Music-Study in Germany, from the Home Correspondence of Amy Fay

—BERLIN, December 25, 1871.

To-day is Christmas-day, and I have thought much of you all at home, and have wondered if you've been having an apathetic time as usual. I think we often spend Christmas in a most shocking fashion in America, and I mean to revolutionize all that when I get back. So long a time in Germany has taught me better. Here it is a season of universal joy, and everybody enters into it. Last night we had a Christmas tree at the S.'s, as we always do. We went there at half past six, and it was the prettiest thing to see in every house, nearly, a tree just lighted, or in process of being so. As a separate family lives on each floor, often in one house would be three trees, one above the other, in the front rooms. The curtains are always drawn up, to give the passers-by the benefit of it. They don't make a fearful undertaking of having a Christmas tree here, as we do in America, and so they are attainable by everybody. The tree is small, to begin with, and nothing is put on it except the tapers and bonbons. It is fixed on a small stand in the centre of a large square table covered with a white cloth, and each person's presents are arranged in a separate pile around it. The tree is only lighted for the sake of beauty, and for the air of festivity it throws over the thing. – After a crisp walk in the moonlight (which I performed in the style of "Johnny-look-up-in-the-air," for I was engaged in staring into house-windows, so far as it was practicable), we sat down to enjoy a cup of tea and a piece of cake. I had just begun my second cup, when, Presto! the parlour doors flew open, and there stood the little green tree, blossoming out into lights, and throwing its gleams over the well-laden table. There was a general scramble and a search for one's own pile, succeeded by deep silence and suspense while we opened the papers. Such a hand shaking and embracing and thanking as followed! concluding with the satisfactory conviction that we each had "just what we wanted." Germans do not despise the utilitarian in their Christmas gifts, as we do, but, between these and their birthday offerings, expect to be set up for the rest of the year in the necessaries of life as well as in its superfluities. Presents of stockings, under-clothes, dresses, handkerchiefs, soaps – nothing comes amiss. And every one must give to every one else. That is LAW.

I have just heard a young artist from Vienna who made a great impression on me. His name is Ignaz Brühl. He is quite exceptional, and has not only a brilliant technique, but also a peculiar and beautiful conception. – But the best concert I have heard this season was one given by Clara Schumann a week ago last Monday. She was assisted by Joachim and his wife, and that galaxy is indeed unequalled. Frau Joachim sings deliciously. Not that her voice is so remarkable. You hear such voices all the time. But she manages it consummately, and sings German songs as no one but a German could sing them. Indeed I never heard any woman approach her in unobtrusive yet perfect art. She does not take you by storm, and when I first came here I did not think much of her, but every time I hear her I am struck with how exquisite it is. Every word takes on a meaning, and on this account I think you have to understand the language before you can realize the beauty of it. One of her songs was Schumann's "Spring Song," with that rapid agitato accompaniment, you know. – She came out and started off in it with a half breath and a tremor just like a bird fluttering up out of its nest, and then went up on a portamento with such abandon! – like the bird soaring off in its flight. I never shall forget that effect! Of course it carried you completely away.

Beside singing so admirably she is a beauty – a sort of baby beauty – and when she comes out in a pale pink silk, contrasting with her dark hair and revealing her imperial neck and arms, she is ravishing. I've been told she wasn't anything remarkable when Joachim married her. No doubt dwelling with such a genius has developed her. They say that Joachim has had such a happy life that he wants to live forever! He certainly does overtop everything. On this occasion he played Beethoven's great Kreutzer Sonata for violin and piano, with Clara Schumann, and I thought it the most magnificent performance I ever heard! I perfectly adore Joachim, and consider him the wonder of the age. It is simple ecstasy to listen to him.

CHAPTER XIII

Visit to Dresden. The Wiecks. Von Bülow. A Child Prodigy. Grantzow, the DancerBERLIN, February 10, 1872.

A week ago last Monday I went to Dresden with J. L. to visit B. H. We got there at about five in the afternoon, and were met at the station by B.'s maid, who conducted us straightway to their house in Christian Strasse. B. and Mrs. H. received us with the greatest cordiality, and we had a splendid time. I came home only the day before yesterday, and J. is still there. The H.'s have a charming lodging, and Mrs. H. is a capital housekeeper. The cuisine was excellent, and you can imagine how I enjoyed an American breakfast once more, after nothing but "rolls and coffee" for two years. B. did everything in her power to amuse us, and she is the soul of amiability. She kept inviting people to meet us, and had several tea-parties, and when we had no company she took us to the theatre or the opera. She invited Marie Wieck (the sister of Clara Schumann) to tea one night. I was very glad to meet her, for she is an exquisite artist herself, and plays in Clara Schumann's style, though her conception is not so remarkable. Her touch is perfect. At B.'s request she tried to play for us, but the action of B.'s piano did not suit her, and she presently got up, saying that she could do nothing on that instrument, but that if we would come to her, she would play for us with pleasure.

I was in high glee at that proposal, for I was very anxious to see the famous Wieck, the trainer of so many generations of musicians. Fräulein Wieck appointed Saturday evening, and we accordingly went. B. had instructed us how to act, for the old man is quite a character, and has to be dealt with after his own fashion. She said we must walk in (having first laid off our things) as if we had been members of the family all our lives, and say, "Good-evening, Papa Wieck," – (everybody calls him Papa). Then we were to seat ourselves, and if we had some knitting or sewing with us it would be well. At any rate we must have the apparent intention of spending several hours, for nothing provokes him so as to have people come in simply to call. "What!" he will say, "do you expect to know a celebrated man like me in half an hour?" then (very sarcastically), "perhaps you want my autograph!" He hates to give his autograph.

Well, we went through the prescribed programme. We were ushered into a large room, much longer than it was broad. At either end stood a grand piano. Otherwise the room was furnished with the greatest simplicity. My impression is that the floor was a plain yellow painted one, with a rug or two here and there. A few portraits and bas-reliefs hung upon the walls. The pianos were of course fine. Frau Wieck and "Papa" received us graciously. We began by taking tea, but soon the old man became impatient, and said, "Come! the ladies wish to perform (vortragen) something before me, and if we don't begin we shan't accomplish anything." He lives entirely in music, and has a class of girls whom he instructs every evening for nothing. Five of these young girls were there. He is very deaf, but strange to say, he is as sensitive as ever to every musical sound, and the same is the case with Clara Schumann. Fräulein Wieck then opened the ball. She is about forty, I should think, and a stout, phlegmatic-looking woman. However, she played superbly, and her touch is one of the most delicious possible. After hearing her, one is not surprised that the Wiecks think nobody can teach touch but themselves. She began with a nocturne by Chopin, in F major. I forgot to say that the old Herr sits in his chair with the air of being on a throne, and announces beforehand each piece that is to be played, following it with some comment: e. g., "This nocturne I allowed my daughter Clara to play in Berlin forty years ago, and afterward the principal newspaper in criticising her performance, remarked: 'This young girl seems to have much talent; it is only a pity that she is in the hands of a father whose head seems stuck full of queer new-fangled notions,' – so new was Chopin to the public at that time." That is the way he goes on.

After Fräulein Wieck had finished the nocturne, I asked for something by Bach, which I'm told she plays remarkably. She said that at the moment she had nothing in practice by Bach, but she would play me a gigue by a composer of Bach's time, – Haesler, I think she said, but cannot remember, as it was a name entirely unknown to me. It was very brilliant, and she executed it beautifully. Afterward she played the last movement of Beethoven's Sonata in E flat major, but I wasn't particularly struck with her conception of that. Then we had a pause, and she urged me to play. I refused, for as I had been in Dresden a week and had not practiced, I did not wish to sit down and not do myself justice. My hand is so stiff, that as Tausig said of himself (though of him I can hardly believe it), "When I haven't practiced for fourteen days I can't do anything." The old Herr then said, "Now we'll have something else;" and got up and went to the piano, and called the young girls. He made three of them sing, one after the other, and they sang very charmingly indeed. One of them he made improvise a cadenza, and a second sang the alto to it without accompaniment. He was very proud of that. He exercises his pupils in all sorts of ways, trains them to sing any given tone, and "to skip up and down the ladder," as they call the scale.

After the master had finished with the singing, Fräulein Wieck played three more pieces, one of which was an exquisite arrangement by Liszt of that song by Schumann, "Du meine Seele." She ended with a gavotte by Glück, or as Papa Wieck would say, "This is a gavotte from one of Glück's operas, arranged by Brahms for the piano. To the superficial observer the second movement will appear very easy, but in my opinion it is a very hard task to hit it exactly." I happened to know just how the thing ought to be played, for I had heard it three times from Clara Schumann herself. Fräulein Wieck didn't please me at all in it, for she took the second movement twice as quickly as the first. "Your sister plays the second movement much slower," said I. "So?" said she, "I've never heard it from her." She then asked, "So slow?" playing it slower. "Still slower?" said she, beginning a third time, at my continual disapproval. "Streng im Tempo (in strict time)", said I, nodding my head oracularly. "Väterchen." called she to the old Herr, "Miss Fay says that Clara plays the second movement so slow," showing him. I don't know whether this correction made an impression, but he was then determined that I should play, and on my continued refusal he finally said that he found it very strange that a young lady who had studied more than two years in Tausig's and Kullak's conservatories shouldn't have one piece that she could play before people. This little fling provoked me, so up I jumped, and saying to myself, "Kopf in die Höhe, Brust heraus, – vorwärts!" (one of the military orders here), I marched to the piano and played the fugue at the end of Beethoven's A flat Sonata, Op. 110. They all sat round the room as still as so many statues while I played, and you cannot imagine how dreadfully nervous I was. I thought fifty times I would have to stop, for, like all fugues, it is such a piece that if you once get out you never can get in again, and Bülow himself got mixed up on the last part of it the other night in his concert. But I got well through, notwithstanding, and the old master was good enough to commend me warmly. He told me I must have studied a great deal, and asked me if I hadn't played a great many Etuden. I informed him in polite German "He'd better believe I had!"

I should like to study with the Wiecks in my vacation next summer if they would take me. Perhaps I may. They are considered somewhat old-fashioned in their style, and I shouldn't wish to exchange Kullak for them, but they are such veterans that one could not help getting many valuable ideas from them. Papa Wieck used to be Bülow's master before he went to Liszt.

Did I tell you how carried away with Bülow I was? He is magnificent, and just between Rubinstein and Tausig. I am going to hear him again on Saturday, and then I'll write you my full opinion about him. He is famous for his playing of Beethoven, and I wish you could have heard the Moonlight Sonata from him. One thing he does which is entirely peculiar to himself. He runs all the movements of a sonata together, instead of pausing between. It pleased me very much, as it gives a unity of effect, and seems to make each movement beget the succeeding one.

—

BERLIN, May 30, 1872.

I wish L. were here studying piano with Kullak's son. He has one little fairy of a scholar ten years old. Her name is Adele aus der Ohe – (isn't that an old knightly name?) – and it is the most astonishing thing to hear that child play! I heard her play a concerto of Beethoven's the other day with orchestral accompaniment and a great cadenza by Moscheles, absolutely perfectly. She never missed a note the whole way through. I suppose she will become, like Mehlig, a great artist. But perhaps, like her, she won't have a great conception, but will do everything mechanically. One never can tell how these child-prodigies will turn out. – Please don't form any exalted ideas of my playing! I'm a pretty stupid girl, and go forward slowly. I never expect to play as Miss Mehlig does. If I can ever get up to Topp, I shall be satisfied. You wouldn't believe how long it takes to get to be a virtuoso unless you tried it. Mehlig, you know, studied steadily for ten years, under the best of teaching all the time, and she had probably more talent to start with than I have. Miss V. and Mr. G. have been here five years studying steadily, and they are no farther than I am now. Not so far. It makes all the difference in the world what kind of hand and wrist a person has. Mine, you know, were pretty stiff, and then it is a great disadvantage to begin studying after one is grown up. One ought to be learning while the hand is forming.

I am just now learning that A minor concerto of Schumann's that Topp played at the Handel and Haydn Festival in Boston. The cadenza is tough, I can tell you. That is the worst of these concertos. There is always a grand cadenza where you must play all alone and "make a splurge." I don't know how it feels to be left all at once without any support from the orchestra. It is bad enough when Kullak lies back in his chair and ceases accompanying me. He plays with me on two pianos, and I get so excited that my wrists tremble. He is a magnificent pianist, and his technique is perfect. There's nothing he can't do. Like all artists, he is as capricious and exasperating as he can be, and, as the Germans say, he is "ein Mal im Himmel und das nächste Mal im Keller (one time in heaven and the next time in the cellar)!" He has a deep rooted prejudice against Americans, and never loses an opportunity to make a mean remark about them, and though he has some remarkably gifted ones among his scholars, he always insists upon it that the Americans have no real talent. As far as I know anything about his conservatorium just now, his most talented scholars are Americans. There is a young fellow named Sherwood, who is only seventeen years old, and he not only plays splendidly but composes beautifully, also. In my own class Miss B. and I are far ahead of all the others. Kullak will praise us very enthusiastically, and then when some one plays particularly badly in the class he will say to them, "Why, Fräulein, you play exactly as if you came from America." It makes Miss B. and me so indignant that we don't know what to do. Of course we can't say anything, for he addresses this remark in a lofty way to the whole class. Miss V. couldn't bear Kullak, and the other day, when she and Mr. G. were taking leave of him to go to America, she let him see it. He said to her, "And when shall I see you again?" "Never," exclaimed she! We have only one way of revenging ourselves, and that is when he gives us the choice of taking one of his compositions or a piece by some one else, always to take the other person's. For instance, he said to me, "Fräulein, you can take Schumann's concerto or my concerto." I immediately got Schumann's.

The other night I went to see a great ballet-dancer. Her name is Fräulein Grantzow, and she is the court dancer at St. Petersburg, where I've heard that the ballet surpasses everything of the kind in the world. This danseuse is a wonder, and they say there has never been such dancing since the days of Fanny Ellsler. She has the figure of a Venus, and the most expressive face imaginable. When she dances, it is not only dancing, but a complete representation of character, for she plays a rôle by her motions just the same as if she were an actress. I have seen many a ballet, but I never conceived what an art dancing is before. I saw her in "Esmeralda," a ballet which is arranged from Victor Hugo's romance and modified for the stage. Fräulein Grantzow took the part of Esmeralda. In the first act a man is condemned to death, but is pardoned on condition that one of the women present will promise to marry him. The women, represented by about fifty ballet dancers, come up one after the other, contemplate the poor victim, pirouette round him, and reject him in turn with a gesture of contempt. At last Esmeralda (a gypsy) comes dancing along, asks what is the matter, and on being told, has compassion on the poor wretch, and promises to marry him in order to save him from his fate.

When the time came for Grantzow to appear, the crowd of dancers suddenly divided, and she bounded out from the back of the stage. Such an apparition as she was! In the first place her toilettes surpassed everything, and she appeared in a fresh dress in every act. In this first one she had on a most dazzling shade of green gauze for her skirt. From her waist fell a golden net-work, like a cestus, with little golden tassels all round. She wore a little scarlet satin jacket all fringed with gold coins, and a broad golden belt, pointed in front, clasped her waist. On her head was a tiny scarlet cap, also fringed with coins, and she had some golden bangles round her neck. In her hand was a tambourine from which depended four knots of coloured ribbons with long ends. Shaking her tambourine high in the air, out she sprang like a panther, made one magnificent circuit all round the stage, and after executing an immensely difficult pas with perfect ease, she suddenly posed to the audience in the most ravishing and impossible attitude and with the most captivating grace conceivable. Anything like her élan, her aplomb, I never saw. Such a daring creature! Well, I cannot tell you all the things she did. She is a perfect Terpsichorean genius. All through the first act she danced very slowly, merely to show her wonderful grace, and the beauty and originality of her positions. She had a way of folding her arms over her breast and dancing with a dreamy step that was quite different from anybody else, and it produced an entrancing effect. Through the second and third acts she made a regular crescendo, just to display her technique and show what she could do. All the other dancers seemed like blocks of wood in comparison with her. – Fräulein Grantzow is said to be between thirty-five and thirty-eight years old. As the papers said, her art shows the perfection that only maturity can give. The men are all crazy over her, as you may imagine, and she was showered with bouquets as large as the top of a barrel. The play of her features was as extraordinary as the play of her muscles. Her whole being seemed to be the soul of motion.

CHAPTER XIV

A Rising Organist. Kullak. Von Bülow's Playing. A Princely Funeral. Wilhelmj's Concert. A Court BeautyBERLIN, July 1, 1872.

Since I have been here X. has gradually developed into a great organ player, and I fancy he is now one of the first organ virtuosi in the world. His musical activity is immense, and I don't doubt he will be one of the great musical authorities here by the time he is a few years older. He is a good-hearted little demon, the incarnation of German dirt and good humour, and he pretends to be desperately devoted to me. Last Sunday he was at M.'s and went home with us afterward. Generally I go in front with A. or Herr J. and let X. give his arm to M., but this time I accorded him the honour of taking it myself. He is about a foot shorter than I am, but he trotted along by my side in a state of high satisfaction, and asked me what he should play at this concert. I told him he might play the G Minor Prelude and Fugue, as I had just taken it, "but," said I, "mind you play it well, for I shall study it very hard during the next fortnight, and I shall know if you strike one false note. I'll allow you six faults, but if you make one more I'll beat you." This amused him highly, but he said, "It is a very complicated fugue, and it isn't so easy to play it perfectly, with all the pedal passages. What will you do for me if I come off without making one fault?" I told him there was plenty of time to think about that, and I didn't believe he could. I have no doubt that he will play it magnificently, but I love to plague him. I wish that his department were secular rather than church music, for if he were only a conductor of an orchestra, or something of that sort, he could give me many a lift. He doesn't dare play the piano any more since I played to him a few times. He used nearly to kill me with his extemporizations, for he has no memory, and so he always had to extemporize. I generally went off into a secret convulsion of laughter when he went bang! bang! Donner and Blitz! – splaying all over the key-board. It was the funniest thing I ever heard, and when I heard him burst forth in such grand style on the organ, I was perfectly amazed, and couldn't reconcile it with his piano playing at all. He is a great reader, of course, and can transpose at sight, and all that sort of thing. I've known him to play accompaniments at sight in a great concert in the Dom and transpose them at the same time!

July 6. – You ask me why I gave up going to the Wiecks in Dresden this summer. – Because they make everybody begin at the very beginning of their system and go through it before they give them a piece, and at my stage of progress that would be losing time. They think nobody can teach touch but themselves, but Kullak is a much greater musician, and I should not be willing to exchange him for Fräulein Wieck, who does not begin to equal him in reputation. Much as Kullak enrages me, I have to admit that he is a great master, and that he is thoroughly capable of developing artistic talent to the utmost. He makes Miss B. so provoked that she had very strong thoughts of going to Stuttgardt. The Stuttgardt conservatorium is so crowded that it is very difficult to get admission. Lebert (Mehlig's master,) sent word on her writing to enquire, that he would only take her on condition that she brought him a letter from Kullak authorizing her leaving him, as Kullak was a personal friend of his own, and so great an artist, that only the most important reasons could justify her giving up his instructions! Of course that put the stopper on any such movement.

I've always forgotten to describe Bülow's playing to you, and it is now so long since I heard him that my impressions of it are not so vivid. He has the most forcible style I ever heard, and phrases wonderfully. It is like looking through a stereoscope to hear him. All the points of a piece seem to start out vividly before you. He makes me think of Gottschalk a little, for he is full of his airs. His expression is proud and supercilious to the last degree, and he looks all round at his audience when he is playing. He always has two grand pianos on the stage, one facing one way, and one the other, and he plays alternately on both. His face seems to say to his audience, "You're all cats and dogs, and I don't care what you think of my playing." Sometimes a look of infinite humour comes over it, when he is playing a rondo or anything gay. It is very funny. He has remarkable magnetic power, and you feel that you are under the sway of a tremendous will. Many persons find fault with his playing, because they say it is pure intellect (der reine Verstand) but I think he has too much passion to be called purely intellectual. Still, it is always passion controlled. Beethoven has been the grand study of his life, and he plays his sonatas as no one else does.