mozart’s “Don Juan,” Beethoven’s “Fidelio” being performed there, the latest works of Goethe and Jean Paul being read and appreciated with a cup of tea or a glass of wine. A more select circle enjoyed their Shakespeare, their Dante, their Calderon in English, Italian, and Spanish. I remember my grandfather (the son of Basedow, the reformer of national education in Germany) in his Court uniform, driving to Court in his carriage and pair, servants in full livery, everybody making room for him and bowing deep on each side, hat in hand. And when he came back from Court, was it not a real holiday for his grandchildren to turn the pockets of his uniform inside out—the pockets were lined on purpose with soft leather—to see what bonbons and cakes he had brought home for us from Tafel—i.e., dinner at Court? Almost my first recollections come from my grandfather’s house. My mother, after the very early death of my father, who died before I was four years old, had gone back to live at her father’s house. This was a very common arrangement then. Two or three generations often lived together in the same house, and among the better families the house was looked upon as a common home, descending from father to son and grandson. There was a large garden stretching out behind the house, which was our playground. Our neighbours’ gardens were separated on each side from our own by a low hedge only. Next door to us was the house of a soap and candle maker, and I still remember the disagreeable smells on the day when soap was boiled and candles were drawn. People talked across the garden hedge to their neighbours, and all the affairs of the town were discussed there. Our neighbour on the right side took lodgers, and one of them was a young man who had come to Dessau to study music under F. Schneider, and at the same time to give music lessons. He had been a theological student, but had umgesattelt (changed saddles), and now tried to support himself as best he could at Dessau. He often talked to me across the garden hedge (I was only five years old). One day he lifted me across into his own garden, and asked whether I would like to learn the pianoforte. I, of course, said yes, and he then bade me promise to come to him every day for half an hour, but not to say a word to my mother or to anybody else. The bargain was struck; I kept my music quite secret, till, after about half a year or so, I sat down at my grandfather’s pianoforte, and to the amazement of everybody played some easy pieces of Mozart or Diabelli. Of course the young theological student—his name was Kahle—was engaged at once to be my music-master. He charged five Groschen (sixpence) for a lesson, and I made very rapid progress. My mother was very musical; she had a splendid alto voice, and was often invited to sing the solos at the great musical festivals in Germany. My aunts, too, sang very well, and as a little boy I could sing all the songs which they sang, and well remember being put on a table to sing Händel’s great arias, “Schnell wie des Blitzes Strahl,” etc. Dessau at that time was steeped in music.

The reigning Duke kept a first-rate orchestra, and at the head of it was Friedrich Schneider, a well-known composer of the old school, a cantor, like Bach, but also Ducal Capellmeister, and the head of what was then called a musical school, now a conservatorium. This school was frequented by students from all parts of Germany, and it has produced some excellent musicians and well-known composers. There were public concerts given regularly every fortnight at a very low charge, and there were rehearsals twice a week, at which a few people only were allowed to be present. I was one of the few, and every Tuesday and Friday after school I sat there for an hour or two hearing the very best music excellently performed, and being deeply impressed, nay, awed by old Schneider, who stormed at the players when a single note went wrong, and used language which I was not allowed to repeat. He was a character. A small, square man, with greyish hair flowing down to his shoulders, his black eyes full of fire, and sometimes of fury. He was very fond of his glass of wine, which had given to his whole face, and particularly to his nose, a glowing ruddy complexion. He brooked no opposition from anybody, and he was the terror of all the young musicians who showed themselves at Dessau. His orchestra had such a reputation at that time that some of the greatest celebrities considered it an honour either to have their compositions performed or to be allowed to sing or play at his concerts. I remember Paganini, Sonntag, Spohr, Mendelssohn (then quite a young man), and many more passing through their ordeal at Dessau. Mendelssohn’s visit left a deep impression on my mind. I was still a mere child, he a very young man, and, as I thought, with the head of an angel. Mendelssohn’s was always a handsome face, but later in life the sharpness of his features betrayed his Jewish blood. He excelled as an organ player, and while at Dessau he played on the organ in the Grosse Kirche, chiefly extempore. I was standing by him, when he took me on his knees and asked me to play a choral while he played the pedal. I see it all now as if it had been yesterday, and I felt convinced at that time that I too (anch’ io) would be a musician. Was not Weber, Karl Maria von Weber, my godfather, and had he not given me my surname of Max? My father and mother had been staying with Weber at Dresden, and my father had undertaken to write the text for a new opera, which was never finished. Weber was then writing his “Freischütz,” and my mother has often described to me how he would walk about the whole day in his room composing, not before the pianoforte, but with a small guitar, and how she heard every melody gradually emerging from the twang of his little instrument. Both his wife and my mother were expecting their confinement, and it was arranged that if the children should be boys, they should be called Max, if girls, Agathe. We were both boys, and Weber’s son, Max Maria von Weber, became a distinguished traveller, a most charming writer, and at last an influential financier in the Austrian service. He stayed with me several times at Oxford, and we exchanged notes about our respective fathers. He published a life of his father, which has, I believe, been translated into English.

Old Schneider was kind to young Mendelssohn, whenever he came to Dessau; they were both ardent admirers of Händel and Bach, but the more modern and romantic compositions of the young composer did not quite meet the approval of the severe Maestro. Schneider was terribly outspoken, and apt to lose his temper and become violent. He once had a most painful scene with Madame Sonntag, or rather with Countess Something, as she was then. First of all, he thought very little of any composer whose name ended in ini or ante, and he would but seldom yield to the Duke and Duchess when they wished now and then to have some of Rossini’s or Mercadante’s music performed by their own orchestra. But when the Italian Countess ventured to speak to his orchestra and to ask them for a ritardando of her own, he flourished his bâton and broke out: “Madame,” he said, “you may sing as you like, but I look after of my orchestra,” and there was an end of it.

Life went on, and what time I could spare from school work, perhaps too much, was given to music. There was not an air or a symphony of Beethoven’s which at that time I could not have hummed from beginning to end, and even now I often detect myself humming, “Ich bin’s, du bist’s, O himmlisches Entzücken!” Who does not know that duet between Fidelio and Florestan? Much of that humming repertorio has remained with me for life, though I cannot always tell now where an Allegro or Adagio comes from. It comes without being called, I cannot drive it away when I want to be quiet. I hum the bass, I whistle the piccolo, I draw out the notes from the violoncello, I blow the trumpet, in fact I often feel like Queen Bess, “And she shall have music wherever she goes.”

When I was about eleven or twelve, old Schneider allowed me to play with accompaniment of the full orchestra some concertos of Mozart, etc. This was a great event in my quiet life, and everything looked as if music was to be my profession. When afterwards I went to the Nicolai School at Leipzig, the school at which Leibniz (not Leibnitz) had been educated, I lived again in the musical house of Professor Carus. His wife sang sweetly; his son, my old friend, Professor V. Carus, was an excellent violin player, a pupil of David. I myself began to play the violoncello, but without much success, and I joined a chorus under Mendelssohn, who was then director of the famous Gewandhaus Concerts at Leipzig. We often had to sing anything he had composed and wished to hear before performing it in public. As a friend of my father and my mother, Mendelssohn was always most charming to me, but he did not encourage my idea of a musical career. The fact was I had not time to serve two masters. I could not practise and study music as it ought to be practised and studied without neglecting Greek and Latin, and, as life became more serious, my mind was more and more drawn to the thoughts of antiquity, to Homer and Cicero, and away from the delights of music. I heard excellent music at the house of Professor Carus. I still have an old slip of paper on which Mendelssohn, Liszt, David, Kalliwoda and Hiller wrote their names for me one evening after they had been playing quartettes at Professor Carus’s house. (See page 14.)

I even ventured while at Leipzig to play sometimes at public concerts in the neighbourhood. But when I began to look forward to what I should make of my life, and how I should carve out for myself a useful career, I saw that music was out of the question. There was another consideration which determined my choice. There was much deafness in my family. My mother became deaf when she was still quite young, my grandmother, several of my uncles and cousins, all had lost their hearing, and this induced me, young as I was, to choose a profession which would be possible even if I should share the same misfortune. I could not think of medicine, or law, or the Church—so I said to myself, keep to Greek and Latin, try to be a scholar. A professorship was my highest ambition, but I thought that even if that should fail, I might find a quiet Benedictine cell somewhere, and support myself by my pen. So music had to step into the background, not altogether, but so as not to interfere with more serious work. No, music, though somewhat slighted, has remained a true and faithful friend to me through life. I have enjoyed music until very late in life when I began to feel satisfied, and would much rather hum a symphony to myself than hear it played, often not half so well as I remembered it at Dessau, at the Gewandhaus Concerts at Leipzig, and at the marvellous Conservatoire Concerts in Paris. These were the perfection of instrumental music. Never has any other performance come near them. It was difficult to get a ticket. People used to form queue and stand the whole night in order to secure the next morning an abonnement for the season. To buy a ticket was beyond my means, for when I was at Paris I had entirely to support myself. But a friend of mine took me to the Conservatoire, and I often sat in the corridor without seeing the orchestra, listening as if to organ music. It was perfect. Every instrument of the orchestra was first-rate—the players had mostly passed through the same school, the conductor was an old man with a German name which I forget. Was it Habeneck? He reminded me of Schneider, and certainly his orchestra marched like a regiment of soldiers.

And besides being a constant source of the highest enjoyment to me, music has often helped me in my pilgrimage through life. Both in Paris and later on in London, many a house was open to me which would have remained closed to a mere scholar. Musicians also always took an interest in the son of the poet, Wilhelm Müller, whose songs had been set to music, not only by Schubert, but by many other popular composers. I well remember, when telling Jenny Lind whose son I was, how she held up her hands and said: “What? the son of the poet of the ‘Müllerlieder’! Now sit down,” she said, “and let me sing you the ‘Schöne Müllerin.’” And she began to sing, and sang all the principal songs of that sad idyll, just moving her head and hands a little, but really acting the whole story as no actress on the stage could have acted it. It was a perfect tragedy, and it has remained with me for life. Stockhausen also (who, as I saw too late, has just been celebrating his seventieth birthday) once sang the “Winterreise” to me in the same way, but as I had to accompany him I had only half the pleasure, though even that was great.

How many memories crowd in upon me! I heard Liszt when I was still at school at Leipzig. It was his first entry into Germany, and he came like a triumphator. He was young, theatrical, and terribly attractive, as ladies, young and old, used to say. His style of playing was then something quite new—now every player lets off the same fireworks. The musical critics who then ruled supreme at Leipzig were somewhat coy and reserved, and I remember taking a criticism to the editor of the Leipziger Tageblatt which the writer did not wish to sign with his own name. Mendelssohn only, with his well-tempered heart, received him with open arms. He gave a matinée musicale at his house, all the best known musicians of the place being present. I remember, though vaguely, David, Kalliwoda, Hiller; I doubt whether Schumann and Clara Wieck were present. Well, Liszt appeared in his Hungarian costume, wild and magnificent. He told Mendelssohn that he had written something special for him. He sat down, and swaying right and left on his music-stool, played first a Hungarian melody, and then three or four variations, one more incredible than the other.

We stood amazed, and after everybody had paid his compliments to the hero of the day, some of Mendelssohn’s friends gathered round him, and said: “Ah, Felix, now we can pack up (‘jetzt können wir einpacken’). No one can do that; it is over with us!” Mendelssohn smiled; and when Liszt came up to him asking him to play something in turn, he laughed and said that he never played now; and this, to a certain extent, was true. He did not give much time to practising then, but worked chiefly at composing and directing his concerts. However, Liszt would take no refusal, and so at last little Mendelssohn, with his own charming playfulness, said: “Well, I’ll play, but you must promise me not to be angry.” And what did he play? He sat down and played first of all Liszt’s Hungarian Melody, and then one variation after another, so that no one but Liszt himself could have told the difference. We all trembled lest Liszt should be offended, for Mendelssohn could not keep himself from slightly imitating Liszt’s movements and raptures. However, Mendelssohn managed never to offend man, woman, or child. Liszt laughed and applauded, and admitted that no one, not he himself, could have performed such a bravura. Many years after I saw Liszt once more, at the last visit he paid to London. He came to the Lyceum to see Irving and Ellen Terry act in “Faust.” The whole theatre rose when the old, bent Maestro appeared in the dress circle. When the play was over, I received an invitation from Mr., now Sir Henry, Irving to join a supper party in honour of Liszt. I could not resist, though I was staying with friends in London and had no latch-key. It was a brilliant affair. Rooms had been fitted up on purpose with old armour, splendid pictures, gorgeous curtains. We sat down, about thirty people; I knew hardly anybody, though they were all known to fame, and not to know them was to profess oneself unknown. However, I was placed next to Liszt, and I reminded him of those early Leipzig days. He was not in good spirits; he would not speak English, though Ellen Terry sat on his right side, and, as she would not speak German or French, I had to interpret as well as I could, and it was not always easy. At last Miss Ellen Terry turned to me and said: “Tell Liszt that I can speak German,” and when he turned to listen, she said in her girlish, bell-like voice: “Lieber Liszt, ich liebe Dich.” I hope I am not betraying secrets; anyhow, as I have been indiscreet once, I may as well say what happened to me afterwards. It was nearly 3 A.M. when I reached my friend’s house. With great difficulty I was able to rouse a servant to let me in, and when the next morning I was asked where I had been, great was the dismay when I said that I had had supper at the Lyceum. Liszt had promised to come to stay with me at Oxford, but the day when I expected him, the following note arrived from Amsterdam, probably one of the last he ever wrote:—

A few weeks after, I saw his death announced in the papers.

And thus Liszt left the stage. I saw his entrance and his exit, and when I asked myself, What has he left behind? I could only think of the new school of brilliant executionists of which he may truly be called the founder and life-long apostle. I confess that, though I feel dazzled at the impossibilities which he and his pupils perform with their ten fingers, I often sigh for an Allegro or an Andante by Haydn and Mozart as they were played in my young days with simplicity and purity on very imperfect instruments. Players now seem to think of themselves only, not of the musical poets whose works they are to render. Mendelssohn, Clara Wieck (Madame Schumann) even Moscheles and Hummel acted as faithful interpreters. On listening to them, exquisite as their execution was, one thought far more of what they played than how they played. That time is gone, and no one has now, or will ever have again, the courage to bring it back. If one wants to enjoy a sonata of Haydn one has to play it oneself or hum it, because the old fingers will not do their work any longer.

And Mendelssohn also, whom I had known as a young man, said good-bye to me for the last time in London. It was after the first performance of his “Elijah” in 1847. He too said he would come again next year, and then came the news of his sudden death. I saw him last at Bunsen’s house, where he played at a matinée musicale always ready to please and oblige his friends, always amiable and charming, even under great provocation. Only once I remember seeing him almost beside himself with anger, and well he might be. He possessed a most valuable album, with letters, poems, pictures, compositions of the most illustrious men of the age, such as Goethe and others. The binding had somewhat suffered, so it was sent to be mended, and I was present when it came back. It was at his sister’s house, Fanny Hensel’s, at Berlin. Mendelssohn opened the album, jumped up and screamed. The binder had cut off the blue skies and tree-tops of all the Italian sketches, and the signatures of most of the poems and letters. This was too much for Felix, he was for once infelix. Still, happy and serene as his life certainly was, for he had everything a man of his talents could desire, there were bitter drops in it of which the world knew little, and need not know anything now. There are things we know, important things which the world would be glad to know. But we bury them; they are to be as if they had never been, like letters that are reduced to ashes and can never be produced again by friends or enemies.

He was devoted to his sister Fanny, who was married to Hensel the painter, an intimate friend of my father. When I was a student at Berlin, I was much in their house in the Leipziger Strasse, and heard many a private concert given in the large room looking out on the garden. Mendelssohn played almost every instrument in the orchestra, and had generally to play the instrument which he was supposed to play worst. When he played the pianoforte, he was handicapped by being made to play with his arms crossed. All the celebrities of Berlin (and Berlin was then rich in celebrities) were present at those musical gatherings, and Mendelssohn was the life of the whole. He was never quiet for a moment, moving from chair to chair and conversing with everybody.

Boeckh, the great Greek scholar, lived in the same house, and Mendelssohn had received so good a classical education that he could hold his own when discussing with the old master the choruses of the Antigone. Mendelssohn was, in fact, a man teres et rotundus. He was at home in classical literature, he spoke French and English, he was an exquisite draughtsman, and had seen the greatest works of the greatest painters, ancient and modern. His father, a rich banker in Berlin, had done all he could for the education of his children. He was the son of Mendelssohn the philosopher, and when his son Felix had become known to fame, he used to say with his slightly Jewish accent: “When I was young I was called the son of the great Mendelssohn; now that I am old I am called the father of the great Mendelssohn; then, what am I?” Well, he found the wherewithal that enabled his son, and his other children too, to become what they were, all worthy of their great grandfather, all worthy of the name of Mendelssohn.

Felix was attached to both his sisters, Fanny and Rebekah (Dirichlet), but he was more particularly devoted to Fanny (Hensel). They had been educated together. She knew Greek and Latin like her brother, she played perfectly, and composed so well that her brother published several of her compositions under his own name. They were one spirit and one soul, and at that time ladies still shrank from publicity. Everybody knew which songs were hers (I remember, for instance, “Schöner und Schöner schmückt sich die Flur”), and it was only later in life that she began to publish under her own name. I give the beginning of a song which she wrote for my mother. The words are my father’s, the little vignette was drawn by her husband, who was an eminent artist at Berlin.

The struggles which many, if not most men of genius, more particularly musicians, have had to pass through were unknown to Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Some people go so far as to say that they miss the traces of those struggles in his character and in his music. And yet those who knew him best know that his soul, too, knew its own bitterness. His happiest years were no doubt spent at Leipzig, where I saw much of him while I was at school and at the University. He was loved and admired by everybody; he was undisputed master in the realm of music. He was at first unmarried, and many were the rumours as to who should be his bride. News had reached his friends that his heart had been won by a young lady at Frankfurt; but nobody, not even his most intimate friends, knew for certain. However, one evening he had just returned from Frankfurt, and had to conduct one of the Gewandhaus Concerts. The last piece was Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. I had sung in the chorus, and found myself on the orchestra when the concert was over, the room nearly empty, except his personal friends, who surrounded him and teased him about his approaching engagement. His beaming face betrayed him, but he would say nothing to anybody, till at last he sat down and extemporised on the pianoforte. And what was the theme of his fantasy? It was the passage of the chorus, “Wer ein holdes Weib errungen, mische seinen Jubel ein.” That was his confession to his friends, and then we all knew. And she was indeed “ein holdes Weib” when she arrived at Leipzig. One thing only she lacked—she could not express all she felt. She was soon called the “Goddess of Silence” by the side of her devoted husband, who never could be silent, but was always bubbling over like champagne in a small glass. They were a devoted couple, not a whisper was ever heard about either of them, though Mendelssohn had many friends, the greatest of all being his sister Fanny. With her he could speak and exchange whatever was uppermost or deepest in his heart. I have heard them extemporise together on the pianoforte, one holding with his little finger the little finger of the other. Her death was the heaviest loss he ever suffered in life. He was so unaccustomed to suffering and distress that he could never recover from this unexpected blow. Nor did he survive her long. She died on the 14th of May, 1847; he followed her on the 4th of November of the same year.

During most of the time when Mendelssohn celebrated his triumphs as director of the Gewandhaus Concerts, young Robert Schumann was at Leipzig, but he was little seen. Mendelssohn, so bright and happy himself, wished to see the whole world around him bright and happy, and was kind to everybody. The idea of jealousy was impossible at that time in Mendelssohn’s heart. Neither could Schumann, as a young and rising musician, have thought himself then to be in any sense an equal or rival of Mendelssohn. But there are natures which like to be left alone, or with a very few intimate friends only, and which shrink from the too demonstrative happiness of others. It is not envy, it often is modesty; but in any case it is not pleasant. Schumann was conscious of his own strength, but he was still struggling for recognition, and he was also struggling against that adversity of fortune which seems to decree poverty to be the lot of genius. There was another struggle going on, a struggle which is generally fought out in private, but which in his case was carried on before the eyes of the world, at least the musical world of Leipzig. He was devoted to a young pianoforte player, Clara Wieck. But her father, a great teacher of music, would not allow the marriage. He had devoted years of his life to the musical education of his daughter, and then, as she was just beginning to earn applause for herself and her master, as well as the pecuniary reward for their combined labours, a young musician, poor, and not yet recognised, wished to carry her off. Parents have flinty hearts, and the father said “No.”

Many a time have I watched young Schumann walking alone in the neighbourhood of Leipzig, being unexpectedly met by a young lady, both looking not so happy as I thought that under the circumstances they ought. This went on for some time, till at last, as usual, the severe or flinty-hearted father had to give way, and allow a marriage which certainly for many years was the realisation of the most perfect happiness, till it ended in a terrible tragedy. There was the seed of madness in the genius of Schumann as in that of so many really great men, and in an access of mania he sought and found rest where Ophelia sought and found it.

I did not see much of Schumann, nor of Madame Schumann, in later life, though in concerts in London I often admired her exquisite rendering of her husband’s compositions. I only recollect Schumann as a young man sitting generally in a corner of the orchestra, and listening to one of his works being performed under Mendelssohn’s direction. I remember his very large head, his drooping eyes; I hardly ever remember a smile on his face. And yet the man must have been satisfied, if not happy, who could write such music as his, who could write, “Wohlauf noch getrunken den funklenden Wein!” and he lived to see his own creations admired more even than those of Mendelssohn. He lived to see his critics turned into admirers; in fact he educated his public, and gained a place for that thoughtful, wistful, fairy-like music which is peculiarly his own.

Many celebrated musicians stayed at Leipzig during Mendelssohn’s reign. I remember Moscheles, Thalberg, Sterndale Bennett, Clara Novello, young and fascinating, and many more. Another friend of Mendelssohn who stayed some time at Leipzig was Ferdinand Hiller. We heard several of his compositions, symphonies and all the rest, performed at the Gewandhaus Concerts under Mendelssohn’s direction. In his life there was, perhaps, too little of the dira necessitas that has given birth to so many of the masterpieces of genius. He might, no doubt, have produced much more than he did; but that he was striving to the very end of his life was proved to me by an interesting letter I received from him about a year before his death. His idea was to write a great oratorio, and he wanted me to supply him with a text. It was a colossal plan, and I confess it seemed to me beyond the power of any musician, nay, of any poet. It was to be a historical drama, representing first of all the great religions of the world, each by itself. We were to have the hymns of the Veda, the Gâthas of the Avesta, the Psalms of the Old Testament, the Sermons and Dialogues of Buddha, the trumpet-calls of Mohammed, and, lastly, the Sermon on the Mount, all of them together forming one mighty symphony in which no theme was lost, yet all became in the end an accompaniment of one sweet song of love dominating the full chorus of the ancient religions of the world. It was a grand idea, but was it possible to realise it? I was ready to help, but before a year was over I received the news of Hiller’s death, and who is the musician to take his place, always supposing that he could have achieved such a World Oratorio?

It was in the last year of his life that Mendelssohn paid his last visit to England to conduct his last oratorio, the “Elijah.” It had to be performed at Exeter Hall, then the best place for sacred music. Most of the musicians, however, were not professionals, and they had only bound themselves to attend a certain number of rehearsals. Excellent as they were in such oratorios as the “Messiah,” which they knew by heart, a new oratorio, such as the “Elijah,” was too much for them; and I well remember Mendelssohn, in the afternoon before the performance, declaring he would not conduct.

“Oh, these tailors and shoemakers,” he said, “they cannot do it, and they will not practise! I shall not go.” However, a message arrived that the Queen and Prince Albert were to be present, so nothing remained but to go. I was present, the place was crowded. Mendelssohn conducted, and now and then made a face, but no one else detected what was wrong. It was a great success and a great triumph for Mendelssohn. If he could have heard it performed as it was performed at Exeter Hall in later years, when his tailors and shoemakers knew it by heart, he would not have made a face.

It was at Bunsen’s house, at a matinée musicale, that I saw him last. He took the liveliest interest in my work, the edition of the Rig Veda, the Sacred Hymns of the Brâhmans. A great friend of his, Friedrich Rosen, had begun the same work, but had died before the first volume was finished. He was a brother of the wife of Mendelssohn’s great friend, Klingemann, then Hanoverian Chargé d’Affaires in London, a poet many of whose poems were set to music by Mendelssohn. So Mendelssohn knew all about the Sacred Hymns of the Brâhmans, and talked very intelligently about the Veda. He was, however, subjected to a very severe trial of patience soon after. The room was crowded with what is called the best society of London, and Mendelssohn being asked to play, never refused. He played several things, and at last Beethoven’s so-called “Moonlight Sonata.” All was silence and delight; no one moved, no one breathed aloud. Suddenly in the middle of the Adagio, a stately dowager sitting in the front row was so carried away by the rhythm, rather than by anything else, of Beethoven’s music, that she began to play with her fan, and accompanied the music by letting it open and shut with each bar. Everybody stared at her, but it took time before she perceived her atrocity, and at last allowed her fan to collapse. Mendelssohn in the meantime kept perfectly quiet, and played on; but, when he could stand it no longer, he simply repeated the last bar in arpeggios again and again, following the movements of her fan; and when at last the fan stopped, he went on playing as if nothing had happened. I dare say that when the old dowager thanked him for the great treat he had given her, he bowed without moving a muscle of his inspired face. How different from another player who, when disturbed by some noise in the audience, got up in a rage and declared that either she or the talker must leave the room.

And yet I have no doubt the old lady enjoyed the music in her own way, for there are many ways of enjoying music. I have known people who could not play a single instrument, who could not sing “God save the Queen” to save their life, in eloquent raptures about Mendelssohn, nay, about Beethoven and Bach. I believe they are perfectly honest in their admiration, though how it is done I cannot tell. I began by saying that people who have no music in them need not be traitors, and I alluded to my dear friend Stanley. He actually suffered from listening to music, and whenever he could, he walked out of the room where there was music. He never disguised his weakness, he never professed any love or admiration for music, and yet Jenny Lind once told me he paid her the highest compliment she had ever received. Stanley was very fond of Jenny Lind, but when she stayed at his father’s palace at Norwich he always left the room when she sang. One evening Jenny Lind had been singing Händel’s “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” Stanley, as usual, had left the room, but he came back after the music was over, and went shyly up to Jenny Lind. “You know,” he said, “I dislike music; I don’t know what people mean by admiring it. I am very stupid, tone-deaf, as others are colourblind. But,” he said with some warmth, “to-night, when from a distance I heard you singing that song, I had an inkling of what people mean by music. Something came over me which I had never felt before; or, yes, I had felt it once before in my life.” Jenny Lind was all attention. “Some years ago,” he continued, “I was at Vienna, and one evening there was a tattoo before the palace performed by four hundred drummers. I felt shaken, and to-night while listening to your singing, the same feeling came over me; I felt deeply moved.” “Dear man,” she added, “I know he meant it, and a more honest compliment I never received in all my life.”

However, unmusical as Stanley’s house was, Jenny Lind, or Mrs. Goldschmidt as she was then, often came to stay there. “It is so nice,” she said; “no one talks music, there is not even a pianoforte in the house.” This did not last long however. A few days after she said to me: “I hear you have a pianoforte in your rooms at All Souls’. Would you mind my practising a little?” And practise she did, and delightful it was. She even came to dine in College, and after dinner she said in the most charming way: “Do you think your friends would like me to sing?” Of course, I could not have asked her to sing, but there was no necessity for asking my friends. In fact, not only my friends listened with delight to her singing, but the whole quadrangle of All Souls’ was black with uninvited listeners, and the applause after each song was immense, both inside and outside the walls of the College.

Stanley’s feeling about music reminds me of another music-hater at Oxford, the late Dr. Gaisford, the famous Dean of Christ Church. It was he who put my name on the books of “The House,” a very great honour to an unknown German scholar on whom the University, at his suggestion, had just conferred the degree of M.A. What the Dean’s idea of music was may best be judged from his constantly appointing old scouts or servants who were too old to do their work any longer as bedmakers to be singing men in the Cathedral choir. The Dean’s stall was under the organ, and one day in every month, when “The voice of Thy thunder was heard round about, and the lightnings shone upon the ground, and the earth was moved and shook withal,” a certain key in the organ made the seat on which the Dean sat vibrate under him. On that day, before he left the Cathedral, he invariably thanked the organist, Dr. Corfe, for the nice tune he had played.

Music, in fact, was at a very low ebb at Oxford when I arrived there. The young men would have considered it almost infra dignitatem to play any instrument; the utmost they would do was now and then to sing a song. Yet there was much love of music, and many of my young and old friends were delighted when I would play to them. There was only one other person at Oxford then who was a real musician and who played well, Professor Donkin, a great mathematician, and altogether a man sui generis. He was a great invalid; in fact, he was dying all the years I knew him, and was fully aware of it. It seemed to be quite admissible, therefore, that he, being an invalid, and I, being a German, should “make music” at evening parties; but to ask a head of a house or a professor, or even a senior tutor, to play would have been considered almost an insult. And yet I feel certain there is more love, more honest enjoyment of music in England than anywhere else.

And how has the musical tide risen at Oxford since those days! Some of the young men now come up to college as very good performers on the pianoforte and other instruments. I never know how they learn it, considering the superior claims which cricket, football, the river, nay, the classics and mathematics also have on their time at school. There are musical clubs now at Oxford where the very best classical music may be heard performed by undergraduates with the assistance of some professional players from London. All this is due to the influence of Sir F. Ouseley, and still more of Sir John Stainer, both professors of Music at Oxford. They have made music not only respectable, but really admired and loved among the undergraduates. Sir John Stainer has been indefatigable, and the lectures which he gives both on the science and history of music are crowded by young and old. They are real concerts, in which he is able to illustrate all he has to say with the help of a well-trained choir of Oxford amateurs. As to myself, I have long become a mere listener. One learns the lesson, whether one likes it or not, that there is a time for everything. Old fingers grow stiff and will no longer obey, and if one knows how a sonata of Beethoven ought to be played, it is most painful to play it badly. So at last I said: “Farewell!” The sun has set, though the clouds are roseate still with reflected rays. It may be that I have given too much time to music, but what would life have been without it? I do not like to exaggerate, or say anything that is not quite true. Musical ears grow sensitive to anything false, whether sharp or flat. But let us be quite honest, quite plain. Is there not in music, and in music alone of all the arts, something that is not entirely of this earth? Harmony and rhythm may be under settled laws; and in that sense mathematicians may be right when they call mathematics silent music. But whence comes melody? Surely not from what we hear in the street, or in the woods, or on the sea-shore, not from anything that we hear with our outward ears, and are able to imitate, to improve, or to sublimise. Neither history nor evolution will help us to account for Schubert’s “Trockne Blumen.” Here, if anywhere, we see the golden stairs on which angels descend from heaven to earth, and whisper sweet sounds into the ears of those who have ears to hear. Words cannot be so inspired, for words, we know, are of the earth earthy. Melodies, however, are not of this earth, and the greatest of musical poets has truly said:—