Scan 30
Musical Courier 1892-12-21: Vol 25 Iss 668, 1892
66 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 23. See the scan on archive.org.
1ment for the inspection of more Mozart manuscripts. On his return to his lodgings he found a most flattering note awaiting him from one of the dignitaries of the cathedral. A number of original manuscripts by the great Mozart had just come to light in the church library, and the Governor, as an eminent amateur, was invited to attend a private rehearsal from the same.
3The next day the Chatelaine made a visit to the Ursuline convent on the Nonnberg. The lady superior was more than gracious and from her own private cabinet she abstracted a bit of music which she charged the Chatelaine to convey to her distinguished relative—a little song in the own, authenticated hand of their beloved Wolfgang Amadeus. When Bertha placed this offering in her godfather's hands the old gentleman gave a quiet sigh, for a lad was then waiting below for an answer to a note that he had brought from the shop in the Gittengasse—other Mozart manuscripts having developed in that dusky quarter—while before him on the table lay the prospectus of a publisher who was shortly to bring out a series of Mozart quartets, just discovered. When the Governor sallied forth the next morning a seedy looking individual who had been waiting half an hour on the pavement opposite thrust his hand into the inside pocket of a shabby coat as he came stepping rapidly across the street. But the Governor turned his head the other way and hurried on without stopping.
5On their last day they climbed up once more to Hohen-Salzburg to pay to the Canterbury of Germany the parting tribute of a final general view. They indulged in a modest little luncheon at the restaurant which offers refreshment at the entrance to the castle. Here, while Zeitgeist was settling the score, and the rest were endeavoring to fasten a lasting impression of so much beauty on their minds, a waiter slid up confidentially alongside the Governor with his fingers fumbling in his waistcoat pocket, Fin de Siècle looking on with a smile in which suspicion might have detected a trace of the sardonic. Would his lordship be pleased to look at a bit of music, genuine beyond all doubt and written by no less a master than ——. The Governor turned a look of pleading expostulation upon him, collected his young people and hurried down the hillside in all haste. On their way to the station a boy who stood on a crossing waiting for their cab to pass jerked a paper from a bundle that he carried under his arm and thrust it out toward the Governor. The old gentleman shuddered and commanded the cab driver, through the other window, to prod up his lagging beast. And as the train pulled out, he sighed a sigh of relief at the thought that while the land to which they were bound was indeed a land of song, yet the music of the Tyrol was of a kind not generally committed to paper.—London "Magazine of Music."
7Johann Sebastian Bach, the Shakespeare of Music.
9A NEWLY arrived traveler in Colorado, coming down from his room about an hour before breakfast time, told the proprietor of the hotel that he would take a little walk to the foot of a mountain he saw nearby, and be back in season for his meal. He was much amazed on being informed that the little walk he proposed to take would require the whole day for its performance. The truth was that the air at this altitude was so thin and pure that it made apparent distances most deceptive. All estimates of these based on experience at lower levels were quite worthless. So it is with Bach, the granite foundation and mountainous landmark in all true musical education. He has his own distance, magnitude and atmosphere, and pupils who measure their approaches to a just understanding of him by standards applicable to ordinary composers are in danger of serious error. Yet how many performers manipulate his notes as if they were written by a Czerny, and think them monotonous! In appearance they do not differ from other notes; but in fact they differ as much as men who have deep hearts differ from men who have long purses. Bach never deals in trivialities, never twiddles. Neither does he aim at producing startling effects. His pleasingness is like that of the beauty of a fine day in nature, springing from causes too great for egotism or vanity. His object is always to bless, and not to astonish. His spirit is not ambition but consecration.
11His time furnished musical instruments only of a very imperfect pattern. Therefore most passages in his works are best adapted for the organ and most easily repeated with the pedals. His notes are the holy offspring of a perfect marriage of physical and mental power; and they speak fittingly to our souls only when touched by pure and richly endowed nature. The present time is sadly deficient in appreciation of such an author, and thereby loses much instruction and enjoyment of the most elevated kind. The average student is overawed by the popular idea that the works of Bach are extremely difficult to understand; and so he makes his escape by a formal bow to a few inventions, suites, and a fugue or two; and to close all argument salutes them with unmeaning praise. But "Give us this day our daily bread" is not the whole of the divine prayer, nor, indeed, the deepest part of it.
13The commonest things may secure the widest attention, but they are not on that account to be considered equal to the highest and most sacred things. A store where all the articles of domestic use are sold is sure to draw the multitude, who are more apt to neglect the temple of divine things. Goethe says: "Wer Vieles bringt, bringt jedem Etwas"—who brings much, brings something for everybody. Why, then, we naturally ask, are the great ideas of Bach so little appreciated? He, too, has something for all, even if his heights are too sublime for the crowd. Why should amateurs be afraid of him and keep at a distance? In merely earthy and social matters the amateur demands the best that is to be had. Why, in musical matters, should he turn away from this most rich and mighty master, Bach, and give his attention to the senseless rubbish displayed on public counters—stuff whose proper place is the ash barrel! I know many skillful players who could easily rise very high if they had but the courage and aspiration to leave these trashy compositions behind them and gain a real acquaintance with the nobler order of works in their art furnished by the genuine masters.
15If they would give one-fourth of the time they now waste on worthlessness to mastering the supreme examples of really good music, now ignorantly dreaded and avoided, it would be surprising what an improvement they would make. Let the student go farther and study the marvelous "Well Tempered Clavichord" (for which no publisher could be found, and the engraving of which with his own hand during night hours caused Bach to become blind), his beautiful English suites and partitas, and the stupendous first chorus of the Passion Music, according to St. Matthew, in which a double chorus, a full orchestra, an organ and a chorale find room to worship the Creator as he was never before worshipped.
17The basses in this number appear like a huge pendulum, each motion recording a birth and a death in our race. Each voice has its own orbit, and they all move without friction or collision, as so many planets moving in space. Many of the arias are full of repose and sweetness, giving out a light that seems to come direct from a higher world. The one with the violin solo opening—No. 47 in B minor—"O pardon me, my God, and on my tears have pity," is, to my thinking, nearer to God than any other music ever penned by man. In the recitatives the musical sentences speak as if they were so many human beings. Other numbers are of fascinating interest and of so vast a conception as to make us doubt their origin on earth. And what shall be said of the final chorus! Such comfort is in it that it is effectual even when our mother has gone from us and our sun has set invertedly in the East so that it can rise no more. In order to gain an accurate knowledge of such a work one must join the chorus and attend many rehearsals. The mere listening to a few performances is insufficient and will not prove of much use. There are two more of these works—the Passion according to St. John, and the Passion according to St. Luke—rather unjustly neglected in favor of the first named. Having spent one life in studying the bewildering grandeur of these mighty works of Bach, the student needs another life to do justice to the fifty-two cantatas—one for each week in the year—his organ works and concertos for various instruments, and also those for string orchestra. These finished he will be able, perhaps, to form a just opinion of the most modern composers and know the difference between food and wind.
19Some of these recent composers—and many in my dear Fatherland—are now having their day, owing to the craze for novelty. This is bad for them, because they are thus picked when green; worse still for the public, because turmoil and confusion usurp the place of sound knowledge of pure art. They should be thrown back into the sea to grow, as the law prescribes when too small lobsters are taken. Such "robustious, periwig pated fellows tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings;" and a noble orchestra, capable of presenting the exquisite rainbow and halo effects in the slow movement of Schubert's unfinished symphony, should not be turned into a boiler factory, even if the satisfied audience has been obtained at an auction. They should take this message to heart: "For I must tell you friendly in your ear, sell when you can; you are not for all markets."
21Our traveler has now reached the mountain and understands why he cannot be back at the hotel in time for breakfast. Having taken so much trouble he will probably change his intended trip and not return to the cheap jacks of the lowlands, but thank God for the faculties and the nourishment he finds at the altitude he has attained. As Bach has supplied mankind with the most wholesome spiritual nutriment in such generous quantity, giving us, as one may say, a musical atlas whose maps exhibit all that head and heart and soul can crave, we should be grateful to him all over this beautiful and richly endowed land, and by reverently studying his productions become better friends with our own best powers. By thus cultivating a sounder and higher taste we shall learn more sincerely to love what needs to be but once well learned to prove a life long happiness—true music.
23Let me close this imperfect expression of my heartfelt wish with the perfect expression given by Shakespeare in the following immortal lines; for it seems to me that much the same spirit speaks through these brother geniuses, Bach and Shakespeare, the one finding vent in musical sound, the other in musical verse:
25When I consider everything that grows—
26Holds in perfection but a little moment,
27That this huge stage presents nought but shows
28Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
29When I perceive that men as plants increase,
30Cheered and check'd even by the self same sky,
31Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
32And wear their brave state out of memory;
33Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
34Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
35Where wasteful Time debateath with Decay,
36To change your day of youth to sullied night;
37And all in war with Time for love of you.
38As he takes from you, I engraft you new.
39—Ernst Perabo, in Boston "Weekly Transcript."
41Mascagni's Triumphs.
43RECENT photographs of the composer of "Cavalleria Rusticana" show that Mascagni is cultivating a small moustache. The word cultivating is used advisedly. Although his head is crowned by a great mass of hair that generally appears innocent of brush and comb, the young composer has trouble in raising the beard that is deemed essential to musicians in Italy. When Pietro Mascagni, then unknown and living in absolute poverty, decided to enter the competition offered by the publisher Sonzogno, he came to the conclusion that his extremely boyish appearance would militate against his chances of gaining the prize. So he laid aside the razor as he took up the pen, and remained a Nazarene until the score was finished. At the end of that time Mascagni's beard was far from being as symmetrical as his music. But his whiskers, although sparse, were sufficient to change the poetic looking Italian into the semblance of a German professor. When the Sonzogno award was announced, and the author of the winning composition rushed enthusiastically into the publisher's office to claim the prize, nobody recognized him. He was told that he must be identified before the money could be paid to him.
45The poor musician had long dwelt in the outskirts of Milan and his acquaintances were only among the peasantry. He was leaving the office disappointedly to seek out the landlord of an inn at which he sometimes stopped on his infrequent visits to the city, when he happened to meet a man whose daughter he had instructed on the piano.
47"Signor," he cried nervously, "I have won the Sonzogno prize—I, Pietro Mascagni. They do not know me. Will you tell them that I am he—that I am Pietro Mascagni?"
49The man looked at him in amazement.
51"You are not Mascagni," he said, sharply. "You are some cheat that intends to impose on honest Mr. Sonzogno."
53"I am no cheat," cried the author. "I am indeed Pietro Mascagni, who taught your daughter on the piano."
55"Nay," returned the other, "I remember Mascagni well. He was a smooth faced youth and you are a bearded man."
57The composer immediately covered his lower face with his hands. "Now, do you remember me?" he asked anxiously. The man recognized his eyes and forehead, and returning with the now almost demented musician secured the publisher's money for its rightful owner. Mascagni rushed home to his wife with the coveted money, which, although a pittance, was more than either had ever possessed before.
59The young wife was too nervously excited to cook a dinner that day, and the happy couple, with their children, celebrated the event by going to a restaurant and consuming the very best meal that the landlord could serve.
61Mascagni, who related this experience to Fernando Valero, the creator of "Turiddu," declared that at the time he never thought either of fame or further commissions for operas. His entire joy that day was centred on the possession of the $100 paid by Sonzogno for his first composition.
63It is not without curious interest to note that at present Mascagni, who burst from obscurity three years ago with a suddenness and brilliancy that we hourly expect in the comet of Biela, is now compelled to employ two secretaries who are engaged in answering his enormous correspondence from managers, librettists and impresarios. The cable constantly acquaints us with the ovations tendered to the composer in public. But a letter from a correspondent in Milan is not less interesting in its intelligence of the fact that during a recent visit to the Mascagnis the now famous musician was discovered assisting his secretaries in looking over a pile of 1,100 librettos that had been sent to the composer for examination and possible use.
65Meanwhile the new genius is cultivating his moustache and his talent with equal assiduity. The dress rehearsal of his latest work, "Les Rautzau," at Pergola, was attended recently by an audience of critics and artists from all parts of Europe. In this opera the author is said to have excelled himself. Competent judges declare that the work is full of dramatic power, delightful lyrics and splendid orchestration. No matter how Mascagni's whiskers grow at present the breath of fame still wafts their owner into prosperity.—"Sun."
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