Zigzag Journeys in Northern Lands by Hezekiah Butterworth (fiction books to read .txt) 📕
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Dead at the age of thirty-one; dead after a life of neglect, leaving all these musical riches behind him!
Franz Schubert was born at Himmelpfortgrand, in 1797. His father was a musician, but a poor man. Franz was placed at the age of eleven among the choir-boys of the Court Chapel, where he remained five years, absorbed in musical studies, and making himself the master of the leading instruments of the orchestra.
To compose music was his life. His restless genius was ever at work; always seeking to produce something new, something better. The old masters, and especially Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, were his sources of study and inspiration. Music became his world, and all outside of it was strange and unexplored. All of his moods found expression in music: his love, his hopes, his wit, his sadness, and his dreams.
He seems to have composed his best works for the pure love of his art, with little thought of money or fame. Many of his best works he never heard performed. He left his manuscript scores scattered about his rooms, and so they were found in confusion after his decease.
A monument was erected to his memory. On it is the following simple but touching inscription:—
“The art of music buried here a rich possession, but yet far fairer hopes. Franz Schubert lies here. Born on the 30th of January, 1797, died on the 19th of November, 1828, thirty-one years old.”
Fame almost failed to overtake him in life; his course was so rapid, and his works were so swiftly produced. It crowned his memory.
Schubert’s magnificent symphony in C is one of the most beautiful works of the kind ever written, and lovers of orchestral music always delight to find it on the programme of an evening concert. It is a charm, an enchantment; it awakens feelings that are only active in the soul under exceptional influences. Yet the listener does not know to what he is listening: it is all a mystery; no one can tell what the composer intended to express by this symphony. We know that the theme is a noble one,—but what? that the soul of the writer must have been powerfully moved during its composition,—by what influences? It is an enigma: each listener may guess at the theme, and each will associate it with the subject most in harmony with his own taste.
In 1844 Robert Schumann, while looking over a heap of dusty manuscripts at Vienna, found this wonderful symphony, until then unknown. He was so much charmed with it that he sent it to Mendelssohn at Leipzig. It was there produced at the Gewandhaus concerts, won the admiration it deserved, and thence found its way to all the orchestras of the world. The youthful composer had been dead nearly twenty years when the discovery was made.
One of the best known of the dramatic German ballads is the Erl King.
The Erl King is Death. He rides through the night. He comes to a happy home, and carries away a child, galloping back to the mysterious land whence he came.
In this ballad a father is represented as riding with a dying child under his cloak. The Erl King pursues them.
Schubert gave the ballad its musical wings. I need not describe the music. It is on your piano. Let it tell the story.
BEETHOVEN’S BOYHOOD AT BONN.Literary men have often produced their best works late in life. Longfellow cites some striking illustrations of this truth in Morituri Salutamus:—
Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.
Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles
Wrote his grand Œdipus, and Simonides
Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers,
When each had numbered more than fourscore years.
And Theophrastus, at fourscore and ten,
Had but begun his Characters of Men.
Chaucer, at Woodstock with the nightingales,
At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales;
Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last,
Completed Faust when eighty years were past.”
Such examples of late working are seldom found in musical art. Men seem to become musicians because of the inspiration born within them. This impelling force is very early developed.
Handel, the greatest musical composer of his own or any age, was so devoted to music in childhood that his father forbade his musical studies. At the age of eleven he as greatly delighted and surprised Frederick I. of Prussia by his inspirational playing; he was in youth appointed to a conspicuous position of organist in Halle.
Haydn surprised his friends by his musical talents at his fifth year. He had a voice of wonderful purity, sweetness, and compass, and was received as a choir-boy at St. Stephen’s Church, Vienna.
Mozart’s childhood is a household story. He was able to produce chords on the harpsichord at the age of three, and wrote music with correct harmonies at the age of six. Glück had made a musical reputation at the age of eighteen.
Mendelssohn was a brilliant pianist at six, and gave concerts at nine. Verdi was appointed musical director at Milan in youth. Rossini composed an opera at the age of sixteen, and ceased to compose music at forty.
No other art exhibits such remarkable developments of youthful genius; though many eminent poets like Pindar, Cowley, Pope, Mrs. Hemans, L. E. L., have written well in early youth. Music is a flower that blossoms early, and bears early fruit.
Music may justly be called the art of youth.
Beethoven was born at Bonn on the Rhine, 1770. He lived here twenty-two years. His musical character was formed here.
Beethoven was put at the harpsichord at the age of four years. He was able to play the most difficult music in every key at twelve years; and was appointed one of the court organists when fifteen.
The boy received this appointment, which was in the chapel of the Elector of Cologne, by the influence of Count Waldstein, who had discovered his genius. Here he was the organ prince.
The following curious anecdote is told of his skill at the organ:—
“On the last three days of the passion week the Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah were always chanted; these consisted of passages of from four to six lines, and they were sung in no particular time. In the middle of each sentence, agreeably to the old choral style, a rest was made upon one note, which rest the player on the piano (for the organ was not used on those three days) had to fill up with a voluntary flourish.
BEETHOVEN’S HOME AT BONN.
“Beethoven told Heller, a singer at the chapel who was boasting of his professional cleverness, that he would engage, that very day, to put him out, at such a place, without his being aware of it, so that he should not be able to proceed. He accepted the wager; and Beethoven, when he came to a passage that suited his purpose, led the singer, by an adroit modulation, out of the prevailing mode into one having no affinity with it, still, however, adhering to the tonic of the former key; so that the singer, unable to find his way in this strange region was brought to a dead stand.
“Exasperated by the laughter of those around him, Heller complained to the elector, who (to use Beethoven’s expression) ‘gave him a most gracious reprimand, and bade him not play any more such clever tricks.’”
At Bonn young Beethoven devoted himself almost wholly to the organ. The memories of the Rhine filled his life, which ended so sadly on the Danube. Bonn and Beethoven are as one name to the English or American tourist.
THE FATHER OF ORGAN MUSIC.Bach, the greatest organist and composer of organ music of the last century, was born at Eisenach, 1685, and had truly a remarkable history. His art was born in him. He wrote because he must write, and sung because he must sing.
His father was a court musician, and had a twin brother who occupied the same situation, and so much resembled him that their wives could not tell them apart. These twin brothers produced music nearly alike; their dispositions were identical; when one was ill, the other was so likewise, and both died at the same time.
John Sebastian Bach was the brightest ornament of this music-loving family. His parents died in his boyhood, and his musical education was undertaken by his eldest brother, a distinguished organist. He fed on music as food.
An incident will show his spirit. He was eager to play more difficult music than his brother assigned. He noticed that his brother had a book of especially difficult pieces; and he begged to be allowed to use it, but was denied. This book was kept locked in a cupboard, which had an opening just wide enough to admit the boy’s thin hand. He was able to reach it, and, by rolling it in a certain way, to bring it out and replace it without unlocking the door. He began to copy it by moonlight, as no candle was allowed him in the evening, and in six months had reproduced in this manner the whole of the music. About this time his brother died, and the friendless lad engaged himself as a choir-singer, which gave him a temporary support.
Organ-music became a passion with him. He determined, at whatever sacrifice, to make himself the master of the instrument. He might go hungry, lose the delights of society; but the first organist in Germany he would be: nothing should be allowed to stand in the way of this purpose in life. He studied all masters. He made a long journey on foot to Lubeck to hear a great German master play the organ; and when he heard him, he remained three months an unknown and secret auditor in the church.
A youth in which a single aim governs life early arrives at the harvest. Young manhood found Bach court organist in that Athens of Germany, Weimar. His fame grew until it reached the ears of Frederick the Great.
“Old Bach has come,” joyfully said the King to his musicians, on learning that the great organist arrived in town.
He became blind in his last years, as did Handel. Ten days before his death his sight was suddenly restored, and he rejoiced at seeing the sunshine and the green earth again. A few hours after this strange occurrence, he was seized with an apoplectic fit. He died at the age of sixty-eight.
His organ-playing was held to be one of the marvels of Germany. He made the organ as it were a part of his own soul; it expressed his thoughts like an interpreter, and swayed other hearts with the emotions of his own. His oratorios and cantatas were numbered by the hundred, many of which were produced only on a single occasion. His most enduring work is the Passion Music.
In 1850 a Bach Society was formed in London, and a revival of the works of the master followed. Bach wrote five passions, but only one for two choirs.
To the general audience much of the Passion music, as arranged for English choral societies, seems too difficult for appreciation; but the over-choir at the beginning, the expression of suffering and darkness, and the so-called earthquake choruses, with its sudden and stupendous effects, impress even the uneducated ear.
The beauty and power of the oratorio as a work of art are felt in proportion to one’s musical training; but as a sublime tone-sermon, all may feel its force, and dream that the awful tragedy it represents is passing before them.
A CITY OF THE RHINE.
THE ORGAN-TEMPEST OF LUCERNE.How beauteous was the scene!
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