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Musical Courier 1926-05-20: Vol 92 Iss 20, 1926
83 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026. Printed page 7. See the scan on archive.org.
1VERSAILLES AND MUSIC
2By Clarence Lucas
4Everybody goes to Versailles, if possible, not necessarily with the intent of dying immediately, after the manner the conceited Neapolitans think a visitor to Naples should die, but to gaze on the remains of departed splendor or spend a pleasant afternoon in the royal gardens. When the fountains play on the first Sunday of the month all the trains and trams are crowded to their utmost capacity with Parisians, who flock in thousands to the town which lies about twelve miles beyond the southwestern walls of Paris.
6During the Easter holidays the English tourist is most in evidence, and in July and August the American visitor is the most conspicuous object on the landscape throughout the palace.
8Occasionally Versailles receives* decidedly unpleasant strangers. A hundred and thirty-odd years ago the market women marched from Paris across the old bridge at Sèvres and came tumultuously to Versailles to demand reforms. Those dark days of the Revolution were most unwelcome to the aristocrats who then dwelt in the now deserted palace.
10The Duke of Wellington was not looked upon with very friendly eyes when he visited the palace of Versailles as commander-in-chief of the Allies after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. Half-a-century later the Prussians occupied the town. William I of Germany had himself proclaimed Emperor during his occupancy of the palace in 1870-71.
12In 1783, France and England signed a treaty of peace in the same palace where Germany came to sign at the end of the recent World War.
14The fame of Versailles rests on its history as a royal palace during the reigns of Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI. Every room, every terrace, every shadowy alley under the magnificent trees, is haunted with memories of kings and gallants, royal ladies and adventuresses, poets and artists, military commanders, statesmen, musicians, prelates, actors, and the social lions of their hour.
16Louis XIV, the fighting king of France, whose armies marched victoriously across the Continent, was attracted to the young Italian violinist, Lulli, whom he promoted to his orchestra and eventually made court composer. But Lulli, who is better known by the French name of Lully, had very little to do at Versailles during the reign of his august patron, because the opera house of the palace was finished only in the reign of Louis XV.
18The opera house of the Palace of Versailles was inaugurated by a festival in honor of the marriage of the Dauphin (afterwards Louis XVI), and Marie Antoinette. On the evening of the next day, that is to say, May 17, 1770, Lully's Persée, an opera with words by Quinault, was performed. At that date the opera was eighty-eight years old, and the composer had been eighty-two years in his grave. Lully's Elogue de Versailles, a divertissement, was produced in 1685, the year in which Bach and Handel were born in Germany.
20The chapel of the palace, which was the last of the great architectural works undertaken by Louis XIV, was opened by the Cardinal de Noailles on June 5, 1770. The chapel of Versailles, which preceded the magnificent structure in the palace, had as organist the great François Couperin from the year 1693 to 1696, when he was called to the church of Saint Gervais in Paris.
22Rameau's connection with Versailles is very slight. His opera, La Princesse de Navarre, with words by Voltaire, was produced in a theater somewhere in the town of Versailles in 1745. The second opera given in the new opera house was Rameau's masterpiece, Castor et Pollux, on June 9, 1770. On May 29, 1783, Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide, Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable, and an intermezzo by Auber, Les Fêtes de Versailles. Since that date there has been no operatic performance in the opera house of the palace of Versailles.
24On February 21, 1873, Saint-Saëns and Widor opened the new organ in the chapel of Versailles.
26Violinists in particular may be interested to know that Rudolph Kreutzer, composer of the famous Forty Studies for the violin, was born in the town of Versailles in 1766. He was one of the four great founders of the French school of violin playing, and to him Beethoven dedicated the sonata for violin and piano which is known to the musical world as the Kreutzer sonata—a sonata which has survived the attack of Tolstoi, who considered it immoral.
28Marie Antoinette was so pleased with the playing of Kreutzer that she had him appointed first violinist of the king's chapel.
30It is not easy at this distant day to discover what kind of music Kreutzer liked to play to the court. We know on good authority, however, that Kreutzer disliked Beethoven's sonata and would not play it. Marie Antoinette herself was more or less of a musical amateur. She played the harpsichord. Her mute and neglected instrument still stands in the music room of the Trianon as if awaiting the touch of the fair fingers of her who fell a victim to the mob in 1793.
32MARIE ANTOINETTE
34To the American and English readers, if not to the French, the most interesting personality connected with Versailles is probably that of Marie Antoinette. She came as a young girl from Austria to the palace as the future bride of the Dauphin, who eventually became King Louis XVI. With scarcely any education and with little culture, she was plunged at once into the loose morals of the court life during the reign of Louis XV. The ruling passion of her life was gambling. Her royal husband was compelled on several occasions to furnish enormous sums from the treasury of the nation to pay her debts of honor, as they were called in those days of gallantry. Her wild extravagance was in no small measure a deciding factor in bringing the Revolution to a head. Had she been a woman of great tact and judgment she might have delayed the outburst of national fury, or perhaps have allayed it. But she could not even preserve harmony in the court life at Versailles. There were two factions in constant rivalry. The arrival of Gluck in Paris happened at a time when the rival faction was proclaiming the merits of Piccini. Marie Antoinette, who had taken a few lessons in singing from Gluck during her girlhood in Vienna, at once put forward her old singing master as a rival to the other faction's Piccini.
36The violence of this most ridiculous musical war in history will be better understood if the reader will bear in mind the intense political, or rather, social, rivalry between the two court parties. Gluck and Piccini did not enter into the quarrel at all. They were friends.
38In an article called Memoir of Piccini, which was published in London in 1820, it is stated that Berton, the director of the Opera, gave a great supper, when Gluck and Piccini sat side by side.
40"They conversed during the repast with great cordiality. At the dessert, Gluck, a little warmed by wine, assumed an air of frankness and began to talk so as to be heard by all present. The French, said he, are good sort of people, but they make me laugh. They wish to have songs composed for them and they cannot sing. My dear friend, you are a man celebrated throughout Europe. You only think of sustaining your reputation. You compose beautiful music for them. Are you any better for it? Believe me, you must here think of gaining money, and of nothing else."
42"They separated as they had met, and there is no doubt but that these demonstrations were sincere. Yet the war of which they were the cause did not cease."
44The warfare did not cease because the rival factions at Versailles continued it. It was at its height in 1776 when the English colonies in America began their quarrel with the King of England.
46The little Mozart went to Paris and Versailles in 1764 when he was a wonder child of seven years of age, and was received with astonishment and delight by the court.
48Marie Antoinette, who was one year older than Mozart, was still under her mother's care in Vienna. In 1766 Mozart played again in the palace of Versailles, exciting less interest at ten years of age than when he was seven. When Mozart went to Paris for the third time he found the city and the court absorbed in the Gluck-Piccini war which was still raging in 1778. Marie Antoinette, who had become queen of France in 1774 at the age of nineteen, was now twenty-three, and she passed her time in sports and gambling, caring little for music and art, and still less for her dull husband, the King. As Mozart was of no importance in the rivalry of the court factions he had no support from the queen who had pitted Gluck against the favorite composer of her rivals. Versailles became a place of bitter disappointment to Mozart.
50The notorious affair of the diamond necklace in 1784-6 was accepted by the sullen public as another proof of the queen's extravagance, and her friendship for the handsome and manly Count Fersen of Sweden, probably the only man she ever loved, was exaggerated into infidelity to the king. Indiscreet but not immoral, frivolous but not malicious, Marie Antoinette fell a victim to the mob's anger in 1793, when her head, with its blonde hair already grey, was severed from her body by the guillotine.
52A HUNTING LODGE
54Versailles was formerly a favorite hunting ground for King Louis XIII. Here he had his lodge, and here he wished to retire to meditate when the modest and virtuous Louise de la Fayette fled in horror from his advances and became a nun.
56The successors of Louis XIII more tactfully made proposals to ladies who were less anxious to flee.
58Madame de Maintenon exerted an almost boundless influence over the great military king, Louis XIV, who built the palace of Versailles. Louis XV was more profligate and pleasure loving. His court was ruled by Madame de Pompadour, and later by Madame du Barry. It was during this period, when French morals were at their lowest ebb, that the young and ignorant Marie Antoinette was brought from Vienna to live in Versailles.
60The palace of Versailles still stands, but its glory has departed. It is bare and dreary for the most part, with a collection of melancholy remains of former grandeur in a few of the countless rooms. What a desolate sight would the great king see if he returned to his royal palace! The garden side of the building is 1885 feet long. Compare that expanse of wall with the modest 715 feet across the widest part of the Capitol at Washington, or the 970 feet of the
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64HISTORIC POINTS OF INTEREST AT VERSAILLES.
66(1) The old cobble stones of the courtyard, a monument to Cardinal Richelieu, with the peaked roof of the chapel in the distance. (2) The crumbling walls around the lake, and the weeds on the lawns. (3) A flute player without fingers. The wooden paling shuts off a part of the garden that is completely covered with weeds and creepers. (4) Part of the marble colonnade around the marble group representing the abduction of Proserpine. (Photos made by Clarence Lucas especially for the MUSICAL COURIER.)
68SPARTANBURG, S. C., HOLDS THIRTY-FIRST FESTIVAL
70SPARTANBURG, S. C.—The thirty-first music festival in Spartanburg, S. C., May 5, 6 and 7, was one of the most successful ever given. One great asset was the presence of Ossip Gabrilowitsch and his Detroit Symphony Orchestra. He brought with him his assistant conductor, Victor Kolar, who came to Spartanburg years ago as first violinist in Damrosch's orchestra.
72The Converse College Chorus Society surpassed itself and scored particularly on Oratorio Night, May 5, in the choruses from Elijah. Frederick Wodell conducted and is to be heartily congratulated on his chorus. Four fine artists assisted—Ethyl Hayden, of the Metropolitan Opera; Nevada Van der Veer, oratorio contralto of high repute; Allen McQuhae, tenor, and Fred Patton, baritone, who as Elijah sung splendidly. His first concert of Mendelssohn's oratorio was inspiring and the audience went home well satisfied at such an auspicious beginning.
74Mr. Gabrilowitsch and his orchestra gave a Russian program at the matinee on May 6. Mr. Gabrilowitsch conducted his orchestra without score, and the attention his men gave him showed the fine discipline he maintains. His Russian program was the heaviest given at the festival. The symphony No. 5 in E minor, Tchaikowsky, was splendidly played, and after conducting half the program Mr. Gabrilowitsch sat down at the piano and played the second concerto by Rachmaninoff with his usual virile, ringing tone and technical excellence, Victor Kolar conducting. The audience recalled Mr. Gabrilowitsch many times. He had won them last year when he came to Spartanburg as a pianist, and from the fervor of their applause it is certain that Spartanburg wants him and his orchestra back again.
76Scenes from Carmen went off with great eclat. Merle Alcock in the title role, Louise Hunter as Micaela, Wendall Hart as Don Jose, and William Burke as the Toreador, ably acquitted themselves. Merle Alcock is an old favorite in Spartanburg and Louise Hunter won her way by her dainty prettiness and her lyric soprano voice.
78The children's chorus, 500 strong, directed by Mrs. B. L. Blackwell, attracted a big audience on Friday afternoon. Mrs. Blackwell chose the Lady of Shalott by Bendall for the chorus. Victor Kolar conducted the orchestra, and Mrs. Blackwell the children. To their credit they sang with accuracy and nice attack. The audience applauded violently. Ethyl Hayden sang Depuis le Jour, from Louise, beautifully. This aria suits her lovely lyric soprano to perfection. For the pleasure of the children she then sang a group of songs about children, and the orchestra, under Mr. Kolar's baton, played appropriate selections.
80A brilliant audience turned out on Artists' Night to hear Luella Melius, coloratura soprano, and Richard Bonelli, baritone of the Chicago Civic Opera Company. Melius and Bonelli were warmly greeted. Mme. Melius sang foreign songs until encored. The artists were recalled many times.
82It was generally felt that the thirty-first festival was an unqualified musical success. Mr. Wodell is to be congratulated on his artists, orchestra and chorus, which latter showed his fine training in the best ensemble singing Spartanburg has heard for years.
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