Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Volume 14

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The moody and dispirited Johann one day conceived a bright thought--a
thought so vivid that for the moment it cleared the cobwebs from his
mind and sobered his boozy brain--the genius of his five-year-old boy
should be exploited to retrieve his battered fortunes!

The child was already showing signs of musical talent; and diligent
practise was now begun. Several chums at the beer-gardens were
interviewed and great plans unfolded in beery enthusiasm. The services
of several of these men were secured as tutors, and one of them,
Pfeiffer, took lodgings with the Biethofens, and paid for bed and board
in music-lessons.

A new thought is purifying, ideas are hygienic; and already things had
begun to look brighter for the household. It wasn't exactly prosperity,
but Johann had found a place in the band, and was earning as much as
three dollars a week, which amount for two weeks running he brought home
and placed in his wife's lap.

But things were grievous for young Beethoven: he had two taskmasters,
his father and Pfeiffer. One gave him lessons on the violin in the
morning, and the other took him to a tavern where there was a clavichord
and made him play all the afternoon.

Then occasionally Johann and Pfeiffer would come home at two o'clock in
the morning from a concert where they had been playing and where the
wine was red and also free, and they would drag the poor child from his
bed to make him play. This was followed up until the boy's mother
rebelled, and on one occasion Pfeiffer and Johann were sent to the
military hospital and dry-docked for repairs.

On the whole, this man Pfeiffer was kindly and usually capable. In
after-years Beethoven testified to the valuable assistance he had
received from him; and when Pfeiffer had grown old and helpless,
Beethoven sent funds to him by the publishers, Simrock.

Young Ludwig was a stocky, sturdy youth, decidedly Dutch in his
characteristics, with no nerves to speak of, else he would have laid him
down and died of heart-chill and neglect, as did four of his little
brothers and sisters. But he stood the ordeals, and at parlor, tavern
and beer-garden entertainments where he played, although his cheeks
were often stained with tears, he took a sort of secret pride in being
able to do things which even his father could not. And then he was
always introduced as "Ludvig Biethofen, the grandchild of Ludvig van
Biethofen," and this was no mean introduction. His appearance, even
then, bore strong resemblance to the lost and lamented grandfather; and
Van den Eeden, the Court Organist, in loving remembrance of his Antwerp
friend, took the lad into his keeping and gave him lessons. When Van den
Eeden retired, Neefe, his successor, took a kindly interest in the boy
and even protected him from his father and the zealous Pfeiffer. So well
was the boy thought of that when he was twelve years of age Neefe
established him as his deputy at the chapel organ.

Shortly after this, the new Elector, Max Friedrich, bestowed on "Louis
van Beethoven, my well-beloved player upon the organ and clavichord, a
stipend of one hundred fifty florins a year, and if his talent doth
increase with his years the amount is to be also increased."

In token of the Elector's recognition Beethoven wrote three sonatas, the
earliest of his compositions, and dedicated them to Max Friedrich in
Seventeen Hundred Eighty-two.

In Seventeen Hundred Eighty-four, Elector Max Friedrich died, and Max
Franz was appointed to take his place. His inauguration was the signal
for a renewal of musical and artistic activity. Concerts, shows and
military pageants followed the installation. In a list of court
appointments we find that Louis van Beethoven is put down as "second
organist" with a salary of forty-five pounds a year. Below this is
Johann Beethoven with a salary of thirty pounds a year. And in one of
the court journals mention is made of Johann Beethoven with the added
line, "father of Ludwig Beethoven," showing even then the man's source
of distinction.

In Seventeen Hundred Eighty-seven, when in his eighteenth year,
Beethoven made a visit to Vienna in company with several musicians from
the Elector's court at Bonn. This visit was a memorable event in the
life of the Master, every detail of which was deeply etched upon his
memory, to be effaced only by death.

It was on this visit to Vienna that he met Mozart, and played for him.
Mozart gave due attention, and when the player had ceased he turned to
the company and said, "Keep your eye on this youth--he will yet make a
noise in the world!"

The remark, if closely analyzed, reveals itself as noncommittal; and
although it has been bruited as praise the round world over, it was
probably an electrotyped expression, used daily; for great musicians are
called upon at every turn to listen to prodigies. I once attended
"rhetoricals" where the Honorable Chauncey M. Depew was present. Being
called upon to "make a few remarks," the Senator from New York arose and
referred to one of the speeches given by a certain sophomore as "unlike
anything I ever heard before!" Genius very seldom recognizes genius.

Beethoven had a self-sufficiency, even at that early time, that stood
him in good stead. He felt his power, and knew his worth. That
steadfast, obstinate quality in his make-up was not in vain. He let
others quote Mozart's remark; but he had matched himself against the
Master, and was not abashed.

* * * * *

Kinship is a question of spirit and not a matter of blood. How often do
we find persons who, in feeling, are absolutely strangers to their own
brothers and sisters! Occasionally even parents fail to understand their
children. The child may hunger for sympathy and love that the mother
knows nothing of, and cry itself to sleep for a tenderness withheld.
Later this same child may evolve aspirations and ambitions that seem to
the other members of the family mere whims and vagaries to be laughed
down, or stoutly endured, as the mood prompts.

Knowing these things, do we wonder at the question of long ago, "Who is
my mother, and who are my brethren"? Beethoven was a beautiful brown
thrush in a nest of cuckoos. He could sing and sing divinely, and the
members of his household were glad because it brought an income in which
they all shared.

About the year Seventeen Hundred Ninety-five, Beethoven went to Vienna,
and as he had been heralded by several persons of influence, his
reception was gracious. Charity has its periods of evolving into a fad,
and at this time the fashion was musical entertainments in aid of this
or that. Slight suspicions exist that these numerous entertainments were
devised by fledgling musicians for their own aggrandizement, and
possibly patrons fanned the philanthropic flame to help on their
proteges. Beethoven was of too simple and guileless a nature to aid his
fortunes with the help of any social jimmy, but we see he was soon in
the full tide of local popularity. His ability as a composer, his virile
presence, and his skill as a player, made his company desired. From
playing first for charity, then at the houses of nobility, and next as a
professional musician, he gradually mounted to the place to which his
genius entitled him.

Then we find his brothers, Carl and Johann, appearing on the scene, with
a fussy yet earnest intent to take care of the business affairs of their
eccentric and absent-minded brother. Ludwig let himself fall into their
way of thinking--it was easier than to oppose them--and they began to
drive bargains with publishers and managers. Their intent was to sell
for cash and in the highest market; and their strenuous effort after the
Main Chance put their gifted brother in a bad plight before the world of
art. Beethoven's brothers seized his very early and immature
compositions and sold them without his consent or knowledge. So
humiliated was Beethoven by seeing these productions of his childhood
hawked about that he even instituted lawsuits to get them back that he
might destroy them. To boom a genius and cash his spiritual assets is a
grave and delicate task--perhaps it is one of those things that should
be left undone. Much anguish did these rapacious brothers cause the
divinely gifted brown thrush, and when they began to quarrel over the
receipts between themselves, he begged them to go away and leave him in
peace. He finally had to adopt the ruse of going back to Bonn with
them, where he got them established in the apothecary business, before
he dared manage his own affairs. But they were bad angels, and the wind
of their wings withered the great man as they hovered around him down to
the day of his death.

* * * * *

Then silence settled down upon Beethoven, and every piano was for him
mute, and he, the maker of sweet sounds, could not hear his own voice,
or catch the words that fell from the lips of those he loved, Fate
seemed to have done her worst.

And so he wrote: "Forgive me then if you see me turn away when I would
gladly mix with you. For me there is no recreation in human intercourse,
no conversation, no sweet interchange of thought. In solitary exile I am
compelled to live. When I approach strangers a feverish fear takes
possession of me, for I know that I will be misunderstood. * * * But O
God, Thou lookest down upon my inward soul! Thou knowest, and Thou seest
that love for my fellowmen, and all kindly feeling have their abode
here. Patience! I may get better--I may not--but I will endure all until
Death shall claim me, and then joyously will I go!"

The man who could so express himself at twenty-eight years of age must
have been a right brave and manly man. But art was his solace, as it
should be to every soul that aspires to become.

Great genius and great love can never be separated--in fact I am not
sure but that they are one and the same thing. But the object of his
love separated herself from Beethoven when calamity lowered. What woman,
young, bright, vigorous and fresh, with her face to the sunrising, would
care to link her fair fate with that of a man sore-stricken by the hand
of God!

And then there is always a doubt about the genius--isn't he only a fool
after all!

Art was Beethoven's solace. Art is harmony, beauty and excellence. The
province of art is to impart a sublime emotion. Beethoven's heart was
filled with divine love--and all love is divine--and through his art he
sought to express his love to others.

But his physical calamity made him the butt and byword of the heedless
wherever he went. Within the sealed-up casements of his soul Beethoven
heard the Heavenly Choir; and as he walked, bareheaded, upon the street,
oblivious to all, centered in his own silent world, he would sometimes
suddenly burst into song. At other times he would beat time, talk to
himself and laugh aloud. His strange actions would often attract a
crowd, and rude persons, ignorant of the man they mocked, would imitate
him or make mirth for the bystanders, as they sought to engage him in
conversation. At such times the Master might be dragged back to earth,
and seeing the coarse faces and knowing the hopelessness of trying to
make himself understood, he would retreat in terror.

Six months or more of each year were spent in the country in some
obscure village about Vienna. There he could walk the woods and traverse
the fields alone and unnoticed, and there, out under the open sky, much
of his best work was done. The famous "Moonlight Sonata" was shaped on
one of these lonely walks by night across the fields when the Master
could shake his shaggy head, lift up his face to the sky, and cry aloud,
all undisturbed. In the recesses of his imagination he saw the sounds.
There are men to whom sounds are invisible symbols of forms and colors.

The law of compensation never rests. Everything conspired to drive
Beethoven in upon his art--it was his refuge and retreat. When love
spurned him, and misunderstandings with kinsmen came, and lawsuits and
poverty added their weight of woe, he fell back upon music, and out
under the stars he listened to the sonatas of God. Next day he wrote
them out as best he could, always regretting that his translations were
not quite perfect. He was ever stung with a noble discontent, and in
times of exaltation there ran in his deaf ears the words, "Arise and get
thee hence, for this is not thy rest!"

And so his work was in a constant ascending scale. Richard Wagner has
acknowledged his indebtedness to Beethoven in several essays, and in
many ways. In fact it is not too much to say that Beethoven was the
spiritual parent of Wagner. From his admiration of Beethoven, Wagner
developed the strong, sturdy, independent quality of his nature that led
to his exile--and his success.

Behold the face of Ludwig Beethoven--is there not something Titanic
about it? What selfness, what will, what resolve, what power! And those
tear-stained eyes--have they not seen sights of which no tongue can
tell, nor tongue make plain?

His life of solitude helped foster the independence of his nature, and
kept his mind clear and free from all the idle gossip of the rabble. He
went his way alone, and played court fool to no titled and alleged
nobility. The democracy of the man is not our least excuse for honoring
him. He was one with the plain people of earth, and the only aristocracy
he acknowledged was the aristocracy of intellect.

In the work done after his fortieth year there is greater freedom, an
ease and an increased strength, with a daring quality which uplifts and
gives you courage. The tragic interest and intense emotionalism are
gone, and you behold a resignation and the success that wins by
yielding. The man is no longer at war with destiny. There is no
struggle.

We pay for everything we receive--nay, all things can be obtained if we
but pay the price. One of the very few Emancipated Men in America bought
redemption from the bondage of selfish ambition at a terrible price.
Years and years ago he was in the Rocky Mountains, rough, uneducated,
heedless of all that makes for righteousness. This man was caught in a
snowstorm, on the mountainside. He lost his way, became dazed with cold
and fell exhausted in the snow. When found by his companions the next
day, death had nearly claimed him. But skilful help brought him back to
life, yet the frost had killed the circulation in his feet. Both legs
were amputated just below the knees.

This changed the current of the man's life. Footraces, boxing-matches
and hunting of big game were out of the question. The man turned to
books and art and questions of science and sociology.

Thirty summers have come and gone. This gentle, sympathetic and loving
man now walks with a cane, and few know of his disability and of his
artificial feet. Speaking of his spiritual rebirth, this man of splendid
intellect said to me, with a smile, "It cost me my feet, but it was
worth the price."

I shed no maudlin tears over the misfortunes of Beethoven. He was what
he was because of what he endured. He grew strong by bearing burdens.
All things are equalized. By the Cross is the world redeemed. God be
praised, it is all good!

[Illustration: GEORGE HANDEL]

GEORGE HANDEL

When generations have been melted into tears, or raised to
religious fervor--when courses of sermons have been preached,
volumes of criticisms been written, and thousands of afflicted and
poor people supported by the oratorio of "The Messiah"--it becomes
exceedingly difficult to say anything new. Yet no notice of Handel,
however sketchy, should be written without some special tribute of
reverence to this sublime treatment of a sublime subject. Bach,
Graun, Beethoven, Spohr, Rossini and Mendelssohn have all composed
on the same theme. But no one in completeness, in range of effect,
in elevation and variety of conception, has ever approached
Handel's music upon this one subject.

--_Rev. H. R. Haweis_

GEORGE HANDEL

"Did you meet Michelangelo while you were in Rome?" asked a good Roycroft
girl of me the other day.

"No, my dear, no," I answered, and then I gulped hard to keep back some
very foolish tears. "No, I did not meet Michelangelo," I said, "I
expected to, and was always looking for him; but these eyes never looked
into his, for he died just three hundred years before I was born." But
how natural was this question from this bright, country girl! She had
been examining a lot of photographs of the Sistine Chapel, and had seen
pictures of "Il Penseroso," the "Night" and "Morning," the "Moses"; and
then she had seen on my desk a bronze cast of the hand of the
"David"--that imperial hand with the gently curved wrist.

These things lured her--the splendid strength and suggestion of power in
it all, had caught her fancy, and the heroic spirit of the Master seemed
very near to her. It all meant pulsating life and hope that was
deathless; and the thought that the man who did the work had turned to
dust three centuries ago, never occurred to this naive, budding soul.

"Did you see Michelangelo while you were in Rome?" No, dear girl, no.
But I saw Saint Peter's that he planned, and I saw the result of his
efforts--things worked out and materialized by his hands--hands that
surely were just like this hand of the "David."

The artist gives us his best--gives it to us forever, for our very own.
He grows aweary and lies down to sleep--to sleep and wake no more,
deeding to us the mintage of his love. And as love does not grow old,
neither does Art. Fashions change, but hope, aspiration and love are as
old as Fate who sits and spins the web of life. The Artist is one who is
educated in the three H's--head heart and hand. He is God's child--no
less are we--and he has done for us the things we would have liked to do
ourselves.

The classic is that which does not grow old--the classic is the
eternally true.

"Did you meet Michelangelo in Rome?" Why, it is the most natural
question in the world! At Stratford I expected to see Shakespeare; at
Weimar I was sure to meet Goethe; Rubens just eluded me at Antwerp; at
Amsterdam I caught a glimpse of Rembrandt; in the dim cloisters of Saint
Mark's at Florence I saw Savonarola in cowl and robe; over Whitehall in
London I beheld the hovering smoke of martyr-fires, and knew that just
beyond the walls Ridley and Latimer were burned; and only a little way
outside of Jerusalem a sign greets the disappointed traveler, thus: "He
is risen--He is not here!"

* * * * *

In one of his delightful talks--talks that are as fine as his feats of
leadership--Walter Damrosch has referred to Handel as a contemporary.
Surely the expression is fitting, for in the realm of truth time is an
illusion and the days are shadows.

George Frederick Handel was born in Sixteen Hundred Eighty-five, and
died in Seventeen Hundred Fifty-nine. His dust rests in Westminster
Abbey, and above the tomb towers his form cut in enduring marble. There
he stands, serene and poised, accepting benignly the homage of the
swift-passing generations. For over a hundred years this figure has
stood there in its colossal calm, and through the cathedral shrines, the
aisles, and winding ways of dome and tower, Handel's music still peals
its solemn harmonies.

At Exeter Hall is another statue of Handel, seated, holding in his hand
a lyre. At the Foundling Hospital (which he endowed) is a bust of the
Master, done in Seventeen Hundred Fifty-eight; and at Windsor is the
original of still another bust that has served for a copy of the very
many casts in plaster and clay that are in all the shops.

There are at least fifty different pictures of Handel, and nearly this
number were brought together, on the occasion of a recent Handel and
Haydn Festival, at South Kensington.

When Gladstone once referred to Handel as our greatest English
Composer, he refused to take it back even when a capricious critic
carped and sneezed.

Handel essentially belongs to England, for there his first battles were
fought, and there he won his final victory. To be sure, he did some
preliminary skirmishing in Germany and Italy; but that was only getting
his arms ready for that conflict which was to last for half a century--a
conflict with friends, foes and fools.

But Handel was too big a man to be undermined by either the fulsome
flattery of friends, or the malice of enemies, who were such only
because they did not understand. And so always to the fore he marched,
zigzagging occasionally, but the Voice said to him, as it did to
Columbus, "Sail on, and on, and on." Like the soul of John Brown, the
spirit of Handel goes marching on. And Sir Arthur Sullivan was right
when he said, "Musical England owes more to Father Handel than to any
other ten men who can be named--he led the way for us all, and cut out a
score that we can only imitate."

* * * * *

At the Court of George of Brunswick, at Hanover, in Seventeen Hundred
Nine, was George Frederick Handel, six feet one, weight one hundred
eighty, rubicund, rosy, and full of romp, aged twenty-four. George of
Brunswick was to have the felicity of being King George the First of
England, and already he was straining his gaze across the Channel.

At his Court were divers and sundry English noblemen. Handel was a prime
favorite with every one in the merry company. The ladies doted on him. A
few gentlemen, possibly, were slightly jealous of his social prowess,
and yet none pooh-poohed him openly, for only a short time before he had
broken a sword in a street duel with a brother musician, and once had
thrown a basso profundo, who sang off key, through a closed window--all
this to the advantage of a passing glazier, who, being called in, was
paid his fee three times over for repairing the sash. It's an ill wind,
etc.

Handel played the harpsichord well, but the organ better. In fact, he
played the organ in such a masterly way that he had no competitor, save
a phenomenal yokel by the name of Johann Sebastian Bach. These men were
born just a month apart. Saint Cecilia used to whisper to them when they
were wee babies. For several years they lived near each other, but in
this life they never met.

Handel was an aristocrat by nature, even if not exactly so by birth,
and so had nothing to do with the modest and bucolic Bach--even going so
far, they do say, as to leave, temporarily, the City of Halle, his
native place, when a contest was suggested between them. Bach was the
supreme culminating flower of two hundred fifty years of musical
ancestors--servants to this Grand Duke or that. But in the tribe of
Handel there was not a single musical trace. George Frederick succeeded
to the art, and at it, in spite of his parents. But never mind that! He
had been offered the post as successor to Buxtehude, and Buxtehude was
the greatest organist of his time. He accepted the invitation to play
for the Buxtehude contingent. A musical jury sat on the case, and
decided to accept the young man, with the proviso that Handel (taught by
Orpheus) should take to wife the daughter of Buxtehude--this in order
that the traditions might be preserved.

Young Handel declined the proposition with thanks, declaring he was
unworthy of the honor.

Young Handel had spent two years in Italy, had visited most of the
capitals of Europe, had composed several operas and numerous songs. He
was handsome, gracious and talented. Money may use its jimmy to break
into the Upper Circles; but to Beauty, Grace and Talent that does not
shiver nor shrink, all doors fly open. And now the English noblemen
requested--nay, insisted--that Handel should accompany them back to
Merry England.

He went, and being introduced as Signore Handello, he was received with
salvos of welcome. There is a time to plant, and a time to reap. There
is a time for everything--launch your boat only at full of tide. London
was ripe for Italian Opera. Discovery had recently been made in England
that Art was born in Italy. It had traveled as far as Holland, and so
Dutch artists were hard at work in English manor-houses, painting
portraits of ancestors, dead and living. Music, one branch of Art, had
made its way up to Germany, and here was an Italian who spoke English
with a German accent, or a German who spoke Italian--what boots it, he
was a great musician!

Handel's Italian opera, "Rinaldo," was given at a theater that stood on
the site of the present Haymarket. The production was an immense
success. All educated people knew Latin (or were supposed to know it),
and Signore Handello announced that his Italian was an improvement on
the Latin. And so all the scholars flocked to see the play, and those
who were not educated came too, and looked knowing. In order to hold
interest, there were English syncopated songs between the acts--ragtime
is a new word, but not a new thing.

Handel was very wise in this world's affairs. He assured England that it
was the most artistic country on the globe. He wrote melodies that
everybody could whistle. Airs from "Rinaldo" were thrummed on the
harpsichord from Land's End to John O'Groat's. The grand march was
adopted by the Life Guards, and at least one air from that far-off opera
has come down to us--the "Tascie Ch'io Pianga," which is still listened
to with emotion unfeigned. The opera being uncopyrighted, was published
entire by an enterprising Englishman from Dublin by the name of Walsh.
At two o'clock one morning at the "Turk's Head," he boasted he had
cleared over two thousand pounds on the sale of it. Handel was present
and responded, "My friend, the next time you will please write the opera
and I will sell it." Walsh took the hint, they say, and sent his check
on the morrow to the author for five hundred pounds. And the good sense
of both parties is shown in the fact that they worked together for many
years, and both reaped a yellow harvest of golden guineas.

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