Part 3 (1/2)

The other incident was a pleasing surprise from his colleagues in art.

He was a guest of the Wickmann family, and they were all gathered in the illuminated garden saloon, when there entered through the gloom of the garden a number of dark figures swiftly following each other, who proved to be the members of the royal orchestra, with Meyerbeer and Taubert at their head. The senior member then presented Spohr with a beautifully executed gold laurel-wreath, while Meyerbeer made a speech full of feeling, in which he thanked him for his enthusiastic love of German art, and for all the grand and beautiful works which he had created, specially ”The Crusaders.” The twenty-fifth anniversary of Spohr's connection with the court theatre of Ca.s.sel occurred in 1847, and was to have been celebrated with a great festival. The death of Felix Bartholdy Mendelssohn cast a great gloom over musical Germany that year, so the festival was held not in honor of Spohr, but as a solemn memorial of the departed genius whose name is a household word among all those who love the art he so splendidly ill.u.s.trated.

Spohr's next production was the fine symphony known as ”The Seasons,”

one of the most picturesque and expressive of his orchestral works, in which he depicts with rich musical color the vicissitudes of the year and the a.s.sociations cl.u.s.tering around them. This symphony was followed by his seventh quintet, in G minor, another string quartet, the thirty-second, and a series of pieces for the violin and piano, and in 1852 we find the indefatigable composer busy in remodeling his opera of ”Faust” for production by Mr. Gye, in London. It was produced with great splendor in the English capital, and conducted by Spohr himself; but it did not prove a great success, a deep disappointment to Spohr, who fondly believed this work to be his masterpiece. ”On this occasion,”

writes a very competent critic, _a propos_ of the first performance, ”there was a certain amount of heaviness about the performance which told very much against the probability of that opera ever becoming a favorite with the Royal Italian Opera subscribers. Nothing could possibly exceed the poetical grace of Eonconi in the t.i.tle role, or surpa.s.s the propriety and expression of his singing. Mme. Castellan's _Cunegonda_ was also exceedingly well sung, and Tamberlik outdid himself by his thorough comprehension of the music, the splendor of his voice, and the refinement of his vocalization in the character of _Ugo_....

The _Mephistopheles_ of Herr Formes was a remarkable personation, being truly demoniacal in the play of his countenance, and as characteristic as any one of Retsch's drawings of Goethe's fiend-tempter. His singing being specially German was in every way well suited to the occasion.” In spite of the excellence of the interpretation, Spohr's ”Faust” did not take any hold on the lovers of music in England, and even in Germany, where Spohr is held in great reverence, it presents but little attraction. The closing years of Spohr's active life as a musician were devoted to that species of composition where he showed indubitable t.i.tle to be considered a man of genius, works for the violin and chamber music. He himself did not recognize his decadence of energy and musical vigor; but the veteran was more than seventy years old, and his royal master resolved to put his baton in younger and fresher hands. So he was retired from service with an annual pension of fifteen hundred thalers.

Spohr felt this deeply, but he had scarcely reconciled himself to the change when a more serious casualty befell him. He fell and broke his left arm, which never gained enough strength for him to hold the beloved instrument again. It had been the great joy and solace of his life to play, and, now that in his old age he was deprived of this comfort, he was ready to die. Only once more did he make a public appearance. In the spring of 1859 he journeyed to Meiningen to direct a concert on behalf of a charitable fund. An ovation was given to the aged master. A colossal bust of himself was placed on the stage, arched with festoons of palm and laurel, and the conductor's stand was almost buried in flowers. He was received with thunders of welcome, which were again and again reiterated, and at the close of the performance he could hardly escape for the eager throng who wished to press his hand. Spohr died on October 22, 1859, after a few days' illness, and in his death Germany at least recognized the loss of one of its most accomplished and versatile if not greatest composers.

VI.

Dr. Ludwig Spohr's fame as a composer has far overshadowed his reputation as a violin virtuoso, but the most capable musical critics unite in the opinion that that rare quality, which we denominate genius, was princ.i.p.ally shown in his wonderful power as a player, and his works written for the violin. Spohr was a man of immense self-a.s.sertion, and believed in the greatness of his own musical genius as a composer in the higher domain of his art. His ”Autobiography,” one of the most fresh, racy, and interesting works of the kind ever written, is full of varied ill.u.s.trations of what Chorley stigmatizes his ”bovine self-conceit.” His fecund production of symphony, oratorio, and opera, as well as of the more elaborate forms of chamber music, for a period of forty years or more, proves how deep was his conviction of his own powers. Indeed, he half confesses himself that he is only willing to be rated a little less than Beethoven. Spohr was singularly meager, for the most part, in musical ideas and freshness of melody, but he was a profound master of the orchestra; and in that variety and richness of resources which give to tone-creations the splendor of color, which is one of the great charms of instrumental music, Spohr is inferior only to Wagner among modern symphonists. Spohr's more pretentious works are a singular union of meagerness of idea with the most polished richness of manner; but, in imagination and thought, he is far the inferior of those whose knowledge of treating the orchestra and contrapuntal skill could not compare with his. There are more vigor and originality in one of Schubert's greater symphonies than in all the mult.i.tudinous works of the same cla.s.s ever written by Spohr. In Spohr's compositions for the violin as a solo instrument, however, he stands unrivaled, for here his true _genre_ as a man of creative genius stamps itself unmistakably.

Before the coming of Spohr violin music had been ill.u.s.trated by a succession of virtuosos, French and Italian, who, though melodiously charming, planned in their works and execution to exhibit the effects and graces of the players themselves instead of the instrument. Paganini carried this tendency to its most remarkable and fascinating extreme, but Spohr founded a new style of violin playing, on which the greatest modern performers who have grown up since his prime have a.s.siduously modeled themselves. Mozart had written solid and simple concertos in which the performer was expected to embroider and finish the composer's sketch. This required genius and skill under instant command, instead of merely phenomenal execution. Again, Beethoven's concertos were so written as to make the solo player merely one of the orchestra, chaining him in bonds only to set him free to deliver the cadenza. This species of self-effacement does not consort with the purpose of solo playing, which is display, though under that display there should be power, mastery, and resource of thought, and not the trickery of the accomplished juggler. Spohr in his violin music most felicitously accomplished this, and he is simply incomparable in his compromise between what is severe and cla.s.sical, and what is suave and delightful, or pa.s.sionately exciting. In these works the musician finds nerve, sparkle, _elan_, and brightness combined with technical charm and richness of thought. Spohr's unconscious and spontaneous force in this direction was the direct outcome of his remarkable power as a solo player, or, more properly, gathered its life-like play and strength from the latter fact. It may be said of Spohr that, as Mozart raised opera to a higher standard, as Beethoven uplifted the ideal of the orchestra, as Clementi laid a solid foundation for piano-playing, so Spohr's creative force as a violinist and writer for the violin has established the grandest school for this instrument, to which all the foremost contemporary artists acknowledge their obligations.

Dr. Spohr's style as a player, while remarkable for its display of technique and command of resource, always subordinated mere display to the purpose of the music. The Italians called him ”the first singer on the violin,” and his profound musical knowledge enabled him to produce effects in a perfectly legitimate manner, where other players had recourse to meretricious and dazzling exhibition of skill. His t.i.tle to recollection in the history of music will not be so much that of a great general composer, but that of the greatest of composers for the violin, and the one who taught violinists that height of excellence as an excutant should go hand in hand with good taste and self-restraint, to produce its most permanent effects and exert its most vital influence.

NICOLO PAGANINI.

The Birth of the Greatest of Violinists.--His Mother's Dream--Extraordinary Character and Genius.--Heine's Description of his Playing.--Leigh Hunt on Paganini.--Superst.i.tious Rumors current during his Life.--He is believed to be a Demoniac.--His Strange Appearance.--Early Training and Surroundings.--Anecdotes of his Youth.--Paganini's Youthful Dissipations.--His Pa.s.sion for Gambling.--He acquires his Wonderful Guarnerius Violin.--His Reform from the Gaming-table.--Indefatigable Practice and Work as a Young Artist.--Paganini as a _Preux Chevalier_.--His Powerful Attraction for Women.--Episode with a Lady of Rank.--Anecdotes of his Early Italian Concertizing.--The Imbroglio at Ferrant.--The Frail Health of Paganini.--Wonderful Success at Milan, where he first plays One of the Greatest of his Compositions, ”Le Streghe.”--Duel with Lafont.--Incidents and Anecdotes.--His First Visit to Germany.--Great Enthusiasm of his Audiences.--Experiences at Vienna, Berlin, and other German Cities.--Description of Paganini, in Paris, by Castil-Blaze and Fetis.--His English Reception and the Impression made.--Opinions of the Critics.--Paganini not pleased with England.--Settles in Paris for Two Years, and becomes the Great Musical Lion.--Simplicity and Amiability of Nature.--Magnificent Generosity to Hector Berlioz.--The Great Fortune made by Paganini.--His Beautiful Country Seat near Parma.--An Unfortunate Speculation in Paris.--The Utter Failure of his Health.--His Death at Nice.--Characteristics and Anecdotes.--Interesting Circ.u.mstances of his Last Moments.--The Peculiar Genius of Paganini, and his Influence on Art.

I.

In the latter part of the last century an Italian woman of Genoa had a dream which she thus related to her little son: ”My son, you will be a great musician. An angel radiant with beauty appeared to me during the night and promised to accomplish any wish that I might make. I asked that you should become the greatest of all violinists, and the angel granted that my desire should be fulfilled.” The child who was thus addressed became that incomparable artist, Paganini, whose name now, a glorious tradition, is used as a standard by which to estimate the excellence of those who have succeeded him.

No artist ever lived who so piqued public curiosity, and invested himself with a species of weird romance, which compa.s.sed him as with a cloud. The personality of the individual so unique and extraordinary, the genius of the artist so transcendant in its way, the mystery which surrounded all the movements of the man, conspired to make him an object of such interest that the announcement of a concert by him in any European city made as much stir as some great public event. Crowds followed his strange figure in the streets wherever he went, and, had the time been the mediaeval ages, he himself a celebrated magician or sorcerer, credited with power over the spirits of earth and air, his appearance could not have aroused a thrill of attention more absorbing.

Over men of genius, as well as the commonplace herd, he cast the same spell, stamping himself as a personage who could be compared with no other.

The German poet Heine thus describes his first acquaintance with this paragon of violinists:

”It was in the theatre at Hamburg that I first heard Paganini's violin.

Although it was fast-day, all the commercial magnates of the town were present in the front boxes, the G.o.ddesses Juno of Wandrahm, and the G.o.ddesses Aphrodite of Dreckwall. A religious hush pervaded the whole a.s.sembly; every eye was directed toward the stage, every ear was strained for hearing. At last a dark figure, which seemed to ascend from the under world, appeared on the stage. It was Paganini in full evening dress, black coat and waistcoat cut after a most villainous pattern, such as is perhaps in accordance with the infernal etiquette of the court of Proserpine, and black trousers fitting awkwardly to his thin legs. His long arms appeared still longer as he advanced, holding in one hand his violin, and in the other the bow, hanging down so as almost to touch the ground--all the while making a series of extraordinary reverences. In the angular contortions of his body there was something so painfully wooden, and also something so like the movements of a droll animal, that a strange disposition to laughter overcame the audience; but his face, which the glaring footlights caused to a.s.sume an even more corpse-like aspect than was natural to it, had in it something so appealing, something so imbecile and meek, that a strange feeling of compa.s.sion removed all tendency to laughter. Had he learned these reverences from an automaton or a performing dog? Is this beseeching look the look of one who is sick unto death, or does there lurk behind it the mocking cunning of a miser? Is that a mortal who in the agony of death stands before the public in the art arena, and, like a dying gladiator, bids for their applause in his last convulsions? or is it some phantom arisen from the grave, a vampire with a violin, who comes to suck, if not the blood from our hearts, at least the money from our pockets? Questions such as these kept chasing each other through the brain while Paganini continued his apparently interminable series of complimentary bows; but all such questionings instantly take flight the moment the great master puts his violin to his chin and began to play.

”Then were heard melodies such as the nightingale pours forth in the gloaming when the perfume of the rose intoxicates her heart with sweet forebodings of spring! What melting, sensuously languis.h.i.+ng notes of bliss! Tones that kissed, then poutingly fled from another, and at last embraced and became one, and died away in the ecstasy of union! Again, there were heard sounds like the song of the fallen angels, who, banished from the realms of bliss, sink with shame-red countenance to the lower world. These were sounds out of whose bottomless depth gleamed no ray of hope or comfort; when the blessed in heaven hear them, the praises of G.o.d die away upon their pallid lips, and, sighing, they veil their holy faces.” Leigh Hunt, in one of his essays, thus describes the playing of this greatest of all virtuosos: ”Paganini, the first time I saw and heard him, and the first moment he struck a note, seemed literally to strike it, to _give_ it a blow. The house was so crammed that, being among the squeezers in the standing room at the side of the pit, I happened to catch the first glance of his face through the arms akimbo of a man who was perched up before me, which made a kind of frame for it; and there on the stage through that frame, as through a perspective gla.s.s, were the face, the bust, and the raised hand of the wonderful musician, with the instrument at his chin, just going to begin, and looking exactly as I describe him in the following lines:

”His hand, Loading the air with dumb expectancy, Suspended, ere it fell, a nation's breath.

He _smote_; and clinging to the serious chords With G.o.dlike ravishment drew forth a breath, So deep, so strong, so fervid, thick with love-- Blissful, yet laden as with twenty prayers-- That Juno yearned with no diviner soul To the first burthen of the lips of Jove.

The exceeding mystery of the loveliness Sadden'd delight; and, with his mournful look, Dreary and gaunt, hanging his pallid face Twixt his dark flowing locks, he almost seemed Too feeble, or to melancholy eyes One that has parted from his soul for pride, And in the sable secret lived forlorn.

”To show the depth and identicalness of the impression which he made on everybody, foreign or native, an Italian who stood near me said to himself, with a long sigh, 'O Dio!' and this had not been said long, when another person in the same tone uttered 'Oh Christ!' Musicians pressed forward from behind the scenes to get as close to him as possible, and they could not sleep at night for thinking of him.”

The impression made by Paganini was something more than that of a great, even the greatest, violinist. It was as if some demoniac power lay behind the human, prisoned and dumb except through the agencies of music, but able to fill expression with faint, far-away cries of pa.s.sion, anguish, love, and aspiration--echoes from the supernatural and invisible. His hearers forgot the admiration due to the wonderful virtuoso, and seemed to listen to voices from another world. The strange rumors that were current about him, Paganini seems to have been not disinclined to encourage, for, mingled with his extraordinary genius, there was an element of charlatanism. It was commonly reported that his wonderful execution on the G-string was due to a long imprisonment, inflicted on him for the a.s.sa.s.sination of a rival in love, during which he had a violin with one string only. Paganini himself writes that, ”At Vienna one of the audience affirmed publicly that my performance was not surprising, for he had distinctly seen, while I was playing my variations, the devil at my elbow, directing my arm and guiding my bow.

My resemblance to the devil was a proof of my origin.” Even sensible people believed that Paganini had some uncanny and unlawful secret which enabled him to do what was impossible for other players. At Prague he actually printed a letter from his mother to prove that he was not the son of the devil. It was not only the perfectly novel and astonis.h.i.+ng character of his playing, but to a large extent his ghostlike appearance, which caused such absurd rumors. The tall, skeleton-like figure, the pale, narrow, wax-colored face, the long, dark, disheveled hair, the mysterious expression of the heavy eye, made a weirdly strange _ensemble_. Heine tells us in ”The Florentine Nights” that only one artist had succeeded in delineating the real physiognomy of Paganini: ”A deaf and crazy painter, called Lyser, has in a sort of spiritual frenzy so admirably portrayed by a few touches of his pencil the head of Paganini that one is dismayed and moved to laughter at the faithfulness of the sketch! 'The devil guided my hand,' said the deaf painter to me, with mysterious gesticulations and a satirical yet good-natured wag of the head, such as he was wont to indulge in when in the midst of his genial tomfoolery.”

II.