Story-Lives of Great Musicians

Francis Jameson Rowbotham

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• Publié par: irda
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 48
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 7 Mo

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Story-Lives of Great Musicians, by Francis Jameson Rowbotham This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Story-Lives of Great Musicians Author: Francis Jameson Rowbotham Release Date: November 10, 2006 [EBook #19748] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORY-LIVES OF GREAT MUSICIANS *** Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Jeannie Howse and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation and unusual spelling in the original document have been preserved. This text contains Unicode characters representing music symbols (sharp, flat, and natural) that may not display properly in your browser or font. A mouse-hover description of these symbols has been provided, e.g.: A♭ G♯ C ♮. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this text. For a complete list, please see the end of this document. From Photo RISCHGITZ. BEETHOVEN. Frontispiece. ToList STORY-LIVES OF GREAT MUSICIANS BY FRANCIS JAMESON ROWBOTHAM AUTHOR OF 'STORY-LIVES OF GREAT AUTHORS,' 'TALES FROM PLUTARCH,' ETC. ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS TO THE MEMORY OF FREDERICK WESTLAKE, R.A.M. [vii] PREFACE Following the plan of his previous volume of Great Authors , the writer has here endeavoured to weave into more or less story form a few of the facts and incidents in the lives of some great musicians. It is hoped that young readers —and especially those to whom music is a subject of study—will take a greater interest in some of the masterpieces of composition when they have learnt something about the composers themselves, and the circumstances under which they wrote. The author desires to express his acknowledgments for the assistance he has derived from the following works: Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians ; Bitter's Life of Sebastian Bach (translated by J.E. Kay-Shuttleworth); Rockstro's Life of George Frederick Handel; Williams's Handel in 'The Master Musicians'; Townsend's Haydn in 'The Great Musicians'; Jahn's W.A. Mozart (translated by P.D. Townsend); Schindler's Life of Beethoven ; Nohl's Life of Beethoven ; von Hellborn's Franz Schubert (translated by A.D. Coleridge); Benedict's Sketch of the Life and Works of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy ; Hensel's The Mendelssohn Family ; Hiller's Mendelssohn: Letters and Recollections ; Devrient's Recollections of F.M. Bartholdy (translated by C.N. Macfarren). [viii] [ix] CONTENTS PAGE BACH HANDEL HAYDN MOZART BEETHOVEN SCHUBERT MENDELSSOHN 3 37 89 151 215 269 315 [x] [xi] LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE GAZING AT ITS COVERS THROUGH THE LATTICE DOORS OF THE CUPBOARD BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON HE BEGAN HIS TASK CHRISTOPH SEIZED THE MANUSCRIPT BOOK AND THE COPY DURING THE WINTER MONTHS THE SCHOLARS WERE SENT OUT TO SING IN THE STREETS 4 9 10 12 THE KING EXCLAIMED REPEATEDLY: 'ONLY ONE BACH! ONLY ONE BACH!' HANDEL'S BIRTHPLACE, HALLE, SAXONY BECKONED SILENTLY TO THE REST TO FOLLOW HIM HE CALLED TO THE COACHMAN TO STOP THE DUKE PRAISED HIS PERFORMANCE A RESORT TO SWORDS A GRAND PROCESSION OF DECORATED BARGES FROM WHITEHALL TO LIMEHOUSE THE STROKES OF HIS HAMMER ON THE ANVIL KEPT TIME TO HIS SONG 'DID NOT YOU SAY YOU COULD SING AT SIGHT?' 'YES, SIR, BUT NOT AT FIRST SIGHT!' HE WAS IMITATING THE PLAYING OF A VIOLIN ST. STEPHEN'S CATHEDRAL, VIENNA HE MANAGED TO SAVE SUFFICIENT TO PURCHASE TWO VOLUMES THE TANTALISING PIGTAIL 'WHOSE MUSIC IS THAT WHICH YOU WERE PLAYING JUST NOW?' HAYDN ENJOYED HIS FIRST SIGHT OF THE WAVES LISSON GROVE A CENTURY AGO HAYDN'S EYES FILLED WITH TEARS HE PAID NO HEED TO THE ENTRY OF A SERVANT THEY REMAINED STANDING, ROOTED TO THE SPOT PLAYED BEFORE THE COURT AT VERSAILLES CHELSEA AT THAT TIME WAS A RIVERSIDE VILLAGE THE CARRIAGE WHICH WAS TO CONVEY THE TRAVELLERS DREW UP AT THE DOOR 'THERE IS THE DOOR!' 'NOW THEN, LUDWIG, TIME FOR PRACTICE!' 'PAY ATTENTION TO THIS YOUNG MAN, FOR HE WILL MAKE A NOISE IN THE WORLD SOME DAY' SEATED BEFORE AN OLD, WORN-OUT 30 38 41 44 46 55 63 66 76 94 101 104 109 117 133 135 145 152 160 164 167 188 199 220 [xii] 228 PIANO HAYDN PRAISED THE COMPOSITION HIGHLY TAKING HIS HAND, TURNED HIM ROUND TO THE AUDIENCE THEY INDULGED IN JOKES AT THE EXPENSE OF THE SPECTACLED BOY HIS CLEVER PLAYING ATTRACTED THE ATTENTION OF THE LEADER MANY EVENINGS WERE PASSED IN MUSICAL ENJOYMENT THEY FOUND SCHUBERT HARD AT WORK SCHUBERT FLED FROM THE ROOM 'HERE IS A GENTLEMAN WHO KNOWS ALL ABOUT THE NEW OPERA' THE TUTOR'S CARRIAGE MET THEM 'THE SUCCESS WAS BEYOND WHAT I COULD HAVE DREAMED' 'WOULD NOT THAT BE SPLENDID FOR AN ORATORIO!' 230 233 255 273 275 282 291 302 325 330 348 362 PORTRAITS BEETHOVEN BACH HANDEL HAYDN MOZART SCHUBERT MENDELSSOHN Frontispiece 5 39 91 153 271 317 BACH [3] STORY-LIVES OF GREAT MUSICIANS BACH hristoph, I wish you would let me have that book of manuscript music which you have in your cupboard—the one which contains pieces by Pachelbel, and Frohberger, and Buxtehude, and ever so many others—you know which I mean. I will take such care of it if you will only lend it to me for a little while.' Christoph was about to leave the room, but he turned sharply to his little brother as the latter put his request. 'No, Sebastian, I will certainly not lend you the book, and I wonder that you have the impertinence to ask me such a thing! The idea of your thinking that you could study such masters as Buxtehude and Frohberger—a child like you! Get on with what I have set you to learn, and do not let me hear any more of such fancies!' With that Christoph shut the door behind him, and Sebastian was left to ponder sadly upon his elder brother's harshness in refusing to accede to his simple request. The disappointment was very keen, for little Sebastian had been longing to get possession of that precious volume. For several days past he had spent hours in his brother's absence gazing at its covers through the lattice doors of the cupboard, and feasting his eyes upon the names of the musicians which were written on the back in bold letters in Christoph's hand. [4] ToC 'Gazing at its covers through the lattice doors of the cupboard. ' What harm could there be in his trying to play the works of those masters? It seemed so unreasonable to the ten-year-old child, for he was passionately fond of music, and exceedingly quick at learning; yet Christoph persistently kept him to simple pieces such as he could master without the slightest difficulty, and which, therefore, afforded him no gratification whatever. He longed to be studying more advanced works, and there were times when this longing seemed insupportable—when the soul of this earnest child-musician rose in revolt against the tyrannical treatment of his elder brother. Christoph's lack of appreciation of Sebastian's capacity and gift for music was, moreover, so marked as to crush the feelings of love and respect which otherwise would have found a place in Sebastian's heart for the brother whom the sad circumstances of his childhood had made his guardian. ToList [5] From Photo RISCHGITZ. BACH. Johann Sebastian Bach, as the young musician was named, was an orphan. Ten years before the period at which our story opens—on March 21, 1685—he had first seen the light in the long, low-roofed cottage, which is still standing in the little German town of Eisenach, nestling at the foot of the wooded heights which form part of the romantically beautiful district of the Thuringer Wald. It is a country abounding in legendary lore, which, taking its birth from the recesses of the interminable forest, and perpetuated in ballad, has for ages found a home in the sequestered valleys lying locked between the hills. On one of the latter, overlooking the town, stands the Wartburg, in which Luther made his home, and where he translated the Bible into the German tongue. Sebastian's father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, organist of Eisenach, was the descendant of a long race of musicians of the name who had followed music not merely as a means of livelihood, but with the earnest desire of furthering its artistic aims. For close upon two hundred years before Sebastian was born the family of Bach had thus laboured to develop and improve their art in the only direction in which it was practised in the Germany of those days—namely, as a fitting accompaniment to the simple, but deeply devotional, services of the Lutheran Church. So greatly had the influence of this ancient and closelyunited family made itself felt in regard to church music that at Erfurt, where its members had practised the art for generations, all musicians were known as 'the Bachs,' although no Bach had actually resided in the town for many years. That Sebastian should have shown a fondness for music at a very early age is not, therefore, to be wondered at; but, beyond learning the violin from his father, he had not progressed far in his studies when, in his tenth year, he found himself bereft of both his parents and taken into the charge of his brother Christoph, who filled the post of organist at the neighbouring town of Ohrdruff. Christoph, who was fourteen years older than Sebastian, possessed nothing more than an ordinary amount of talent for music, and in addition lacked the sense to appreciate the gift which his little brother at once began to display in response to his teaching. To give Sebastian lessons on the clavier and send him to the Lyceum to learn Latin and singing and other school subjects seemed to Christoph to comprise the full extent of his responsibilities; but that Sebastian possessed genius which called for sympathy and encouragement at his ha