Modern German music : recollections and criticisms

Preface

The following book must not be offered to the public without a distinct statement of the materials of which it is composed.

A portion of it appeared in " Music and Manners in France and North Germany/' which was published in the year 1841. Since that work was prepared, I have again and again visited North and South Germany, always, in such visits, looking to one and the same object of interest — always endeavouring to complete my knowledge of the state of musical creation, performance, and artistic life, as they existed previous to the year of confusion, 1848. — In more senses than one, the recent European revolution marks the close of a period ; — and

Vlll PREFACE.

I have fancied that, by throwing together my earher and my later recollections and criticisms, some small contribution might possibly be made to the history of a favourite Art during the earlier half of the present century. With this view, the chapters on the Brunswick Festival, those on Music in Berlin, Leipsic, and Dresden, which made part of my former work, have been revised with great care. Many portions of them have been altogether re-written, and large additions made : * it being inevitable that in a record which aspired (within its own conditions) at completeness, certain prominent subjects should be touched upon, certain changes noted, certain reputations discussed. But though the revision has been sedulous, and though the new matter introduced is considerable, there has been

* Let me specify among these, the pages on Spontini as a musician — the chapters on the operas of Gluck— and on the works produced by Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer for Berlin — those on Madame Schroder Devrient and Herr Wagner at Dresden— at Weimar, the pages on M. Chfelard and on Hummel— at Leipsic, the comparison betwixt Bach and Handel — and the chapter on Musical Journalism.

PREFACE. IX

no modification of judgment — no restatement of original impressions. It has been my fortune (or ;;^/Vfortune as may be) to undergo very few conversions with regard to Music and its masters. I hope that I know more than I did — but I have not come to like what I disliked ten years ago, or the reverse.

Indeed, I suspect that those who limit their labours to a consideration of musical effects, will generally find this same instinct (not to call it prompt judgment) a safer guide than many dare admit. It is impossible to know a work thoroughly on a first hearing — on a first intercourse with an artist to perceive the extent of his merits : but unless the work produce from the first a quick desire for better acquaintance— unless the artist at first displays some attribute or accomplishment that attracts — it may be only a damage done to taste, and a loss of time, on subsequent occasions to attempt to find beauty where none suggested itself — or charm in that which failed to charm originally. Such attempts, however laudable on the score

PREFACE.

of their patience and charity, are apt to end in the listener losing his discernment of good from evil, — in his confusing what is mediocre with what is great, — in his accepting pretensions on the terms of those advancing them, not according to the standard of artistic perfection. The spirit of over-strained conciliation is as dangerous as the spirit of arrogant condemnation. When scientific analysis is the task in hand, another process is, of course, demanded. Then qualities must be weighed — then exceptions must be allowed for, which are beyond the cognizance and the province of the general listener. Then motives and technical excellencies may be estimated, with reference to their intrinsic ingenuity, and not to their immediate results. My book is not one for the scholar, but for the listener — -not for the professor, so much as for the general public.

The distinction just drawn will account, too, for its form. Having confined myself to the consideration of musical efl^ects, it was fair that my readers should form some idea of the time,

PREFACE. XI

place, and society, in the midst of which such effects were made — be able to judge of the humour and temperament of the person professing to sit in judgment. I have, therefore, not altered the framework in which my former recollections and criticisms were set, but have added a few sketches of life, manners, scenery, in their natural order, to introduce the unfamiliar recollections and criticisms with some reality. — There is another apology which might be offered. I might say that I could not be totally silent concerning the happiest days and freshest enjoyments of my life, in a work which attempts to collect and exhibit their fruits ; but if the matter be in itself irrelevant, discordant, or frivolous, I ought not to expect patience with what may be rejected as merely so much sentimental and superfluous egotism.

London J March 1854.

Contents

A NORTH GERMAN FESTIVAL.

BRUNSWICK IN 1839.

Page

Chap. I. — The Journey and the Rehearsal . . . i

II. — First Day. The Oratorio — the Dinner . 17

III.— Second Day. The Oratorio— the Ball. . 36

IV. — Third Day. Mendelssohn's Concert — the

Opera 4.8

Chap. I. — A Night on the Brocken .... 73

II. — Riibeland 103

III. — The Ross-Trappe 126

XIV CONTENTS.

GLIMPSES OF BERLIN IN 1839-40.

Page Chap. I. — First Impressions — " Der Freischiitz " . . 137

II. — The Court and the Opera . . . .163

III. — ''Comic Opera" in Berlin .... 207 IV. — Quartetts and Amateurs. — 1839 • • • ^^7

V. — The *'Huldigung" at Berlin. — 1840 . . 245 VI.— The Theatre at Berlin from 1840 to 1848 . 280

GLIMPSES AT DRESDEN IN 1839-40.

Chap. I. — The Opera and its Environs — 1S39 . . 291

II. — Organ-Playing — 1840 320

III. — The Opera from 1840 to 1848 . . . 341

CONTENTS.

WEIMAR AND LEIPSIC.

Page

Weimar in 1840 i

Chap. I.— Leipsic in 1839-4.0. The Concerts . . 17

II.— Traces of Bach 38

III. — Musical Journalism 63

DR. SPOHR'S MUSIC.

A Criticism 77

A GLANCE AT VIENNA.

Chap. I. — Traditions of Vienna 99

II. — Down the Danube no

VI

CONTENTS.

III. — Autumn Music and Dancing

IV. — The Leopoldstadt Theatre and Mozart

V. — Austrian Influences on Art . VI. — Schubert and his Music

172 191

MUSIC IN THE RHINE LAND.

Chap. I. — Rhine Scenery 211

II. — The Opera at Frankfort, 1844. Cherubini's

" Medea" 219

III. — The Beethoven Festival at Bonn, 1845 IV. — Beethoven's Music at Bonn . V. — Beethoven as an Influence [. VI. — Music at Liege and Cologne, 1846 VII, — Mademoiselle Lind in Opera

241 276 291 320 351

THE LAST DAYS OF MENDELSSOHN.

The Last Days of Mendelssohn .... 383

A

NORTH GERMAN FESTIVAL.

BRUNSWICK IN 1839.

A

NORTH GERMAN FESTIVAL,

BRUNSWICK IN 1839.

Chapter I. The Journey And The Rehearsal

Hamburg to Haarburg — Steam-boat groups — German good nature — Haarburg to Soltau — Bookcase at Soltau — Celle — Brunswick — Its picturesque features — The Blue Angel — The Egydien Kirche — Beethoven's Symphony in C minor — A word to our own festival committees — Diligence of the orchestra — — Dr. Mendelssohn Bartholdy — Care in rehearsal.

The most hardened of travellers must find the first half-hour of a solitary journey in a strange country a trifle dreary. If even, moreover, the banks of the Elbe betwixt Hamburg and Haarburg rivalled those of the same river above Dresden in beauty and variety, they must have looked dismal on the fourth of September 1839, ^^^^^ ^

VOL. I. B

2 BRUNSWICK — I 839.

night's storm, which had scattered all the first yellow leaves of the linden trees on the Jungfernstieg, and under clouds hanging low, which presently discharged themselves in a dense chill rain. The deck of the steamer was made untenable by a drove of horses on their way from the Lubeck fair to Italy. The little close cabin reeked with tobacco-smoke. I had before me a day and a night's journey through this forbidding weather, across the dreariest country conceivable, with only Patience and Pantomime to stand for my purveyors and interpreters. " What a fool have I been," said I, " ever to think of this Musical Festival at Brunswick ! "

But the people of North Germany have a good-natured way with them, which must put the most pertinacious feelings of strangeness and solitude to flight in a wonderfully short time. When the tobacco wreaths parted in the cabin, a group or two were revealed worth studying. One was made up of a youth and two damsels ; the latter travelling through that raw atmosphere with their bare arms undefended, save by the long brown kid gloves of our greatgrandmothers — good-humoured sprightly girls, blessed by Pleaven with miscellaneous appetites.

GROUPS BY THE WAY. 3

Their cavalier, who was making love to one or both of them, was yet more noticeable. His gay and daintily-braided tobacco-pouch slung round his neck, his exuberant travelling cap, his waistcoat, which had been of many colours, his trowsers, shapeless enough to make a stranger inclined to doubt whether Schneider be, indeed, a German word, his huge, square seal-ring on the least clean of forefingers — not to forget the thousand smirks and smiles and fondlings lavished on the objects of his care — composed a whole characteristic, and worthy of note, though insignificant when compared with others of his sex and age to be encountered in those days. — An interest of different quality attached itself to a party of fair and stately girls with their mother, all in deep mourning, and attended by a young gentleman, whose good French, and better manners, belonged, as might have been guessed, to a good name also. — Further, to make me feel at home, all travelling difficulties were presently brought to an end in the best of all possible fashions, by my happy fortune in lighting upon an excellent and sociable Strasburgher, who wished to avoid the then slow and circuitous route of the public conveyance by Lunenburg, and who, being bound for

Hanover, proposed that we should join company hi a wagon J and post together as far as Celle, within two or three stages of Brunswick.

The day kept the promise of the morning, and the gray spongy sky, and the incessant rain, made the damp and barren moors between Haarburg and Celle appear doubly desolate. The very heather on them looks starved and wretched ; the trees crouch as if they had hardly the heart to grow. The few people to be seen seemed uncouth and squalid. We were detained early in the last stage before reaching Soltau by the loss of a horse's shoe ; and, while we were waiting for the return of the postillion, who had gone back to the post-house, forth issued from a miserable sod - hut by the wayside, a couple of girls, hooting and screaming,— as unkempt, as dirty, as haggard, as were ever two savages ; the long loops of black riband which hung from the country caps they wore streaming wildly in the wind. — Evening was closing in when we reached Soltau. Here that domestic curse, "a great wash" of an enormous stock of linen, busily directed by the daisyfaced landlady, was filling the post-house with soapy steam — no pleasant atmosphere to breathe

INN AT SOLTAU. ^

on such an afternoon. To crown all, the Maritornes in attendance, an ill-grown, slipshod girl, was entirely driven to her wits' end by the arrival of the young Count and the ladies who had been on the boat that morning. While she clattered to and fro, retarding, instead of preparing, dinner, I was struck by a neat satinwood bookcase at the end of the room ; and on examination, found it to contain a handsomelybound collection, of the best German classics — Gothe, Schiller, Herder, Jean Paul, Novalis, and even Schelling ; and the works of Byron, Shakspeare and Irving, in the original English. Coarse prints, too, of the three Georges of England and Queen Charlotte were hanging on the walls ; with one or two such large engravings of the death of Nelson, and of the encounters between the British and the French fleets, as still ornament the guest-chambers of our country houses. But a cookery book would have been more to the purpose than these refinements. When, at last, dinner made its appearance, the soup might • have been furnished by the wash-tub, and the piece de resistance proved to be a block of pork, terribly salted, and liberally larded, with preserved cherries to help it down — a dish def;/ing even appetites which had been quickened by that penurious thing, a German inn breakfast, and a long raw morning spent on the wastes of Hanover.

It was not till long after midnight that we rattled into Celle, the head-quarters (so the guide-books say) of the pure German language. The town was dead asleep. Not a solitary roamer was in the streets ; not a solitary taper winked from a high window. But there is an air of formal and faded stateliness in the streets of Celle, and in the large lofty chambers and wide staircase of the hotel, which we at last succeeded in forcing open, that called up visions of phlegmatic Electors and stiff Electresses on their progresses and parades, such as may be found painted in Dr. Moore's travels. After extorting a cup of coffee from the blinking waiter, though sorry to shake hands and part from my Strasburg friend, I was glad to be shut up again in my wagon, and to be dozing and jolting my way towards Brunswick. Thanks to the excellent posting regulations adopted throughout the whole of North Germany, a child of five years old, who knew not a word of the language, might, in 1839, have

"the blue angel." 7

crossed the country from Hamburg to Cologne with small risk of being cheated, and with the certainty of not being delayed.

We reached Brunswick by half-past eight in the morning. A brighter, more encouraging day never dawned. The sun glittered on the spotlessly bright window-panes of that ancient comfortable town, which was already astir with preparations for the Festival. My travelling friend had recommended me to take up my quarters at the " Blue Angel ; " and thither I drove accordingly. There are larger hotels in the town — there can be none in any town more civilly kept. While I was alighting, the waiter apologized for the absence of the landlord, who was gone to the rehearsal of " Paulus ; " and v/hile he set on the table capital coffee, bread, and eggs, for breakfast, made me good-naturedly au fait in all the politics of the " Musik-Feste." By the time that my pen and ink were unpacked, I felt as if I had been in Brunswick a week at the very least. I do not add in a grumbling spirit, that it required North German heartiness to make up for the discomforts of North German lodgment, — to compensate for the box, by way of bed, in which the victim was expected to sleep;, — for the ball of feathers, which would not cover him, in lieu of sheets, blankets, and counterpane, — for the noisy uncarpeted floor, and the grievously scanty provision of water in his pie-dish and phial — not basin and jug — but truth is truth.

A walk after breakfast increased my admiration for the cleanliness and quaintly picturesque architecture of Brunswick. To be sure, one's first old town in Germany is much like the first figure one eyes when first setting foot on Calais pier, who looks inviting and pleasant, be she even ^ipoissarde, coarse, and old, and wrinkled. But, inexperience and charity apart, there are beautiful things in Brunswick : among others, its richly decorated Rathhaus, with those corrupt ornaments and that heavy pyramidal gable, that seem to be proper to buildings of its order : a few cloister-like arches of the richest Gothic, in the opposite corner of the place where it stands; and close to the Cathedral a bronze lion of Byzantine antiquity. The human beings, too, who looked out at the shop doors, or streamed along the streets, in such equipages ! were singularly comely and prosperous-looking. A few hours' further experience convinced me

THE EGYDIEN KIRCHE. 9

of their civility and hospitality. In all that concerned the official arrangements of the Festival, in a desire to accomodate all classes, from The Duke down to his meanest subject, and in patient attention to the comfort of the most obscure stranger, I must insist that the gentlemen of the committee were a model, which might with advantage be imitated at our own provincial entertainments of a similar kind ; where a shred of white ribbon at the button-hole, and a wand in the hand, were too often signs that the wearer fancied himself licensed to be discourteous, neglectful, and overbearing.

I was lying in the sunshine, after the one o'clock table d'hote^ feverish and sleepy, lazily calling up past festivals and distant faces, when the thread of my musings was cut short by the entrance of a clean civil little boy, with a message from Dr. Mendelssohn, who was then in the Egydien Kirche, superintending the rehearsal. We were there ere I was well awake. The church is but the fragment of a large Gothic building, which has been sorely despoiled of much of its old ornaments by time or violence ; and its one good point, height, renders it ineligible for musical purposes. Even then.

though it was late in the afternoon, and the rehearsal had been going on with small intermission since the morning, it was three parts full. I arrived in the midst of Beethoven's C minor Symphony, just a few bars before the commencement of its glorious final march. Had I desired a moment of the strongest possible sensation on first making acquaintance with a German orchestra, it could not have been more completely granted.

The performance fell far short of what it would have been by Dr. Mendelssohn's own band at Leipsic. At these German musical festivals, as was formerly the case at our English ones, the orchestra is compounded of unequal materials, being assisted by many persons unused to practise together. Here, too, it was largely amateur. But the effect of the music nevertheless was overcoming. The glory of the Symphony was heightened by the lofty arches and long-drawn aisles through which it resounded ; and when the thrill and the mustering of blood to the heart, which so few things excite when early youth is passed, had subsided, I could not but wistfully ask myself, why such noble works are not also selected to form a part of the morning per-

SYMPHONIES. II

formances at our Musical Festivals, instead of being there thrust into the schemes of Concerts five hours long, when all the provincial world is waiting to hear the newest Italian airs and cadences from the prima donna of the hour.

This proposal to introduce great orchestral music into sacred performances is worth examining. There are works by all the great masters, so decidedly secular in tone, as to jar unpleasantly upon the mind on such occasions. Perhaps the only three of Beethoven's Symphonies eligible would be the one mentioned, the Eroica^ with its grave and holy " Funeral March," and the Choral Symphony. Beethoven's other Symphonies, besides being too secular in character, are too delicate in detail, to bear being rendered by a very large orchestra, in which, to balance the stringed instruments, the wind-instruments would have to be doubled. That the master, in composing, had an eye to such gradation, may be clearly seen, on comparing, for instance, his overture to " Leonora," with that in C major, Op. 1 24, the " Fest. Overture," which, being apparently written for an enormous band, was, till lately, all but unknown in England. As regards the profanity of mere instrumental

12 BRUNSWICK FESTIVALS.

music, as opposed to the sanctity of the " Messiah," or of Spohr's " Last Judgment," let no one deceive himself. Our Musical Festivals are not direct acts of devotion because they are performances of holy words set to befitting music, and are often held in churches. There are few that defend them on such grounds who would not recoil from the notion that they are worshipping, when they sit in silence before the Madonna di San Sisto of the Dresden Gallery, or when they enter the stately cathedral at Antwerp to admire the great pictures Rubens has left there. And yet the two acts are precisely identical in character. It is not the mere adoption of the text of Scripture by the musician — it is not the selection of Saints and Angels by the painter — that make works of art operate with a hallowing influence upon our vexed and worldly spirits. It is that the high thoughts which the artist has brought to his task awaken in us those better and more spiritual aspirings, which are too often stifled in the heavy sleep of self-indulgence, or the harsh tumult of money-getting, or the dissipating frivolity of society.

In its performance of Beethoven's Symphony, the orchestra was hardly as exact as it might

ZEAL IN THE ORCHESTRA. Ij

have been. But the earnestness and anxiety of its members, who betook themselves to their tasks — one heedless if he see-sawed over his violoncello as oddly as Dr. Johnson — another, if he rasped the very hair off his head — a third, if, like the bassoon player in " Bracebridge Hall," he " blew his face to a point," — made a sight at once new and, though amusing, calculated to disarm ridicule. Indeed, that sense of the whimsical and grotesque, which is so invaluable as a travelling companion to solitary persons, of necessity becomes far less sardonic in Germany than elsewhere. Every eye was fixed fast upon the Conductor, with a submissiveness and an admiration which must have had their reciprocal effect in inspiring him to go through his fatiguing duties without flagging or impatience : and Dr. Mendelssohn's conducting at rehearsal, though easy in appearance, and, therefore, any thing but distracting to the eye, was the strictest in spirit of any that I had then witnessed.

After the Symphony, a weak and tame contralto singer, with a profusion of fair ringlets, went through the delicious arioso in " St. Paul," " But the Lord is mindful of his own" :

14 BRUNSWICK FESTIVAL.

and then the Conductor, hitherto a personal stranger, came down to me, and gave me a friendly welcome to Germany.

It is sad now to recall the inquiries after mutual friends, the quick interchange of a musical piece of news or two, and the unexpected joke (for a joke there was, I remember), amongst which began an acquaintance soon to be ripened into indulgent friendship on the one side, and faithful regard on the other. There was this inexpressible comfort in all intercourse with Mendelssohn, that he made no secret of his likings and dislikings. Few men so distinguished have been so simple, so cordial, so considerate ; but few have been so innocent of courtiership, positive or negative. One might be sure that a welcome from him was a welcome indeed.

I thought then, as I do now, his face one of the most beautiful which has ever been seen. No portrait extant does it justice. A Titian would have generalized, and, out of its many expressions, made up one which, in some sort, should reflect the many characteristics and humours of the Poet — his earnest seriousness — his child-like truthfulness — his clear, cultivated intellect — his impulsive vivacity. The German painters

MENDELSSOHN S APPEARANCE. I5

could only invest a theatrical, thoughtful-looking man with that serious cloak which plays so important a part on the stage, and in the portraits of their country ; and conceive the task accomplished, when it was not so much as begun. None of them has perpetuated the face with which Mendelssohn listened to the music in which he delighted, or the face with which he would crave to be told again some merry story, though he knew it already by heart. I felt in that first half-hour, that in him there was no stilted sentiment — no affected heartiness; that he was no sayer of deep things, no searcher for witty ones ; but one of a pure, sincere intelligence— bright, eager, and happy, even when most imaginative. — Perhaps there was no contemporary at once strong, simple, and subtle enough, to paint such a man with such a countenance.

The rehearsal proceeded. — A psalm by Schneider was gone through, the "Hallelujah chorus" from the Messiah, and Weber's " Jubilee Overture : " — all practised with care and intelligence, not rattled over as a task. The painful conviction, that nine-tenths of the orchestra feels itself employed in manufacturing music, which is so constantly forced upon the listener at English l6 BRUNSWICK 1839.

rehearsals, could never be entertained here for one single moment.

The audience remained attentive and numerous till the last chord, and then dispersed in happy anticipation of the morrow; Dr. Mendelssohn, to be serenaded by the young men of the town with some of the part-songs, which make up so peculiar a feature in German vocal music.

Chapter II. First Day

THE ORATORIO — THE DINNER.

Early hours In Brunswick — Primitive equipages — A retrospect of a Dublin festival with Paganini — Contrasts in costume, with a note upon costumes at home — Honours to Dr. Mendelssohn — The popularity of " St. Paul " compared with that of Spohr's "Last Judgment " — Its freedom from manner — Its dramatic effects — Its four great songs — The performance compared with English performances — The singers^ — Madame Fischer- Achten — Herr Fischer — Herr Schmetzer — The recepof "St. Paul " — German and English modesty- — The dinner — The decorations — Impudent Englishman — The cooker)-- — The musical honours — // S)an!eg=®rup " — A straightforward dialogue— The climax and close of the feast.

By six o'clock a.m. on the first morning of the Festival, there was no possibility of sleeping in Brunswick. Not only was the entire " Blue Angel" stirring and clamorous for its breakfast — the whole town was blithely alive. In every

VOL. I. c

I 8 BRUNSWICK. — 1839.

room of the opposite four-story house, which seemed nodding into my Httle hght chamber, the work of adorning was busily going on : — in one window, the first flourish of the razor ; in another, the last shoulder-knot pinned on, or the sash tied. But neither gentlemen nor ladies denied themselves the pleasure of throwing wide the casements, and leaning out into the fresh autumnal sunshine, so often as the frequent sound of creaking springs and jingling wheels, the leisurely trot of horses, or the eager bawling of their drivers, announced that another cargo of pleasurers was coming in to enjoy the execution of Mendelssohn's " St. Paul."

The equipages were things to admire. The old Irish postchaise, out of which, upon its being rolled from the coach-house, three hens flew, leaving an egg behind them, would have figured as a vehicle of worship among some of the machines which deposited their full freight beneath my windows. German wagons, of an older date than the Electors and Electresses whom I did not see at Celle ; horses reminding one of Mrs. Butler's picture of the Pennsylvanian charger, more "like an old hair trunk" worn bare, than a creature to mount or to drive ; harness cracked

FOREIGN AND ENGLISH FESTIVALS. IQ

with neglect, and brown with age ; Jehus in cockades, top-boots, laced hats, livery coats, earrings, and heterogeneously coloured cotton handkerchiefs, stuck on as each individual wearer judged best, — I shall never forget the scene, so primitive, so bustling, so cheerful. A temporary lull took place between seven and eight, when the world might be supposed to be at breakfast. By nine, every one was streaming towards the Egydien Kirche, which, even at that hour, was three parts full.

I have assisted at many provincial Musical Festivals at home. In particular, I remember, as curious and characteristic, the Dublin meeting held in the year 1831. At this the morning performances took place in the artificially-lighted theatre, the boxes of which were filled with a remarkable display of beauty, while the galleries overflowed with a dirty, half-clad audience, which, after its peculiar fashion, made no scruple of cracking jokes at the performers as they presented themselves. Who that was present can forget its shrieks of delight when Paganini glided from the cloak, which, like a cloud, enveloped him at the side scenes, to play his Rondo colla campanella between the acts of the concert ? and how, for a more distinct view of his wizard figure, the people compelled him to mount the pianoforte — a proceeding so much to their tastes, that on Braham coming next to sing " The Bay of Biscay," the " gods " insisted upon his doing the same, and all but exacted a similar compliance from gentle Madame Stockhausen in her turn ? That was a scene as lively, as full of contrast as the English heart can desire ; yet more gaily various as a sight was the audience in the Egydien Kirche at Brunswick. Elegantly dressed girls in the transparent and gay toilettes of an English ball-room, might be seen, sitting side by side with the gipsy-coloured, hardhanded peasant women of the district, in their black caps gracefully displaying the head and picturesquely decorated with pendant streamers of ribbon. Here, again, was a comely youth, tight-laced in his neat uniform, and every hair of his moustache trimmed and trained to an agony of perfection, squeezed up against a dirty, savage, half-naked student, with his long, wild hair half way down his back, and his velveteen coat, confined at the waist with one solitary button, letting it be clearly seen that neither waistcoat nor shirt was underneath. The or-