When I got back to Paris, I found M. Pillet planning a revival of Der Freyschütz. Now, by the rules of the Opera every word must be sung and as there are spoken dialogues in Weber’s opera he engaged me to set them in the form of recitations.
“It is all wrong,” I said, “but as that is the only condition on which it will be played and as, if I don’t do it, you will give it to someone who does not know Weber as I do, I accept but with one stipulation—that you change neither music nor libretto.”
“Certainly,” he replied, “do you suppose I would revive Robin des Bois?”
“Very well, then I will get to work at once. How are you arranging the parts?”
“Madame Stolz, Agatha; Mdlle. Dobré, Annette; Duprez, Max.”
“I bet he won’t take it,” I said.
“Why not?”
“You will see soon enough.”
“Bouché will do well for Gaspard.”
“And the Hermit?”
“Oh—well—” said he, awkwardly, “you know the Hermit isn’t much use, I was going—to cut him out.”
“H’m! Really? Yet you are going to act Freyschütz and not Robin des Bois. Evidently, since we sha’n’t agree, it is better for me to retire at once for I can’t stand that sort of correction.”
“Dear me! how wholesale you are in your notions. Very well, we will keep the Hermit, we will keep everything, lock, stock, and barrel.”
Then my troubles began. The actors would make their recitations as slow and stately as a tragedy; Duprez,—as I foretold—although ten years before he had been a light tenor and had managed Max perfectly—found it impossible to adapt his fine tenor voice to the music and demanded all sorts of unheard-of transpositions and alterations. I cut them short by refusing to disintegrate the rôle and it was handed over to Marié.
Then nothing would do but they must have a ballet, and as I could not stop it I tried to arrange a sort of scene from Weber’s Invitation to the Waltz; but that was not enough, so the dancers themselves took it into their heads that some bits out of my symphonies would come in nicely.
Pillet agreed. I did not; and, to stop discussion, I said:
“Now look here! I entirely object to introducing into Der Freyschütz music that is not Weber’s. To prove that I am not unreasonable, go and ask Dessauer, who is over there; I will abide by his decision.”
At Pillet’s first words Dessauer turned sharply to me:
“Oh, Berlioz! don’t do that!”
That ended the matter for the time and the opera was a success. But when I went to Russia they cut and chopped and gnawed it until it was simply a deformity.
And how they play what is left now! What a conductor! What a chorus! What utterly sleepy, disgraceful ineptitude and misinterpretation of everything by everybody!
When will a new Christ come to purge our temple and drive out the money changers with a scourge!
I returned to my treadmill—journalism—once more, and oh! the horror of it!
The misery of writing to order an article on nothing in particular—or on things that, as far as I was concerned, simply did not exist since they excited in me no feeling of any description whatsoever. Long ago I remember spending three days over a critique without being able to write one word. I cannot remember the subject but I well remember my torments.
I strode up and down, my brain on fire; I gazed at the setting sun, the neighbouring gardens, the heights of Montmartre—my thoughts a thousand miles away.
Then, as I turned and saw that confounded white paper without a line on it, I flew into the wildest rage.
My unoffending guitar leant against the wall. I kicked it to bits; my pistols stared at me from the wall with big round eyes. I gazed back, then, tearing my hair, burst into burning tears.
That soothed me somewhat, I turned those staring pistols face to the wall and picked up my poor guitar which gave forth a plaintive wail. Then my six-year-old boy, with whom I had unjustly found fault, tapped at the door. As I did not answer he cried:
“Father, is you friends?”
“Yes, yes, my boy, I is friends!” and I flew to let him in. I took him on my knee and laid his fair head on my shoulder; we dropped asleep together and my article was forgotten. Next morning I managed to write something. That is fifteen years ago and my martyrdom still lasts! It is not that I mind work. I can grind at rehearsals for hours at a time; can spend my nights in correcting proofs; can and will do anything and everything that pertains to my work as a musician.
But to eternally pamphleteer for a living! It is cruel!
To Humbert Ferrand.
“3rd October 1844.—I read in the Débats of your splendid agricultural success and can imagine how much work and perseverance it involves. You are a kind of Robinson Crusoe in your island,[20] and when the sun shines I long to be with you, to breathe the spicy air, to follow you from field to field, to listen with you to the sweet silence of your lonely groves—our affection is so sure, so whole-hearted, so perfect!
“Yet when dull days come and mists rise, the fever of Paris seizes me once more and I feel that here only is life possible. But can you believe that a strange sort of torpid resignation with regard to things musical has taken possession of me? It is as well, for this indifference saves my strength for the time when a passionate struggle may become necessary.
“You have doubtless heard of the marvellous success of my Requiem in St Petersburg. Romberg most bravely tackled the enormous expense and, thanks to the generosity of the Russian aristocracy, made a profit of five thousand francs. Give me a despotic government as nursing mother of Art!
“If you could but be here this winter! I long to see you. I seem to be going down hill so rapidly, life is so short! The end is often before my eyes now and I clutch with frenzied eagerness at the flowers beside my path as I slip quickly past.
“There was a rumour that I was to succeed Habeneck at the Opera, it is a dictatorship that I should enjoy in the interests of Art. But, for that, Habeneck would have to be translated to the Conservatoire, where Cherubini still goes to sleep. Perhaps when I am old and incapable I shall go to the Conservatoire. At present I am too young to dream of it!”
I was railing more than usual at my hard fate when Strauss proposed that we should give a concert at the close of the 1844 Exhibition, in the empty building.
It was a tremendous undertaking, for his original intention was to have also a ball and a banquet to the exhibitors. But, owing to the fixed idea of M. Delessert, chief of the police, that plots and risings were in the air, we were forced to reduce it to a classical concert for me and a popular promenade concert next day for Strauss.
Rushing all over Paris I engaged nearly every musician of any consequence and gathered a body of 1022 performers—all paid except the singers from the lyric theatres, who helped me for love of music.
The rehearsals and general arrangements were most arduous and my anxiety lest we should fail nearly killed me. The great day, the 1st August, came and at noon (the concert began at one o’clock) I went to the Exhibition, noticing with pleasure the stream of carriages all converging on the Champs Elysées. Everything inside the building was in perfect order, everyone in his or her appointed place, and my good friend and indefatigable librarian, M. Rocquemont, assured me that all would go perfectly.
Musical delirium seized me, I thought no more of public, receipts or deficit, but was just raising my baton to begin when a violent smashing of wood announced that the people had burst the barriers and filled the hall. This meant success and I joyfully tapped my desk, crying:
“Saved!”
To direct my mass of performers I had Tilmant to conduct the wind, Morel[21] the percussion instruments, and five chorus-masters, one in the centre and four at the corners to guide those singers who were out of my range. Thus there were seven deputy-conductors, whose arms rose and fell with mine with incredible precision.
The Blessing of the Daggers from the Huguenots was given with an imposing effect that surpassed my expectations. I wished Meyerbeer could have heard it. It worked upon me so that my teeth chattered and I shook with nervous ague. The concert had to be stopped while they brought me some punch and a change of clothes, and by making a little screen of the harps in their linen covers, I was enabled to dress right before the audience without being seen.
The concert finished triumphantly with the utmost satisfaction to artists and audience but, as I went out, I had the gruesome pleasure of seeing the hospital authorities counting our receipts and walking off with the eighth gross—that is, four thousand francs—which left me, when all was paid, with eight hundred francs for all my trouble and anxiety.
This mad experiment was hardly over when M. Amussat, my anatomy master and friend, called.
“Why, Berlioz!” he said, “what on earth is the matter? You are as yellow as a guinea and look thoroughly overdone.”
He felt my pulse.
“You are on the verge of typhoid and must be bled.”
“Very well, do it now.”
He did, and then said:
“You will please leave Paris at once and go to the Riviera or somewhere south by the sea and forget all these exciting topics. Be off at once.”
With my eight hundred francs I went to Nice. It moved me strangely to see those haunts of thirteen years earlier—the days of my youth.
I bathed, explored the well-known cliffs, paid my respects to the old cannon, still asleep in the sun; the room in which I wrote King Lear was let to an English family so I found shelter in an old tower adjoining the Ponchettes Rocks. After a month’s lotus-eating I turned my face once more to Paris and took up again my Sisyphus burden.
After giving some concerts in the circus of the Champs Elysées, which fatigued me greatly I again took a rest on the Mediterranean shores then gave some more concerts in Marseilles, Lyons and Lille of which I have given a full account in my Grotesques de la Musique. Shortly afterwards I started on my tour through Austria, Bohemia and Hungary.
Of my journey from Paris to Vienna I only have two distinct impressions—one of a violent pain in my side that I thought would be the death of me and the other of a species of god I saw at Augsbourg. This worthy man had founded a sort of neo-christianity which was rather popular: he looked a decent sort of fellow.
At Ratisbon the steamer had gone, so I was obliged to wait two days and then go on in a diligence, which made me feel as if I had gone back into the Dark Ages. At Linz, however, I set foot on a fine steam-boat, and found myself once more in A.D. 1845.
But I had time for reflection and could not help wondering why on earth we cannot all spell the names of places alike. There was I, hunting through a German map. Linz was graciously pleased to be the same in both languages, but where was Ratisbon? Who could possibly find it masquerading as Regensburg?
What should we say to the Germans if they persisted in calling Lyons, Mittenberg, and Paris, Triffenstein?
On landing at Vienna I at once got an idea of the passion for music of the Austrians.
The custom-house officer examining my trunks caught sight of the name on them and asked:
“Where is he? Where is he?”
“I am he, monsieur.”
“Mein Gott, M. Berlioz, where in the world have you been? We have been waiting for you a week and couldn’t think what had become of you.”
I thanked my worthy friend as well as my limited vocabulary would allow, and could not help thinking that my non-appearance would never give rise to similar anxiety at the Paris Douane.
The first concert I went to was one in the Riding School, given by nearly a thousand performers—most of them amateurs—for the benefit of the Conservatoire, which has no, or very little, Government support. The verve and precision with which that musical crowd rendered Mozart’s delicate Flauto Magico overture quite astonished me, I had not believed it possible.
I was delighted to make the acquaintance of Nicolaï, conductor of the Kärnthnerthor Theatre; he has the three gifts necessary—to my mind—for a perfect director. He is an experienced, enthusiastic composer, has perfect intuition for rhythms and clear-cut and precise mechanism. Finally, he is a clever organiser, sparing neither time nor trouble; hence the wonderful unity and perfection of the Kärnthnerthor orchestra.
He arranged sacred concerts in the Salle des Redoutes similar to ours in Paris. There I heard a scena from Oberon, a fine symphony of Nicolaï’s own and the incomparable B flat of Beethoven.
It is in this fine hall that, thirty years since, Beethoven gave his masterpieces—now worshipped by Europe, but then despised by the Viennese, who crowded to hear Salieri’s operas! How my knees trembled as I stood at the desk where once he had stood! Nothing is changed; the desk I used is the very one that he had used, by that staircase he had come up to receive the applause of his few admirers, looked upon by the rest of the audience as fanatics in search of eccentricity.
For recognition Beethoven had to wait, but how he suffered!
To my great delight Pischek, the splendid baritone I had met and admired in Frankfort, suggested that he should make his Viennese début at my concert.
He had improved immensely; somehow his voice always gave rise in me to a sort of exaltation or intoxication which, now, was intensified by its splendid compass, passion and exquisite sweetness.
No wonder that his success in a great ballad by Uhland (which bore no resemblance to the inanities we call ballads in Paris) was instantaneous and, as an encore, he gave a song that drove the audience almost frantic. If only he would learn French what a furore he would make in Paris!
My reception by all in Vienna—even by my fellow-ploughmen, the critics—was most cordial; they treated me as a man and a brother, for which I am heartily grateful.
After my third concert at a grand supper my friends presented me with a silver-gilt baton, and the Emperor sent me eleven hundred francs with the rather odd compliment, “Tell Berlioz I was really amused.”
The rest of my doings, are they not written in the newspapers of the day?
The first thing I did on leaving Vienna for Pesth was to get into trouble with the Danube, which, instead of remaining decently within its banks, chose to overflow and inundate that muddy Slough of Despond by courtesy called the Emperor’s highway. Only with an extra team of horses had we been able to make way even so far, but at midnight I was aroused from my resigned drowsiness by the stoppage of the carriage and the boiling of waters all round.
The driver had gone straight into the river, and dared not stir a step. The water rose steadily.
There was a Hungarian captain in the coupé who had spoken to me once or twice through the little window between us; it was my turn to speak now:
“Captain!”
“Sir?”
“Don’t you think we are going to be drowned?”
“Yes, I do. Have a cigar.”
His calm insolent coolness made me long to smash his head in; in a fury I took his cigar and puffed violently. Still the water rose and the desperate driver turned, and at the risk of spilling us all in the river, climbed up the bank and took us straight-way—into a lake. This time I thought must be the end of all and I called out to the soldier:
“Captain, have you another cigar?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let me have it quick, for it’s all up with us now!”
But it was not, for an honest country man passing by (where the devil could he have been going in such weather at such a time of night?) extricated us and gave our unhappy Phæton directions whereby we made our way to Pesth. At least it was a big town of which I asked my captain the name.
“Buda,” said he.
“What? In my map the town opposite Pesth is called Ofen. Look.”
“Oh yes, that’s Buda. Ofen is the German name for it.”
“H’m, I see. German maps are as cleverly arranged as French ones; but I think they might give us both names anyway.”
On reaching Pesth I had a little pleasure party all to myself, in accordance with a promise made to myself while soaking in the Danube mud. I took a bath, drank two glasses of Tokay and slept twenty hours—not, however, without visions of boiling waters and lakes of mud. After which I set out on the war-path of concert-promoting, greatly helped by the kindness of Count Raday, superintendent of the National Theatre.
Now the Hungarians are nothing if not patriotic. In every shop window things are ticketed hony (national) and, by the advice of an amateur in Vienna, who had brought me a volume of Hungarian national airs, I chose the Rakoczy March and arranged it as it now stands as finale to the first part of my Faust.
No sooner did the rumour spread that I had written hony music than Pesth began to ferment.
How had I treated it? They feared profanation of that idolised melody, which for so many years had made their hearts beat with lust of glory and battle and liberty; all kinds of stories were rife, and at last there came to me M. Horwath, editor of a Hungarian paper—who, unable to curb his curiosity, had gone to inspect my march at the copyist’s.
“I have seen your Rakoczy score,” he said, uneasily.
“Well?”
“Well; I feel horribly nervous about it.”
“Bah! why?”
“Your motif is introduced piano, and we are used to hearing it started fortissimo.”
“Yes, by the gipsies. Is that all? Don’t be alarmed. You shall have such a forte as you never heard in your life. You can’t have read the score carefully; remember the end is everything.”
All the same, when the day came my throat tightened, as it did in times of great excitement, when this devil of a thing came on. First the trumpets gave out the rhythm, then the flutes and clarinets, with a pizzicato accompaniment of strings—softly outlining the air—the audience remaining calm and judicial. Then, as there came a long crescendo, broken by the dull beats of the big drum (as of distant cannon) a strange restless movement was perceptible among them—and, as the orchestra let itself go in a cataclysm of sweeping fury and thunder, they could contain themselves no longer.
Their overcharged souls burst with a tremendous explosion of feeling that raised my hair with terror.
I lost all hope of making the end audible,[22] and in the encore it was no better; hardly could they contain themselves long enough to hear a portion of the coda.
Horwath, in his box, was like one possessed, and I could not resist a smiling glance at him to ask—
“Are you still afraid or are you content with your forte?”
It was lucky that this was the end of the programme, for certainly these excitable people would have listened to nothing more.
As I mopped my face in the little room set apart for me, a poorly dressed man slipped quietly in. He threw himself upon me, his eyes full of tears, and stammered out:
“Ah, monsieur—the Hungarian—poor man—not speak French—Forgive, excited—understood your cannon—Yes, big battle—Dogs of Germans!” Striking his chest vehemently—“In heart of me you stay—ah, French—Republican—know to make music of Revolution!”
I cannot describe his frenzy; it was almost sublime.
After that, of course, the Rakoczy ended every concert, and on leaving I had to present the town with my MS.
Later on I sent them a revised version, as some young Hungarians did me the honour to present me with a silver crown of most exquisite workmanship.
When I got back to Vienna, the amateur who had given me the idea of writing the march came to me in comical terror.
“For mercy’s sake,” he begged, “never tell that I gave you the idea. The excitement of it has reached Vienna, and I should get into dreadful trouble if it were known.”
Of course I promised silence, but, as this terrible affair is long since done with, I may now add that he was called—— No, I only wished to frighten him. I won’t tell!
I had not intended to include Prague in my round, but someone sent me the Prague Musical Gazette with three appreciative articles on my King Lear by Dr Ambros. I wrote to thank him and mentioned my doubts of my reception by his fellow-citizens who, I had been told, would hear no one but Mozart. His kind reply swept away my misgivings and made me as eager to go as I had hitherto been the reverse. Of Prague my recollections are golden. I gave six concerts, and at the last, had the great joy of having Liszt to hear my Romeo and Juliet.
At the close of the performance as I begged him to be my interpreter in thanking the artists for their devotion and patience in spending three weeks over my works, two or three of them came up to us and spoke to him.
“My office is changed,” he said, turning to me; “these gentlemen request me to convey to you their thanks for the pleasure you have given them and their joy in your pleasure.”
This was indeed a red-letter day for me! There are not many such in my life.
As the music lovers of Vienna had given me a banquet and a silver-gilt baton, those of Prague gave me a supper and a silver cup.
But this same cup poured out such floods of champagne that Liszt, who had made a charming and touching speech in my honour, was shipwrecked therein. At two o’clock in the morning Belloni, his secretary, and I were hard at work in the streets of Prague trying to persuade him to wait till daylight to fight a Bohemian who had drunk more than he had. We were rather anxious about him, as he had to give a concert at noon next day, and at half-past eleven was still asleep. At length he was awakened, jumped into a carriage, walked on to the platform, and played as I verily believe he had never played before. There certainly is a Providence over—pianists.
I cannot express my tender regrets for those good Bohemians.
While trailing round Germany in my old post-chaise I composed my Damnation de Faust. Each movement is punctuated by memories of the place where it was written. For instance, the Peasant’s Dance was written by the light of a shop gas-jet one night when I had lost myself in Pesth, and I got up in the middle of the night in Prague to write the song of the angelic choir.
Thinking that my foreign tour might have enhanced my home reputation, on my return to Paris I ventured to put it in rehearsal, going to enormous expense for copying and for the hire of the Opera Comique. Fatal reasoning! The indifference of the Parisians to art had increased by leaps and bounds, the weather in November 1846 was vile, and they preferred their warm homes to the unfashionable Opera Comique.
It was twice performed to half empty houses and elicited no more attention than if I had been the least of Conservatoire students. Nothing in all my career has wounded me as this did. The lesson was cruel but useful; I vowed that never again would I trust to the tender mercies of Paris.
I did not keep my vow, for later on I could not resist letting it hear my Childhood of Christ, which proved a great success.
[Berlioz does not mention the domestic troubles that added greatly to his dejection. His wife was paralysed and his son Louis, brought up in a divided household, naturally gave him anxiety, as the following letter shows]:
To Louis Berlioz.
“October 1846.—Your mother is a little better, but she is still in bed and unable to speak. As the least agitation would be fatal to her, do not write to her as you have done to me.
“You talk of being a sailor. Do you wish to leave me? for, once at sea, God knows when I shall see you again. Were I but free I would go with you, and we would seek our fortunes in India or some far-off land, but to travel one must have money, and only in France can I get my living—such as it is.
“I am speaking to you as if you were grown up. You must think over what I say and you will understand. But remember that, whatever happens, I am and always shall be your best and most devoted friend. It would indeed be sad if, when you came to be twenty years of age, you found yourself useless both to society and yourself. Good-bye, dear child. My heartfelt love.”
Faust was my ruin. After two days of unutterable misery I decided to retrieve my fortunes by a tour in Russia, if I could but collect enough money first to pay my debts. Then did my kind friends rally round me and apply healing balm to my wounded spirit.
M. Berlin advanced me a thousand francs from the Débats funds; one friend lent me five hundred, others six or seven; M. Friedland, a young German I had met in Prague, twelve hundred, and Hetzel a thousand.
So, helped on all sides, I was able, with a clear conscience, to leave for Russia on the 14th February 1847, feeling that few men have been so blessed as I in the devoted generosity and kind-heartedness of my single-minded friends.
The time for concert-giving in Russia is Lent—March—as then the theatres are all closed. The cold was intense, and during my whole fortnight’s journey I never lost sight of the snow, and made only one short stop in Berlin to beg a letter of introduction to the Empress of Russia from her brother, the King of Prussia, which, with his invariable kindness, he sent me at once.
Before leaving Paris, Balzac said to me:
“Be sure at Tilsit to hunt up the post-master, M. Nernst. He is a clever, well-read man and may be useful to you.”
So at Tilsit I walked into his office and there found a big man perched on a high stool.
“M. Nernst?” I said, taking off my hat.
“Yes, monsieur; to whom have I the honour of speaking?”
“To Hector Berlioz.”
“No! not really?” He bounced off his stool and landed before me, cap in hand.
How well I remember my poor father’s happy pride in this story! “Not really?” he would repeat, and his laughter would ring out again and again.
We had a cordial meeting-ground in our mutual friendship with Balzac, and after some hours’ rest I set out, warmed and comforted, in a horrible iron sledge wherein I endured a martyrdom till, four days later, I reached St Petersburg.
Hardly had I shaken off the traces of my journey when M. Lenz, an old acquaintance, came to take me to Count Michael Wielhorski, from whom I received a most flattering welcome. He and his brother, by their love of art, their great connections and immense fortune, have made their palace a sort of little Ministry of Fine Arts.
By them I was introduced to Romberg, General Guédéonoff, superintendent of the Imperial theatres, and General Lwoff, aide-de-camp to the Emperor, a composer of rare talent.
Not to go into too many details, my visits both to St Petersburg and Moscow were the greatest success financially as well as artistically. My first concert (at which I was summoned, hot and dishevelled with my exertions, to the box of the Emperor, who was most gracious) made eighteen thousand francs; the expenses were six thousand, the balance was mine.
I could not resist murmuring, as I turned to the south-west, “Ah, dear Parisians!”
I must just recall one of my red-letter days—the performance of Romeo and Juliet in St Petersburg.
No wretched bargaining, no limitation of rehearsals here!
I asked General Guédéonoff:
“How many rehearsals can your Excellency allow me?”
“How many? Why! as many as you want. They will rehearse until you are satisfied.”
And they did; consequently it was royally, imperially, organised and performed.
The vast theatre was full; diamonds, uniforms, helmets shone and glittered everywhere. I, too, was in good form, and conducted without a single mistake—a thing that, in those days, did not happen often.
I was recalled more times than I could count, but I must own that I paid small heed to the public, the divine Shakespearean poem that I myself had made affected me so deeply that, the moment I was free, I fled to a quiet room in the theatre, where my dear, good Ernst found me in floods of tears.
“Ah! nerves!” said he, “I know too well what it is.”
And, holding my head, he let me sob like a hysterical girl for a quarter of an hour.
Despite its warm reception, I doubt that my symphony was rather over the heads of the audience, therefore, when it was to be repeated, on the advice of the cashier of the theatre, I added two scenes from Faust.
I heard of a funny incident at this second performance. One lady present sat and was bored with most exemplary patience; she would not have it thought that she could not understand this feast of music. Proud of having stayed to the end, she said, as she left her box:
“Yes, it is a tremendous thing, but quite intelligible. In that grand introduction I could absolutely see Romeo driving up in his gig!!!”
I spoke of Ernst just now—great artist and noble friend. He has been compared to Chopin—a comparison both true and false.
Chopin could never bear the restraints of time, and, I think, carried his independence too far; he simply could not play in time. Ernst, while employing rubato, kept it within artistic limits, retaining always a dignified sway over his own caprices.
In Chopin’s compositions all the interest centres in the piano, his orchestral concerto accompaniments are cold and practically useless. Ernst is distinguished by quite the opposite—his concerted music is not only brilliant for the solo instrument, but the symphonic interest is thoroughly grateful and sustained.
Even Beethoven allowed the orchestra to overpower the soloist, and, to my mind, the perfect system is that adopted by Ernst, Vieuxtemps and Liszt.
Chopin was the delicate refined virtuoso of small gatherings, of groups of intimate friends. Ernst was master of crowds; he loved them, and, like Liszt, was at his very best with two thousand hearers to conquer.
The Great Feast being over, there was nothing to keep me in St Petersburg, which, however, I left with great regret.
Passing through Riga, I thought I would give a concert. The receipts hardly covered the expenses (I think I was twelve francs to the good), but it procured me the friendship of some pleasant artists and amateurs, amongst them the post-master, who turned out to be a constant reader of my newspaper articles. He looked me dubiously up and down, and said:
“You don’t look a firebrand, but from your articles I should have expected quite a different sort of man, for, devil take me! you write with a dagger, not a pen!”
The King of Prussia wishing to hear my Faust, I arranged to stay ten days in Berlin. The Opera House was placed at my disposal, and I was promised half the gross receipts. The orchestra and choruses were capital, but I cannot say as much for the soloists, who were feeble in the extreme. The King of Thule ballad was hissed, but whether this was due to me or to the singer I cannot say—probably both—for the stalls were filled with a malicious crowd who objected to a Frenchman having the audacity to set to music a German classic.
However, by the time we got to the Danse des Sylphes I was in a bad temper and refused the encore they gave it.
The royalties were apparently satisfied; the Princess of Prussia said many nice things and the King sent me the Red Eagle by Meyerbeer and invited me to dinner at Sans Souci. I met with a cordial reception, gave him news of his sister in Russia and finally ventured to say after dinner was over: “Ah, sire, you are the true king of artists. Without you could Spontini and Meyerbeer have gained a hearing? Was it not at your suggestion that Mendelssohn composed his Antigone music? Did not you commission him to write the Midsummer Night’s Dream? Does not your known love of art incite us all to do our best?”
“Well, perhaps so,” he answered, “but there’s no need to say so much about it.”
But it is true. Now there are two other sovereigns who share his interest—the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar and the blind young King of Hanover.
On returning to France I took my boy to see his relations at La Côte Saint-André. Poor Louis! how happy he was; petted by relations and old servants and wandering about the fields, his little hand thrust in mine.
In a letter I had yesterday he says that that fortnight was the happiest of his life. And now he is at the blockade of the Baltic, on the eve of a naval battle—that hell upon the sea! The mere thought of it maddens me; yet he chose it himself—this noble profession. But we did not expect war then.
Dear noble boy! at this minute they may be bombarding Bomarsund—it will not bear thinking of, I must turn to other things—I can write no more.
From Paris and its usual weary round of jealousy and intrigue, it was a comfort to turn to London, whence I received the offer of an engagement to conduct the grand English Opera for Jullien. In his usual rôle of madman he got together orchestra, chorus, principals and theatre, merely forgetting a repertoire. To cover expenses he would have had to take ten thousand francs a night and this he expected to net out of an English version of Lucia di Lammermoor!
To Tajan Rogé of St Petersburg.
“London, November 1847.—Dear Rogé,—Your letter should have been answered sooner had it not been for the thousand and one worries that overwhelmed me the minute I set foot in Paris.
“You can have no idea of my existence in that infernal city that thinks itself the home of Art.
“Thank heaven I have escaped to England and am, financially, more independent than I dared to hope.
“Jullien, the manager here, is a most intrepid spirit and seems to understand English people; he has made his fortune and is going to make mine, he says. I let him have his own way since he does nothing unworthy of art and good taste—but I have my doubts.
“I have come alone to London; you may guess my reasons. I badly needed a little freedom which, so far, I have never been able to get. Not one coup d’état but a whole series was necessary before I succeeded in shaking off my bonds. Yet now, although I am so busy with rehearsals, my loneliness seems very odd.
“Since I am in a confidential mood, will you believe that I had a queer little love affair in St Petersburg with a girl—now don’t laugh like a full orchestra in C major! It was poetic, heart-rending, and perfectly innocent.
“Oh, our walks! oh, the tears I shed when, like Faust’s Marguerite, she said: ‘What can you see in me—a poor girl so far beneath you?’ I thought I should die of despair when I left St Petersburg, and was really ill when I found no letter from her in Berlin. She did promise to write, probably by now she is married.
“I can picture it all again—the Neva banks, the setting sun. In a maze of passion I pressed her hand to my heart, and sang her the Love Song from Romeo.
“Ah me! not two lines since I left her.
“Good-bye; you at least will write to me.”
To Auguste Morel.
“76 Harley Street, London, 31st November 1847.—Jullien asks me confidentially to get your report on the success of Verdi’s new opera.[23] We begin next week with the Bride of Lammermoor, which can hardly help going well with Madame Gras and Reeves. He has a beautiful voice, and sings as well as this awful English language will allow.
“I had a warm reception at one of Jullien’s concerts, but shall not begin my own until January.
“Your friend, M. Grimblot, has given me the entrée to his club, but heaven only knows what amusement is to be found in an English club. Macready gave a magnificent dinner in my honour last week; he is charming and most unassuming at home, though they say he is terrible at rehearsal. I have seen him in a new tragedy, Philip van Artevelde; he is grand, and has mounted the piece splendidly.
“No one here understands the management and grouping of a crowd as he does. It is masterly.”
“8th December.—The opening of our season was a success. Madame Gras and Reeves were recalled frantically four or five times, and they both deserved it.
“Reeves is a priceless discovery for Jullien; his voice is exquisite in quality, he is a good musician, has an expressive face, and plays with judgment.”
“14th January.—Jullien has landed us all in a dreadful bog, but don’t mention it in Paris, as we must not spoil his credit. It is not the Drury Lane venture that has ruined him; that was done before; now he has gone off to the provinces and is making a lot of money with his promenade concerts, while we take a fair amount each night at the theatre, none of which goes into our pockets, for we are not paid at all. Only the orchestra, chorus, and work-people are paid every week in order to keep the thing going somehow.
“If Jullien does not pay me on his return, I shall arrange with Lumley to give some concerts in Her Majesty’s Theatre, for there is a good opening here since poor Mendelssohn’s death.”
“12th February 1848.—My music has taken with the English as fire to gunpowder. The Rakoczy and Danse des Sylphes were encored. Everyone of importance, musically, was at Drury Lane for my concert, and most of the artists came to congratulate me. They had expected something diabolic, involved, incomprehensible. Now we shall see how they agree with our Paris critics. Davison himself wrote the Times critique; they cut half of it out from want of space; still the remainder has had its effect. Old Hogarth of the Daily News was truly comical: ‘My blood is on fire,’ said he; ‘never have I been excited like this by music.’”
Jullien, coming finally to the end of his resources, was obliged to call a council of war. It consisted of Sir Henry Bishop, Sir George Smart, Planché, Gye, Marezeck, and myself.
He talked wildly of the different operas he proposed to mount, and finally came to Iphigenia in Tauris, which, like many others, is promised yearly by the London managers. Impatient at my silence he turned upon me:
“Confound it all! surely you know that?”
“Certainly I know it. What do you want me to tell you?”
“How many acts there are, how many characters, what voices and, above all, the style of setting and costume.”
“Take a pen and paper and I will tell you. Four acts, three men: Orestes, baritone; Pylades, tenor; Thoas, high bass; a grand woman’s part, Iphigenia, soprano; a small one, Diana, mezzo-soprano. The costumes you will not like, unfortunately; the Scythians are ragged savages on the shores of the Black Sea; Orestes and Pylades are shipwrecked Greeks. Pylades alone has two dresses—in the fourth act he comes in in a helmet——”
“A helmet!” cried Jullien, excitedly; “we are saved! I’ll write to Paris for a golden helmet with a pearl coronet, and an ostrich plume as long as my arm. We’ll have forty performances.”
“Prodigious!” as good Dominie Sampson says.
Needless to say, nothing happened. Reeves, the divine tenor, laughed at the bare idea of singing Pylades, and Jullien quitted London shortly after, leaving his theatre to go to pieces.
Already saddened on my return to Paris by the havoc and ruin caused by the Revolution, it was but my usual fate to suffer in addition, the terrible sorrow of losing my father.
My mother had died ten years before, and, bitter as was that blow, it was but light in comparison with the wrench of parting with this dearly loved and sympathetic friend.
We had so much in common, our tastes were similar in so many ways, and, since he had gladly acknowledged himself in the wrong over my choice of a profession, we had been so entirely at one.
Ah! that I could have gratified his ardent wish to hear my Requiem, but it was not to be.
I pass over the sorrow of my home-coming, the meeting with my grief-worn sisters, the sight of his empty chair, of his watch—still living, though he was dead!
A strange wish to indulge the luxury of grief crept over me; I must drink this wormwood cup to the dregs; I must revisit Meylan—the early home of my Mountain Star—and live over again my early love and sorrow.
Even now my heart beats faster as I recall my journey. Thirty-three years ago and I, a ghost, come back to my early haunts! As I climb through the vineyards the thoughts, the aspirations, the desires of my childish days crowd in upon me.
Here did I sit with my father, playing Nina to him on my flute; there did Estelle stand.
I turn and take in the whole picture; that blessed house, the garden, the valley, the river, and the far-off Alpine glaciers.
Once more I am young; life and love—a glorious poem—lie before me; on my knees I cry to the hills, the valleys, the heavens: “Estelle! Estelle!”
Bleed, my heart, bleed! but leave me still the power to suffer!
I rise and wander on, noting each familiar point. Here is her cherry tree; there still flowers the plant of everlasting pea from which she plucked blossoms. Sweet plant! bloom on in thy solitude! Good-bye! good-bye!
Good-bye to my childhood, to my lost love—Time sweeps me on; Stella! Stella!
The cold hand of Death lies heavy on my heart, yet around me are soft sunlight, solitude, and silence.
Next day I asked my cousin Victor:
“Do you know Madame F——?”
“The lovely Estelle D——, do you mean?”
“Yes, I loved her so when I was twelve—I love her yet.”
“You idiot,” said Victor, laughing, “she is fifty-one, and has a son of twenty-two.”
He laughed again, and I laughed too, but mine was the cry of despair, an April gleam through the rain.
“Nevertheless I want to see her.”
“Hector, I beg you will do no such thing. You will make a fool of yourself and upset her.”
“I want to see her,” I repeated doggedly, with clenched teeth.
“Fifty-one!” he cried again, “you had much better keep your bright, fresh, youthful memory of her.”
He gave me a pen, and subsided into an armchair in fits of laughter, while my incoherent, despairing letter was composed. I sent it, but no reply came. When next I go to Grenoble I mean to see her.
In May 1851 I was commissioned by Government to judge instruments at the London Exhibition, and wrote to Joseph d’Ortigue in June 1851—
“I want to tell you of the extraordinary impression made on me by the singing of six thousand Charity School children in St Paul’s Cathedral. It is an annual affair, and is, beyond compare, the most imposing, the most Babylonian ceremony I ever witnessed.
“It was a realisation of part of my dreams, and proof positive of the unknown power of vast musical masses.
“This fact is no more understood on the Continent than is Chinese music.
“By-the-bye, France is easily first in the manufacture of musical instruments. Erard, Sax and Vuillaume lead; all the others are of the reed-pipe and tin-kettle tribe.”
To Lwoff.