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MUSICAL
GEORGE P. UPTON
MUSICAL MEMORIES
MUSICAL MEMORIES
MY RECOLLECTIONS OF CELEBRITIES
OF THE HALF CENTURY
1850—1900
BY
GEORGE P. UPTON
AUTHOR OF "THE STANDARD OPERAS," ETC., ETC.
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS
CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO. 1908
At i~ r-
U (r>
COPYRIGHT
A. C. McClurg & Co. 1908
Published October 3, 1908
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England
THK UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMHRinOE, U.S.A.
/ dedicate these Memories to the Ghosts
255141
PREFACE
IT is with the purpose of preserving my records of music during the last half century in compact and accessible shape, and also to satisfy many friends who have suggested that I should undertake a work of this nature, that I have compiled these "Memories," covering the half century 1850-1900. During nearly all that time I was engaged in the labor of musical criticism in Chicago, and therefore had unusual oppor- tunities to observe what was transpiring in the musi- cal world. I did not personally know Jenny Lind, Henriette Sontag, Marietta Alboni, Anna Thillon, and Catherine Hayes, the artists mentioned in the first two chapters, but I had the rare pleasure of hearing them in concerts. I have had personal acquaintance of a more or less intimate kind, however, with all the others.
I have recalled the events herein set down from conversations, managerial statements taken with the proper discount, reviews, records, and programmes I have kept, as well as from a diary in which I jotted down much of interest for reference in my journalistic duty. In looking back over so long a period, memory- may sometimes exaggerate and even play false, but I have striven to keep within the bounds of accuracy
VI PREFACE
and to avoid mere gossip or statements that might wound the sensitive. I have also made use of history and biography only so far as they are necessary to keep the context clear. As the public is sufficiently familiar in these days of personal journalism with artists still upon the stage, I have confined these " Memories " only to those who have retired into the shady nooks of life and to that other goodly company for whom are the last words of Canio in " Pagliacci," " La com- media e finita."
It follows as a matter of course that these recollec- tions are mainly local, for I wrote the first musical criticism printed in a Chicago newspaper, and that means a far cry back into the past. In the hope that the beginnings of music in Chicago may possess some interest I have gone back to the first note Chicago heard, at a time when Indians and coyotes outnum- bered whites there almost ten to one. But as the fifty years of Chicago's musical history means fifty years of memories of all the great artists who have been in the United States, the mere location is not of any special significance.
With these prefatorial remarks I venture to submit these memories of "days that are no more" with the hope that they will prove of value to musicians and will not be wholly unacceptable to the general public.
G. P. U. Chicago, July 1, 1908.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Jenny Lind
Arrival of Jenny Lind in New York — Her First Concert — Bar- num's Methods of Management — The Jenny Lind Fever — Her Enthusiastic Reception — Popular Ovations and Extravagance* — The Concert in Providence — Student Delirium — Ross's $650 Ticket — Jenny Lind's Personal Appearance on the Stage — Her Voice and Method of Singing — The Nobility of her Character — Testimony of her Great Contemporaries 17
CHAPTER II
SONTAG, ALBONI, ThILLON, HAYB8
A Flight of Songbirds — Henriette Sontag — Her Numerous Ad- mirers — The Romance of her Career — Marriage to Count Rossi — Her Personal Appearance — Her Voice and Style of Singing — Troubles in her Last Days — Sudden Death in Mexico — Cruel Reports of a Scandal — Sontag's Rival, Alboni, the Great Contralto — Her Finished Singing — Anna Thillon — Great Success in "Crown Diamonds" — Her Beauty and Magnetism — "Kate" Hayes — The Victim of Speculators — Her Success in Ballads 26
CHAPTER III
Adblina Patti
Pattl's Family — Her Career — Concertizing with Ole Bull — The Contract with Mapleson — Concerts in the Fifties — Her First Concert in Chicago — Her Love of Dolls — Characteristics of the Child Prima Donna — The Mapleson-Abbey Competition — The Patti Marriages — Her Success as a Vocalist — The Farewell Habit — At the Auditorium Dedication 33
vin CONTENTS
CHAPTER IV
The Pattis and Parodi
Carlotta Patti — Dedication of the Central Music Hall in Chicago
— A Comparison with Adelina Patti — Her Lameness — Natural Sensitiveness — A Singular Combination of Qualities — Her Musical Career — Amalia Patti — How she was overshadowed — Carlos Patti — His Adventurous and Melancholy Career — Parodi — Why
she came to the United States — Her Qualities as a Singer . . 44
CHAPTER V
The Germania Society
The Germania Society — Gungl's Opinion of Americans — Char- acteristics of the Germania — Its Visits to Chicago — A Critic's Soul Longings — The Society's Lasting Influence upon Musical Progress — The Work of Individual Members — The Career of Carl Bergmann — The Sad End of his Life — Julien, "The Charlatan of all the Ages"
— His Egotism and Eccentricities — the "Firemen's Quadrille," etc. 51
CHAPTER VI
Some Violinists
Ole Bull — His Personality — Manner of Playing — A Dreamer — Unsatisfied Visions — The Romance of his Life — His Numerous Fare- wells — Concerts in Chicago — Remenyi — His Far Wandering — Extravagances and Mannerisms — A Memorable Afternoon — Sudden Death — Vieuxtemps — Characteristics of his Style — Nilsson's Birthday and "The Arkansas Traveller" — Wieniawsky — Relations to Rubinstein — Gambling Losses — Wilhelmj — An Intellectual Player — Camilla Urao as Child and Woman — Her Last Days . . 57
CHAPTER VII
Some Pianists
Thalberg as Man and Artist — His Sudden Disappearance — Gottschalk — His Music and Style — An Afternoon with him — Rubinstein and the American Tour — Von Bulow and his Peculiarities — Jaell and the Drum — A Procession of Pianists — Wehli, the Left- hander, and the Greased Piano — "Blind Tom" and his Feats — Carreno 73
CONTENTS lx
CHAPTER VIII
Some Prima Donnas
Nilsson — Qualities of her Singing — Her Moods and Habits — Many Admirers — A Memorable Birthday — Pauline Lucca and her Romantic Career — Etelka Gereter — A Brief and Brilliant Career — The Famous Gerster-Patti Episode — Lagrange, Minnie Hauck, and Marie Roze — Another Famous Episode — Kellogg and Cary — Cadenzas and Car Ventilation — Materna and Lehmann — Two Great Wagner Singers — Lehmann's Plea for the Animals 87
CHAPTER IX
More Footlight Favorites
Anne Bishop's Long Career — Fabbri and "The Star-Spangled Banner" — Frezzolini's Vanity — Piccolomini, the Fascinating Im- postor — Her Farewell — Di Murska — Her Cadenzas and Menagerie — Emma Abbott's Career — Albani, the "Chambly Girl " — Burmeis- ter and Others 112
CHAPTER X
Tenors and Bassos
Their Comparative Popularity — Brignoli, his Style and Voice — Superstitions and Anecdotes — Campanini's Triumphs — Jealousy of Capoul — A Bout with Mapleson — Wachtel, the Cab-driver — Old-time Advertising Curiosities — Adams, best American Tenor — Amodio and Bellini in the "Liberty Duet" — Hermann's Interpola- tion — Formes in Concert and Opera — Myron D. Whitney's Ora- torio Triumphs 120
CHAPTER XI
English Opera
The Pyne- Harrison Troupe — Caroline Richings — Her Industry and Various Ventures — The Old Quartette — Zelda, Seguin, Castle, and Campbell — Henri Drayton — The Scared Cat — Parepa — Her Ancestry — Difficulties of Avoirdupois — Bouts with the Clergy — Her Marriage — Madame Rudersdorf's Tribute — The Bostonians — Jessie Bartlett Davis — The "Pinafore" Fever 135
CHAPTER XII
Opera Bouffe
First Performances in Chicago — Lambele\ Tostee, and Aimee — Emily Soldene and the Galtons — Soldene's Literary Ability —
x CONTENTS
Lydia Thompson and the "British Blondes" — Her War with the Newspapers — Her Assault upon an Editor — The Tables turned — Offenbach's Music 152
CHAPTER XIII
Some Impresarios
Habits of the Class — Bernard Ullman and his Bad Qualities — Maurice Strakosch and his Good Qualities — Max Maretzek's Long Career — Jacob Grau and Maurice Grau — Commercialism vs. Art — The only De Vivo — Philosophical Max Strakoscb — Col. James Henry Mapleson '.'of Her Majesty's" 159
CHAPTER XIV
Theodore Thomas
Early Visits to Chicago — Our First Meeting — His Honesty of Character — A Loyal Friend — His Broad Culture — Love of Con- viviality — Aversion to Sentimentalism — Three Disappointments
— Columbian Exposition — Cincinnati College of Music — American Opera Company — Notable Sayings 180
CHAPTER XV
Musical Festivals
Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore — His Qualities as a Band Leader — Chicago Rebuilding Jubilee — National Peace Jubilee — Anvils, Ar- tillery, and Church Bells — Parepa and Adelaide Phillips — Interna- tional Peace Jubilee — A Monster Aggregation — Musical Effect — International Bands — Johann Strauss and his Personality — Franz Abt — Bendel and the Autograph Hunters — Madame Rudersdorf
— Her Peculiarities and Will — Cincinnati Festivals — Chicago May Festivals 194
CHAPTER XVI
Early Days — A Prelude
Mark Beaubien's Fiddle — Jean Baptiste's Piano — i'The Man of Color's" Announcement — Mr. Bowers's Entertainment — The Old Settlers' Harmonic Society — First Organ and First Church Choir Row — The First Theatre — Joseph Jefferson's First Appearance — The Old Ballads — Debut of Richard Hoffman — J. H. McVicker in Song and Dance — David Kennison's Donation Party — Miscellane- ous Concerts in 1850-1852 211
CONTENTS xi
CHAPTER XVII
Early Opera in Chicago
The First Opera — '.' Sonnambula" at Rice's Theatre — Burning of the Theatre — The Artists' Association — Opera at McVicker's Theatre — The first Italian Troupe — Great Enthusiasm — A Mis- hap at North's Amphitheatre — Operatic Rivalry in 1860 — The War Period — The Grau Troupes — Some Home Concerts — The First German Troupe — Grau's Troupe of Mediocrities .... 225
CHAPTER XVIII
Thb Crosby Opera House
Its Construction — A Hive of Art Industries — Dedication in 1865
— An Ovation to Generals Grant and Sherman — Opera Seasons — Debuts and First Performances — The Lottery — The Mysterious Mr. Lee — U. H. Crosby loses the House — New Management — Gilmore inaugurates the Charity Balls — Period of Decadence — From Opera to Vaudeville — Redecoration — Its Destruction in the Great Fire — Summary of Operatic Events 237
CHAPTER XIX
The Orchestra in Chicago
Julius Dyhrenfurth'8 Story — Ibach's "Sharp Corner " — How the First Orchestra was organized — Various Philharmonic Societies — Carl Bergmann's Failure — The First Masquerade — Henry Aimer's Melancholy Fate — The Unger-Mozart Rivalry — Hans Balatka — The Philharmonic of the Sixties — Its Rise and Fall — The Philhar- monic Funeral — Early Chamber Music — A Glimpse at the Sanger- fests — Advent of the Thomas Orchestra 253
CHAPTER XX
Musical Societies
The Early Societies — The Musical Union and '.' The Haymakers"
— The Mendelssohn Society — The Germania Mannerchor — Internal Dissensions — Rival Operatic Amateur Performances — The Ger- mania Gemutlichkeit — Dyhrenfurth's Punches — Dietzsch and his Coroner's Reports — The Concordia and Liederkranz — The Oratorio Society — A Victim of Fire — Winter Post-fire Entertainments — Origin of the Apollo Club — A Remarkable Career — Carl Wolfsohn
and the Beethoven Society 270
xii CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXI
World's Fair Music
The World's Fair Music — Its Inception and Failure — What was done and not done — The Forces engaged — Music of the Civil War Period — Dr. George F. Root — His Early Career — " The Battle Cry of Freedom " — How it came to be written — Root as a Composer — The Auditorium — Home of Grand Opera — Its Dedication — Works performed in it — Milward Adams's Management — The Studebaker Theatre — Home of Opera in English — Works Per- formed in it — Charles C. Curtiss's Management 294
CHAPTER XXII
POSTLUDE 317
Index 323
ILLUSTRATIONS
Page George P. Upton Frontispiece
Jenny Lend 24
Henriette Sontag 30
Marietta Alboni 30
Kate Hayes 30
Anna Thillon 30
Adelina Patti. Four Portraits 36
Am alia Patti Strakosch 46
Carlotta Patti 46
Carl Bergmann 54
Louis Antoine Julien 56
Ole Bull. Two Portraits 60
August Wilhelmj 68
Sigismund Thalberg 74
Christine Nilsson 92
Pauline Lucca 92
Etelka Gerster 98
Marie Roze. Two Portraits 100
Minnie Hauck. Txvo Portraits 102
Clara Louise Kellogg 106
Annie Louise Cary 108
Anne Bishop 112
Mabietta Piccolomini 114
XIV ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
Ilma di Murska 116
P. Brignoli 122
Theodore Wachtel 126
Italo Campanini 126
Myron W. Whitney 132
Carl Formes 132
Caroline Richings 138
William Castle 138
Zelda Seguin 138
S. C. Campbell 138
Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa 144
Cabl Rosa 144
Ulmar, Fabster, and St. Maur — " The Three Little
Maids from School" in " The Mikado " 148
Mlle. Aimee 154
Theodore Thomas 182
Johann Strauss 204
P. S. Gilmore 204
The Sauganash Tavern 212
Crosby's Opera House, Chicago, in 1871 238
Thomas Whiffen 246
Hans Balatka 262
Adolph W. Dohn 274
Carl Wolfsohn 290
George F. Root 300
MUSICAL MEMORIES
MUSICAL MEMORIES
CHAPTER I JENNY LIND
ARRIVAL OF JENNY LIND IN NEW YORK — HER FIRST CON- CERT BARNUM's METHODS OF MANAGEMENT THE
JENNY LIND FEVER HER ENTHUSIASTIC RECEPTION
POPULAR OVATIONS AND EXTRAVAGANCES THE CON- CERT IN PROVIDENCE STUDENT DELIRIUM ROSS'S $650
TICKET JENNY LIND's PERSONAL APPEARANCE ON THE
STAGE HER VOICE AND METHOD OF SINGING THE
NOBILITY OF HER CHARACTER TESTIMONY OF HER
GREAT CONTEMPORARIES
MY musical memories reach back to Jenny Lind ; my dramatic memories to Elise Rachel — a span of more than fifty years. Recalling those far-away days of youth, I count it exceptionally fortu- nate that I have heard and seen those two artists, as they have given me standards of appreciation and criti- cism. Making due allowance for the fact that Jenny Lind was the first really great singer who came to this country, also for youthful enthusiasms, for the delirious effects of that extraordinary popular frenzy which everywhere characterized her reception, and for the enchantment which distance lends to the view, her singing still remains my ideal of the highest exposition of the art of song.
18 MUSICAL MEMORIES
Jenny Lind arrived in this country September 1, 1850, convoyed by Phineas T. Barnum. I have often wondered, considering her rare simplicity and unosten- tation, if she did not suffer at times from the peculiarly bombastic methods of management practised by that showman. Her first concert was given at Castle Gar- den, New York, September 11. Her supporting artists were Sir Julius Benedict, Richard Hoffman the pianist, who was engaged in New York for the American tour,* and Signor Beletti, barytone. Her numbers in the open- ing night's programme were the " Casta Diva " from " Norma " ; the " Herdsman's Song," popularly known as the " Echo Song " ; and the " Welcome to America," the text of which was written by Bayard Taylor and the music hastily set by Benedict. She also sang with Beletti in the duet " Per piacer alia Signora " from Rossini's "11 Turco in Italia," and in a trio from Meyerbeer's " Camp in Silesia," for voice and two flutes.
I was a Freshman in Brown University when I caught the Jenny Lind fever. I heard her for the first time in Boston, but my recollections of that occa- sion are somewhat hazy, for the scenes attending the concert were quite as riotous as musical, owing to an oversale of tickets and the resultant rage of the crowd who could not get into the hall. But my recollections
* The American tour included the following cities, in the order named : New York, Boston, Providence, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, Charleston, Havana, Matanzas, New Orleans, Natchez, Mem- phis, St. Louis, Nashville, Louisville, Cincinnati, Wheeling, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York. Jenny Lind made a second tour after cancelling her contract with Barnum, giving sixty-one concerts between June and December of 1851.
THE JENNY LIND FEVER 19
of the subsequent concert in Providence are as vivid as if it had taken place yesterday. The student body, and apparently the entire population of the city, were in- fected with the Jenny Lind fever. Thousands met her at the station, crowded about her hotel, and lingered around the hall at night, hoping to hear a note now and then, or at least catch a glimpse of her after the con- cert. No other singer in the history of the stage has received such ovations. They can only be compared with the reception of Kossuth when he visited the United States as the champion of Hungarian liberty, and of General Grant when he returned triumphant at the close of the Civil War. This Jenny Lind fever is worth dwelling upon, for it was unique.
The fever began in Europe during her operatic career. Even Berlioz wrote to a friend at that time : " I shall not go to London this season. The Lind fever makes all musical enterprises impossible." Barnum's keen eye recognized an opportunity for rich profits after she retired from the operatic stage. He sent his agents abroad and made a contract, engaging to give her a thousand dollars for each concert and her expenses, also the expenses of a lady companion, the services of a maid and servant, and a carriage and pair. Probably misled by the belief that Jenny Lind's art was above the comprehension of that day, he treated his new venture after the manner of a musical circus. He set afloat stories almost as remarkable as those which illustrated the astonishing careers of Joyce Heth, the Mermaid, and the Behemoth of Holy Writ, exaggerated her goodness and generosity, and flooded
20 MUSICAL MEMORIES
the newspapers with portraits, sketches, and letters. It was an incongruous partnership, but genius maintained its dignity and truth as against the cunning tricks of the showman.
As the steamer approached New York, the bay was alive with boats which had gone down to meet it. She was welcomed at the landing with the enthusiastic shouts of thousands and passed to her carriage under arches erected in her honor. Spirited white horses conveyed her to her hotel, followed by an enormous crowd. She was serenaded at midnight by singing societies and the city firemen, for in those days firemen were the spectacular feature of every public event. This was in the days when Chanfrau's " Mose " used to delight us boys. On the following day she was visited by the leading officials and citizens. Public reception days were also appointed, and at such times the hotel was thronged with people of all classes. She literally absorbed everything. Maretzek, the impresario, once told me they were trying days for him. He was boom- ing Parodi, a really excellent prima donna, whose superb personation of " Norma" still lingers in my mem- ory ; but resourceful and plucky as he was, he could not stand the pressure. Before the week was out the store windows were rilled with Jenny Lind bonnets, gloves, coats, hats, parasols, combs, jewelry, bric-a-brac, and fineries, and tradesmen sent their wares to her rooms, eager for an advertisement. Quacks used her name. She was besieged by autograph hunters and genteel beggars. The music stores published hundreds of songs, waltzes, and polkas named after her. Her
POPULAR EXTRAVAGANCES 21
portrait was in every shop window. The choice dishes of the hotel menus were "d la Jenny Lind." The Jenny Lind pancake, that choice German confection, survives even to-day. Young women dressed their hair in her style and tried to imitate her naturally graceful gait. Jenny Lind tea-kettles were advertised by one dealer, " which, being filled with water and placed on the fire, commenced to sing in a few minutes." Provision dealers sold Jenny Lind sausages, and even cafes and bar-rooms took her name. During that week's fever, however, one person is recorded as immune. He was a Bowery boy, and he is said to have replied to a friend who told him Jenny Lind was the greatest singer in the world : " I don't know about that." " Who is her equal ? " said his friend. " Who ? why, Mary Taylor. Our Mary would sing the clothes off her back." The fever lasted during the entire American tour. There was a trotting match in St. Louis, March 19, 1851, on the Prairie Horse Course, and the entries were Jenny Lind, Barnum, Benedict, and Beletti, Benedict winning the race. Jenny Lind never came to Chicago, as many suppose. * Chicago was not much of a city, musically or otherwise, in her time, but the following advertisement, which appeared in one of its papers, October 25, 1850, shows that the city had the symptoms of the fever.
* St. Louis was the nearest to Chicago that Jenny Lind came on her first tour. She sent, however, during the first week of her season in New York, $1000 to the Swedish church of St. Ansgarius, then in process of erection in Chicago. During her second tour in 1851, she sang in Buffalo, Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati, and was to have sung also, I believe, in Detroit and Chicago. For some reason, however, she gave up her final concerts and returned East.
22 MUSICAL MEMORIES
"Just Arrived
" At 168 Lake Street, a beautiful lot of Jenny Lind long and square shawls, extra fine quality and neat and elegant styles, such as adorn the graceful form of that universal charmer, the Swedish Nightingale, whose inimitable warblings and acts of noble benevolence are now the admiration of the world. Also Jenny Lind dress goods, etc., at our one-price cash store.
Francis Clark."
Of course we had the fever in Providence. Every one had it — men, women, and children, — and the students had it worse than the rest. They even forgot to go down to the Arcade just to see Gertude Dawes, the graceful danseuse, walk and teach the ladies of Provi- dence how to wear a shawl. They even neglected those infant phenomena, the Bateman children, and declined to see George Vandenhoff and Mrs. Forrest in the " Lady of Lyons." Alma Mater threw up her ancient hands in despair and let her children have their way. The fever was intensified by local pride, for had not Ross, the expressman, friend of all students, paid the highest price for choice of seats, higher even than Genin in New York and Dodge in Boston, although of course he did not attend the concert.* He never did anything like other people. His eccentricities would fill a vol- ume. My room-mate, a wild Hoosier, who knew no more about music than a hen, had a most violent attack of the fever. He invested all his scanty pocket money in
* The various premiums paid for first choice during the tour were as follows : New York, $225 ; Boston, $625 ; Providence, $650 ; Philadelphia, $625; Baltimore, $100; New Orleans, $240; St. Louis, $150; Nashville, $200; Louisville, $100; and Cincinnati, $575.
HER PERSONAL APPEARANCE ON THE STAGE 23
hairs supplied by one of the hotel chambermaids, who declared she took them from Jenny Land's brush. He paid a tidy sum for these souvenirs of the divinity and brought them back exultantly. He reluctantly allowed me to have one or two, and I kept them as precious relics, until it was ascertained later that this thrifty commercial maid had been doing a lucrative business disposing of her own and others' hairs. I have known of other such transactions in artistic hair, which will appear later in these recollections.
At last the eventful night came — October 7, 1850, — a red-letter date in memory. The usually staid city was in a state of delirium, which astonished those conserva- tive old families — the Iveses, Browns, Goddards, and Hoppins. I can see it all now — the crowds, the enthusiasm, the great audience inside, and the vastly greater crowd outside wishing it were inside. I see Jenny Lind gliding down the stage with consummate grace, — she never seemed to walk, — amid the acclama- tions of the audience ; a girlish figure of medium height, with fair hair and blue eyes, gowned in velvet, and wearing a single rose in her hair. She was plain of feature, and yet her face was expressive and in a sense fascinating. It was a wholesome face. She may not have been beautiful, judged by the conventional beauty tests ; but if not extremely good-looking, she " looked good," as some one has said. And that goodness drew every one to her, and she was " Jenny " with every one, — not Signora Lind, or Mademoiselle Lind, or Miss Lind, but Jenny Lind, as we say Annie Cary or Lilli Leh- mann. Her voice, as I remember it, was of full volume
24 MUSICAL MEMORIES
and extraordinary range, and had a peculiar penetrating quality also, because of its purity, which made its faintest tone clearly audible and enabled her to use exquisitely soft pianissimos. Her high notes were as clear as a lark's, and her full voice was rich and sonorous. Her singing was genial and sympathetic and marked by the fervor and devotional quality which characterized her nature. It evinced a noble musical endowment and great reverence for her art. She was little af- fected by adulation, but acknowledged the wild, frantic applause courteously and with evident pleasure. Bene- dict, her leader, said " she made a conscience of her music." The strong intellectual quality of her nature, as well as her aversion to gewgaws and shams, her deep religious feeling, her simplicity of manner, and her good- ness of heart, as shown by her numerous acts of benevo- lence, confirm the truth of his statement. It seems to me that in a rare manner she combined art, love, and genius, and that she was actuated by the lofty purpose of using them for the good of others. How grandly she succeeded !
" Ik Marvel " and George William Curtis were the literary idols of youth in the fifties. The former said of her in his charming " Lorgnette " : " She is a large- souled woman, with not an affectation of the stage or one mimicry of feeling — only Jenny, as the God who made the people of the pine lands as well as the people of the olives fashioned her ; and if the amateurs can mend her, they may." And George "William Curtis eloquently said of her, years after the fever had burned itself out : " The youth of her day have borne her in
Jenny Lind
TESTIMONY OF HER GREAT CONTEMPORARIES 25
their hearts across a generation, and their hearts still rise at the mention of her name, as the Garde du Roi sprang up cheering to their feet when the Queen ap- peared." I was one of those youths, and I have borne her in my heart and memory across two generations and she remains for me still the one peerless singer I have heard on the concert stage.
What did some of the great ones think of Jenny Lind in her own day ? Chopin said : " She does not show herself in the ordinary light, but in the magic rays of the aurora borealis. Her singing is infallibly pure and true and has an indescribable charm." Lablache said to Queen Victoria : " I can say I have never heard any- thing like her singing," and to Grisi, " Every note was a pearl," a remark which Grisi may not have relished. Clara Schumann said : " What a great, heaven-inspired being she is ! What a pure, true artist soul ! Her songs will ever sound in my heart." And Mendelssohn said : " She is as great an artist as ever lived and the greatest I have known."
Surely these should know.
CHAPTER II SONTAG, ALBONI, THILLON, HAYES
A FLIGHT OF SONGBIRDS — HENRIETTE SONTAG — HER NUMER- OUS ADMIRERS — THE ROMANCE OF HER CAREER — MAR- RIAGE TO COUNT ROSSI — HER PERSONAL APPEARANCE — HER VOICE AND STYLE OF SINGING — TROUBLES IN HER LAST DAYS — SUDDEN DEATH IN MEXICO — CRUEL REPORTS OF A SCANDAL — SONTAG's RIVAL, ALBONI, THE GREAT CON- TRALTO — HER FINISHED SINGING — ANNA THILLON — GREAT SUCCESS IN " CROWN DIAMONDS" — HER BEAUTY AND MAGNETISM — "KATE" HAYES — THE VICTIM OF SPECULATORS — HER SUCCESS IN BALLADS
REPORTS from the United States must have in- duced the belief among European songbirds that Jenny Lind had discovered an inexhaustible mu- sical and golden bonanza, for they began nocking over here before her second tour was concluded. Among them were four whom it was my good fortune to hear, — Henriette Sontag (Countess Rossi), Marietta Alboni (Countess Pepoli), and untitled Anna Thillon and Catherine Hayes. They did not all have Jenny Lind's good fortune, however, and two of them were bitterly disappointed, as will appear. They only gleaned after her abundant reaping.
Of these four, Sontag attracted most attention and admiration, though Alboni was a better musician and a more finished singer. Sontag's success was due in part
SONTAG'S MARRIAGE TO COUNT ROSSI 27
to her beauty and engaging manners. About the time she came to this country (1852) Von Biilow aptly called her " a forty-eight year old soubrette." She had a rep- utation indeed as a fascinator long before her American tour. Goethe in his seventy-eighth year, after meeting her in Paris, said : " She must needs remain a sweet, agreeable enjoyment," and Goethe was a judge of the ewig iveibliche. He expressed no opinion of her sing- ing, possibly because music generally confused him. Apparently he knew little of the technic of the art beyond what Bettina von Arnim told him. Rossini, Cherubini, Boieldieu, Auber, De Beriot, and Walter Scott were among her devoted admirers. She was lit- erally pursued by some, among them Lord Clanwilliam, British Ambassador at Berlin, who was so persistent in his unwelcome attentions that he was called "Lord Montag following Sontag." Her success was also due in part to the romantic events in her career. Berlioz, Weber, Liszt, and Beethoven were among her friends and advisers. Liszt, who was always gallant, called her " the Thalberg of Song," and Berlioz rather neatly discriminated when he said, " She was first in her class, but the class was not the first." At the very zenith of her career, while enjoying the plaudits of the multitude, the friendship of great musicians, and the adulation of titled and untitled admirers, Sontag attracted the atten- tion of Count Rossi, an Italian diplomat, who wooed her with such ardor that they were speedily married. They went immediately to The Hague, where he was representing Sardinia. The King of Prussia granted her the patent of nobility, whereupon she retired from
28 MUSICAL MEMORIES
the stage. After a quiet life of eighteen years together, reverses overtook them. She lost her fortune and de- cided to return to the stage, and Count Rossi resigned his position so that he might be at liberty to accompany her. As it eventuated, he might better have remained at home and permitted her to be wage-earner under some competent manager.
They came to this country in 1852, bringing with them Pozzolini, tenor, and Badiali, barytone. The stories of her great success abroad, of her remarkable beauty, and of the romance of her career, had preceded her and aroused much interest. Her reception was cordial, but there was no "fever," as in the case of Jenny Lind. As I remember Sontag, she was a blonde, somewhat slight of figure, with large, bright blue eyes and hair inclining towards auburn in color. I am quite sure I am right about this, as I have a little lock of her hair which came from Germany in a letter writ- ten by Sontag to a friend — I think I am justified in the belief that it did not come from any chambermaid's hair- brush. As she was very pretty and her toilettes were elegant, she of course became the fashionable rage and was guest of honor at innumerable society functions. Her carriage was exceedingly graceful and her manner on the stage sprightly, coquettish, and fascinating. Von Bulow was right when he called her " a forty-eight year old soubrette." She was about that age when I saw her, and her elegance of manner and personal charms are still vivid in my recollection. In these respects she was the Sembrich of her day. Her voice was an ex- quisitely pure high soprano, with a mezzo piano in it
SUDDEN DEATH IN MEXICO 29
which Nilsson afterwards used so effectively. Her exe- cution was graceful and refined, and her style must have lent itself best to roles requiring coquetry and archness, like Martha, Rosina, or Amina.
Poor Sontag's fate was a sorrowful one. Prima donnas' husbands are notorious mischief-makers and intermeddlers, if not hoodoos, for their wives, and im- presarios always dread them. The bonanza in her case proved to be rich in troubles. She had to contend in the first place against Alboni, greatest of contraltos, and, beautiful and fascinating as she was, she could not make headway against her. Count Rossi kept her in litigations, so irascible was he, as well as ignorant of stage matters. Yielding to his importunities and dis- regarding the advice of friends, they went to Mexico at a time when the cholera was epidemic there. After a performance of "Lucrezia Borgia," she suddenly caught the disease and died in a few hours.* Six others of her troupe, among them Pozzolini, her tenor, were also victims. I well remember the excitement which was caused when the first report came that Count Rossi, furious at a scandal which concerned his wife and Poz- zolini, had poisoned them both. Perhaps the report, in some indirect manner, may have grown out of the Bor- gia poisoning scene in the opera. Reports of many apparently startling events have had as absurd a foun- dation. In time, however, it was well established that she had died of cholera. She now rests in peace in the convent cemetery of St. Marienthal, near Dresden, by the side of her loved sister, who was a nun there,
* June 17, 1854.
30 MUSICAL MEMORIES
secluded from the world in which the Countess had had such a brilliant career.
Sontag' s dangerous rival was Marietta Alboni, the greatest contralto of her time, and indeed of her century. She had also been a rival of Jenny Lind in London before the latter abandoned the operatic stage. She was the greatest of contraltos in a double sense, for besides being a most finished singer, with a glorious voice, she was blessed with a most generous degree of corpulency, which, however, did not detract from her singing or prejudice her admirers against her. I remember her even more distinctly than Sontag, for it is impossible to forget either her proportions or her voice. She could not be called handsome, like Sontag, nor could she glide gracefully over the stage, like Jenny Lind, and yet her face wore a genial and good-naturedly attractive expression, and she carried herself with a cer- tain dignity and high-bred manner that soon made you forget her embonpoint. Her voice was full, rich, and sonorous, of extraordinary range, and, for so big a voice, of unusual flexibility. Moreover she was musical, — a quality not always found in great singers. That is, she sang with great feeling, with an intellectual comprehen- sion, as evinced by her interpretation of sentiment and idea, with absolute accuracy, with pure, clear enuncia- tion, and with instrumental facility and finish, much in the style Madame Schumann-Heink sings to-day. Sontag charmed every one ; Alboni specially charmed musical people.
And next came Anna Thillon, an English girl, whose maiden name was Hunt, and who married Monsieur
Henriette Sontag Marietta Alboni
Kate Hayes Anna Thillon
ANNA THILLON 31
Thillon, her French music-teacher. I wonder if there are any of the old fellows left, who have presumed to live beyond the Osier limit, who heard Thillon when I did in the early fifties, and who were carried off their feet, as I was, when I heard her in " Crown Diamonds," which Auber wrote for her. I wonder if they remember how furiously they applauded when Catarina sang that bravura aria, " Love ! at once I break thy fetters," or the cavatina, " Love dwelleth with me," and how they fan- cied she was looking at and singing to them only. I wonder if they still recall the lustre of her hair and its ravishing curls (there were no colossal pompadours then), the flash of her eyes, and the elegance of her figure. If there are any of them left, be sure they will rise again at the sound of her name and declare to a man there never was such a fascinator on the stage. She was by no means a great singer compared with those of whom I have been writing. Indeed, they say she could not begin to sing the role of Catarina as well as Louise Pyne, who really first made the success of "Crown Diamonds." And yet she was one who cannot be for- gotten. Though English, she was a beauty of the Span- ish type. She had a rich olive-hued skin, glorious black hair, and dark lustrous eyes, which languished sensuously and flashed wickedly. She was one to rave over because of her personal grace and fascinating eyes ; and all golden youths, and some youths who were not golden, conse- quently raved. There may be some of these youths still left, with gray or whitening polls, who as they recall her will echo Villon's plaint, "Where are the snows of yester year ? " and wonder if there are such divinities now.
32 MUSICAL MEMORIES
The last of the four songbirds is poor Catherine or " Kate " Hayes. There was no bonanza for her. She was mistreated, mismanaged, and duped. She was an Irish girl, and when she left for this country her ad- mirers thronged the quay and Thackeray bade her good- bye in some graceful words. She was the victim of speculators, who foolishly tried to boom her after the Barnum style, but without Barnum' s judgment and knowledge of human nature. Because Barnum called Jenny Lind " the Swedish Nightingale," they advertised "Kate" Hayes as "the Swan of Erin." They set all manner of silly stories afloat about her and extrava- gantly advertised her virtues, goodness, and benevolence, as Barnum had done for Jenny Lind. But it was of no avail. As her concerts were not profitable, she re- mained but a short time in the East, and then went to San Francisco, where the people had not been surfeited with music, as it was too far off for singers and too expensive to get there. So she had a few months of success and then went back to Europe. " Kate " Hayes had an ethereal kind of beauty and a very pleasant voice, and while she had not achieved much success as an operatic singer, few in her day could sing songs and ballads more delightfully. It was a rare treat to hear her sing Tom Moore's lyrics. She deserved a better fate. It was a brilliant galaxy, these five artists of the fifties whom I have recalled, but I am not through with that period yet. I came to Chicago in the early fifties and met a little singer first entering her teens, whose name is writ large in the operatic history of this country.
CHAPTER III ADELINA PATTI
PATTI'S FAMILY — HER CAREER — CONCERTIZING WITH OLE BULL — THE CONTRACT WITH MAPLESON — CONCERTS IN THE FIFTIES — HER FIRST CONCERT IN CHICAGO — HER LOVE OF DOLLS — CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CHILD PRIMA DONNA
THE MAPLESON - ABBEY COMPETITION — THE PATTI
MARRIAGES — HER SUCCESS AS A VOCALIST — THE FARE- WELL HABIT — AT THE AUDITORIUM DEDICATION
ADELINA PATTI has recently retired from the stage and is now living in the enjoyment of an ample fortune, for, unlike many of the prima donnas of her time, she has provided for the rainy days. Her career has been exceptionally long; her stage life a continuous triumph. In a remote way she can be affiliated with Jenny Lind, for though but a mere child when she heard the great Swedish singer, she imitated her manner of singing so closely that her parents at once put her under musical instructors. It seems but yesterday that she was in her prime, and yet she was a public singer fifty-five years ago. So, with apologies for even suggesting a lady's age, I must assign her to the period of the fifties, — a young contemporary of Jenny Lind, Sontag, and Alboni.
I must say a little about her family, for its history throws some light upon her musical environment and heredity. There was not an impulse, an influence, or a purpose in her early life which was not musical. These
34 MUSICAL MEMORIES
are the facts as told to me years ago by Maurice Stra- kosch, her brother-in-law. Her mother was Catarina Chiesa, a prima donna, who married Barili, her teacher. After his death she married Salvatore Patti, and as Catarina Barili-Patti she sang in this country with con- siderable success. The mother must have been a more dramatic singer than Adelina, for Norma was her best role.
Adelina's brothers and sisters were — Antonio, Ni- colo, Ettore, Clotilde, Carlos, Amalia, and Carlotta. Antonio, the eldest, born in Rome, was both composer and director, and ended his days in New York as a teacher. Nicolo was a basso of considerable reputation. Ettore was a barytone, and became a teacher after his retirement from the stage. He sang with Adelina in Chicago as early as 1855, and again in 1859 in opera, when he appeared in " Rigoletto." Clotilde made her operatic debut at nineteen. She was a creature " of fire and dew," and so enraged aristocratic old Colonel Thorne of New York by marrying his son, that the young pair fled from his wrath to Peru. Little was heard of them afterwards, except that the husband died at sea and Clotilde followed him a few years later at Matanzas, Cuba. I will speak of Amalia, Carlotta, and Carlos in the next chapter, from personal acquaintance.
I must say a few words also about Adelina's career before I record any impressions of her. She was born in Madrid, of a Sicilian father and a Roman mother, and never had a real home until in her later years she reached that castle, so strongly fortified with conso- nants, — Craig y nos, Ystradgynlais, Breconshire, South
ADELINA PATTFS CAREER 35
Wales. She is literally cosmopolitan and a child of the theatre. Maurice Strakosch used to insist that she was born in 1842, but she herself has always declared Feb- ruary 19, 1843, to be the date of her birth. Her mother, while playing the title role of Norma in Madrid, was taken ill as the curtain rose on the last act. The next morning Adelina's little feet awaited the road that was to lead her to fame and fortune. Her parents brought her to the United States in 1845, and a year or two later they were identified with opera in New York, under the management of Maretzek, who was just beginning to experience the many ups and downs of his checkered career. Adelina's first public appear- ance was at a charity concert in 1851. Though she was only in her eighth year, she had skill enough to sing the " Ah ! non giunge " from " Sonnambula," and the courage also to sing the " Echo Song," which Jenny Lind was then making so popular. Two years later she went West and sang in Chicago. She was in the same city in 1855, concertizing with Paul Julien, the violinist. In 1856 she made a concert tour with Mau- rice Strakosch. During the tour she met Ole Bull in Baltimore, and Strakosch induced him to join the com- pany, which also included Morini, barytone ; Schreiber, cornetist ; and Roth, pianist. She afterwards made a short tour with Gottschalk, the pianist. On November 24, 1859, she made her operatic debut in New York in the title role of Lucia. Ulmann, the impresario, at first objected to her taking a leading role, because she was so young and childish in figure, but at last he gave his consent, and he never regretted it, for he found that
36 MUSICAL MEMORIES
this girl of sixteen had an exceptionally beautiful voice, a brilliancy of execution equal to that of the older art- ists, and that she was conversant with the leading roles in " Sonnambula," " The Barber of Seville," " Traviata," " Martha," and a dozen more operas. Her knowledge of languages was a great help to her at that time. As she was destined for the stage, even in her infant days, her parents gave special attention not only to her musi- cal, but also to her linguistic, training. She could speak French, Italian, and English fluently, and later she ac- quired German and Spanish. In 1860 she made another western tour with her sister Amalia, Brignoli, the tenor, and the bassos, Ferri and Junca. In 1861 she went to London and made her English debut. The metropolis was wild over her. Then followed a series of triumphs in Brussels, Berlin (where she sang in the same company with Lucca), Amsterdam, The Hague, Paris, and Vienna. In 1869 she was under engagement to Mapleson, senior, and the Colonel once showed me a copy of the contract. As I remember it, it provided that she should not sing on days of travel or sickness ; that she should sing two or three times a week, as she chose; that she might select the operas in which she appeared ; and that her remuneration should be $2500 a night, besides the travelling expenses of herself, her husband, and four other persons. This was liberal pay when it is consid- ered that about this time Nilsson was paid $1000 for each performance, with certain allowances, and that Jenny Lind's first contract with Barnum called for only $1000 and expenses. But Patti, it is reported, has been paid as high as $5000 a night since those
Adelina Patti
ADELINA PATTI'S CAREER 37
days.* With her career since 1869 my readers are sufficiently acquainted.
As will be seen by these brief statements of family history and of her own career, Adelina Patti was born in music and has lived in a musical atmosphere all her life — and this means everything to a singer. She was on the stage continuously from her eighth year to that of her retirement. She was taken to the theatre when- ever her mother sang, and the details of the stage were firmly impressed upon her young mind. Sometimes its proprieties were impressed upon her in other ways. Upon one occasion, when her mother was singing in " Norma," Adelina went to the rehearsal, as she was to be one of the children. Not content with her voiceless role, she persisted in singing her mother's part, whereupon she was soundly spanked before the company and the or- chestra. I first heard her in the early fifties at the Tremont House, Chicago, where she sang in a dining- room concert. She was singing bravura arias with the utmost ease and facility at an age when most children are contented with " Twinkle, twinkle, little star." As I recall her, I see a somewhat delicate, pale-faced, dark-browed child, with thick glossy black hair hanging in two long braids down her back, dressed in rose- colored silk, pink stockings, and pantalettes. She is perfectly at ease and glances around confidently, with a mischievous smile lurking about her mouth, but reserv- ing her special radiance for rows of young girls in the
* These are the prices said to be paid to several leading artists at the present time: Melba, $3000; Caruso, $3000; Nordica, $2000; Schu- mann-Heink, $1800; Fremstad, $1800; Sembrich, $1500; Eames, $1500; Gadski, $1200 ; Plangon, $1200.
38 MUSICAL MEMORIES
front chairs, with some of whom she has made a hotel acquaintance. Upon this occasion she followed up the execution of a brilliant aria with a request most uncon- ventionally made to her friend Nellie, who seemed to be the favorite in the little diva's dominion, to come to her room when the concert was over and get acquainted with the sweetest doll in the world. At that time she doted upon children, dolls, candy, and birds. She could be induced to sing any time by the promise of a box of candy or a bird in a cage. She was an imperious little creature also. She hated encores as bitterly as Theodore Thomas did. When they were called for, she would re- fuse to give them. The insistence of the audience at last would exasperate her, and she would shake her head vigorously. Thereupon the amused audience would redouble its efforts, only ceasing when she began to manifest anger by stamping her little foot. It was a gala season in Chicago when " Signora Adelina Patti " was advertised to appear with Ole Bull at Tremont Music Hall. Ole himself was comparatively young in those days, but he looked ancient by the side of the as- sisting prima donna in her short skirts. It was at this period, by the way, that he began his dangerous practice of farewelling. It rapidly grew into a habit, and at last he could not shake it off. He gave plain farewells, " grand " farewells, " last " farewells, " absolutely last " farewells, and " positively last " farewells all the rest of his life, and blithely reappeared in Chicago almost every year during the next quarter of a century. Perhaps it was not his fault. He may have had a retiring disposi- tion. It was unfortunate, however, because Adelina
CONCERTIZING WITH OLE BULL 39
caught the infection and gave us many farewells, pa- thetic and lovely, closing each with " Home, Sweet Home " ; but she was always forgiven, for who could sing "Sweet Home" like her? In these concerts Ole Bull made us acquainted with "The Mother's Prayer," Paga- nini's " Witch Dance," and " The Carnival of Venice," and threw audiences into spasms of patriotic enthusiasm with variations on national airs. And what was the child who should have been singing children's songs at her age doing ? She was executing " 0, Luce di quest' anima " from " Linda," " Ah ! non giunge " from " Son- nambula," "Ah! fors e lui" from "Traviata," and the bravura arias, with " Coming through the Rye " and Jenny Lind's " Echo Song " thrown in for good weight. And how the youngster sang them ! And how those men and women, most of whom are now under the daisies, applauded ! It was a young city then, had n't heard much fine music, and took to the young singer. There was not much temperament, not much feeling or thrill to her singing, but who could resist the spell of her ease and facility of execution, the clearness and purity of her tones, and her absolute musical self-possession, — in a word, the perfect mechanism which nature had put in her throat, even if there was not much soul behind it ? I believe the child knew she was to be one of the great- est vocalists of all time and needed no one's assurance to that effect. Three or four years after this period, on the eve of her operatic debut in New York, some one asked her if she did not dread it. She looked up in the most unconcerned manner and replied that she did not dread it at all. She had always known she must make a
40 MUSICAL MEMORIES
debut, and she might as well make it then as any time. She anticipated it with joy, for she knew she would succeed — and she did.
Adelina Patti's most remarkable appearances in Chicago were in the eighties. In 1884 she headed Colonel Mapleson's troupe, which also comprised Gerster, Pappenheim, Vicino, Galassi, Perugini, and her husband, Nicolini.* Chicago has not had such a feast of operatic music since. It was the year of the famous competition between Abbey and Mapleson. The pompous but optimistic old Colonel had out-manoeuvred Abbey by getting Patti, who really wished to go with the latter; but on the other hand, Abbey had Nilsson, Sembrich (her first appearance in Chicago), Fursch- Madi, Valleria, Scalchi, Campanini, Trebelli, Capoul, and Del Puente. These two companies were housed under the same roof, and for a wonder were a happy family, for Mapleson and Abbey monopolized all the
* Adelina Patti has been married three times. In 1863 she was be- trothed to Henri de Lossy, Baron de Ville, a minor like herself, but it is said that the match was broken up by her father and Maurice Strakosch, her brother-in-law. She was married in 1868 to the Marquis de Caux, "officer of ordnance to the Emperor, and aide-de-camp of the Empress as director of court cotillons." The banns were very stately: "M. Louis Sebastian Henri de Roger de Cahusac, Marquis de Caux, fils du Comte et de Demoi- selle Huguet de Varange, actuellement femme du Due de Velney, et Mile. Adele Jeanne Marie Patti, propri6taire, fille de M. Salvatore Patti et de Catherine Bhirza, rentiers." They were divorced in 1877, Patti averring that the Marquis was violently and ridiculously jealous, that he abused her and struck her, and insulted her by often telling her that he cursed the day when he married a strolling actress, and the Marquis averring that in his marriage he was actuated by tender affection, and that she gradually grew cold and irritable, disregarded her duties, and lived away from him. In 1886 she married Nicolini (stage name for Ernest Nicholas), the tenor, with whom she lived happily. After his death, a few years later, she married her present husband, Baron Rolf Cedarstrbm (1899).
THE MAPLESON-ABBEY COMPETITION 41
hostility. To add to the attractions of that memorable season, Henry Irving and Ellen Terry were playing an engagement. It was an embarrassment of entertain- ment. Adelina Patti appeared again at the brilliant Opera Festival in the old Exposition Building in 1885, and again at the dedication of the Auditorium in 1889. She retained her girlish personal charm in opera, and added to it a certain dignity and refinement and ap- parently absolute self-possession. She walked the stage as one "to the manner born." This, however, must have been something of an effort, for she once told me that it made her nervous to see her name on a pro- gramme, and that when she came out on the stage and faced an audience she had a feeling of fear. She ap- parently knew the secret of perpetual youth, for to the very last of her stage appearances she seemed to be the Patti of the olden days, fresh, young, and charming. When she was sixty-four, she told a friend that up to the time she was forty she ate and drank what she pleased, but after that followed a stricter regime, never touching liqueurs or spirits, but limiting herself to white wine diluted with soda, eschewing heavy food, and sleeping with open windows but avoiding draughts. In this way she had preserved her youthful appearance. She had preserved her voice so long by her perfect Italian method and avoidance of exposure, and by never forcing it.
Considered purely as a vocalist, Adelina Patti was the most consummate and brilliant singer of her time. In roles requiring grace, elegance, and ornate vocaliza- tion she was unrivalled. Her voice kept youthfully
42 MUSICAL MEMORIES
fresh, and her command of it, even to the most delicate shading, was absolute. In runs and staccato passages who could surpass her? Every phrase, every trill, however long, was delivered with the facility and per- fection of an instrument. As to her characters, I always liked her Zerlina in " Don Giovanni," for its spontaneousness'; her Rosina in "The Barber of Seville," for astonishing technic; and Violetta in "La Traviata," best of all, for its display of all the Patti qualities. She never sang in the Wagner operas, but at one time she wanted to sing Elsa in "Lohengrin." It is said that the Marquis de Caux, her husband, who disliked Wag- ner, would not let her. She also said once that Wagner wrote the part of Kundry in "Parsifal" for her, but she declined to sing it, as it did not suit her voice and called for " too much screeching." It is likely that she found all the Wagner roles unsuited to her voice. It is fortunate that she did not undertake them. I think Theodore Thomas summed up Patti when he said in his terse way : " Patti's voice was of delicate quality and great charm, easy in delivery, and true, like the song of a bird — but it expressed no more soul than the singing of a bird."
Patti, as I have already said, bade us many sweet and tuneful farewells. The first one was in 1855, she being at that time twelve years of age. Upon that oc- casion she bade " farewell to America " at Metropolitan Hall in Chicago, and was assisted in the parting by Paul Julien, the violinist, and her brother Ettore. In that concert she sang a waltz song, written by herself and dedicated to "the ladies of America." Ithink it
THE FAREWELL HABIT 43
was called " Fior di primavera." Its life, however, was very brief. Then she bade us another graceful and touching good-bye in 1882, when she sang in concert in Chicago with Nicolini, who sometimes accidentally sang a note or two in tune. The last farewell which I attended was at the dedication of the Auditorium in 1889. At that time, in her forty-sixth year, she dis- played the same ease of manner, the same fine method of vocalization which had so long characterized her, but there were clearly apparent the necessity of husbanding her resources and of greater care in singing, a lack of the old strength in the high notes, and a suspicion of wavering intonation. I heard her at that time in Gounod's " Romeo and Juliet." The waltz arietta failed of an encore, but Fabbri in the "Page's Song" carried off one. That told the story. Five or six years ago Patti was announcing another last, final, unwider- ruflich allerletzte farewell in Germany. Last year I read that Patti made a final appearance at Belfast, and the good-bye song was " Home ! Sweet Home." How she used to sing that simple old melody ! And " II Bacio " and the " Venzano " and the " Echo Song " and " Robin Adair " ! She amply fulfilled the prediction of Jenny Lind and Alboni that she would become a great artist. She has delighted thousands with her art, and she now rests upon her laurels, well and honorably earned.
CHAPTER IV THE PATTIS AND PARODI
CARLOTTA PATTI — DEDICATION OF THE CENTRAL MUSIC HALL IN CHICAGO — A COMPARISON WITH ADELINA PATTI — HER LAMENESS — NATURAL SENSITIVENESS — A SINGULAR COMBINATION OF QUALITIES — HER MUSICAL CAREER — AMALIA PATTI — HOW SHE WAS OVERSHADOWED — CARLOS
PATTI HIS ADVENTUROUS AND MELANCHOLY CAREER —
PARODI — WHY SHE CAME TO THE UNITED STATES — HER QUALITIES AS A SINGER
CARLOTTA PATTI should not be forgotten in Chicago. Adelina, her sister, dedicated the Audi- torium, but Carlotta, on the evening of Decem- ber 8, 1879, dedicated the Central Music Hall. The latter has now been demolished to make room for the spread of trade, but its associations, even more pleasant than those of the Auditorium, will always be cherished by its old patrons, and its history marks one of the most interesting chapters in the local musical records. Upon the above mentioned evening Carlotta Patti had the assistance of Kelten, pianist; Toedt, tenor; Ciampi- Cellag, barytone, and Ernest de Munck, 'cellist. I think she was the wife of the latter musician at that time. She made her Chicago debut in 1869 at a concert with Ritter, pianist ; Henry Squires, tenor ; Prume, an ele- gant violinist ; and Hermanns, the ponderous- voiced basso, who subsequently made a notable reputation
CARLOTTA PATTI COMPARED WITH ADELINA 45
as Mephistopheles in Gounod's " Faust." She made another visit to Chicago in 1870 with Bitter and Her- manns, also with Habelman, the tenor, and Sarasate, violinist.
I have often thought that if Carlotta had not been handicapped by lameness, occasioned by the fracture of her hip in childhood, she would have eclipsed Ade- lina's fame in opera. She was the more beautiful of the two — indeed she was the most beautiful member of a very handsome family. Her voice was as rich in quality as Adelina's and its range even higher. Her technical accomplishments were fully as wonderful. She delighted in singing music written specially to show off the violin technic. In all these respects she was as bountifully equipped for the operatic stage as her sister, but the unfortunate mishap in her childhood confined her within the narrow limits of the concert stage. Be- sides these qualities she not only had genuine feeling and fine sentiment, but decided dramatic ability. It was evidenced in every song she sang. It must have been bitter for her to endure her confinement to the concert- room, and now and then she must have envied the bril- liant career of her sister in that particular realm of music for which she was so richly endowed. This feeling once came to the surface. It was in Birmingham, England, in 1871. Her manager imprudently advertised her as " the sister of the celebrated Adelina Patti." The Patti wrath flamed up in her, and she refused to sing. When it had cooled down and she had taken the sober, second thought, she consented to appear, but she sent a letter to the press, from which I make the following quotation :
46 MUSICAL MEMORIES
" I did indeed think it strange that under my name on the placards, as well as on the programmes, should have been placed the words, 'sister of Adelina Patti.' Though but a twinkling star by the side of the brilliant planet called Marchioness de Caux, I am nevertheless too proud of the humble reputation which Europe and America have con- firmed to allow anybody to try to eclipse my name by the dangerous approximation of that of my dear sister, to whom I am bound by the tenderest affection."
When it is considered that the relations of the two sisters were reported at that time to be friendly but not intimate, much may be read between the lines of this diplomatic note. The member of the family with whom she was most intimate was her unfortunate brother, Carlos, whom also she most closely resembled in facial appearance.
Carlotta Patti' s nature was made up of a singular combination of qualities. When among her intimates, she was the very soul of good nature, and I have seen her when she was bubbling over with fun and sparkling with repartee. But with strangers, or persons seeking to make her acquaintance out of mere idle curiosity, she was reserved and forbidding. She was by nature imperious and haughty, quick tempered, and brusque of speech. She was very fond of social functions, although her lameness prevented her from dancing. She was also devoted to dress and personal adornment, and was luxurious in her habits and fond of elegant ease, — conditions which may have been superinduced by her physical impediment.
Carlotta Patti's musical career, though confined to the concert stage, was exceptionally brilliant. She made
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AMALIA PATTI 47
her debut in 1861, and her success was instantaneous. She gave concerts all over this country and Europe, and became a universal favorite. She died in Paris, the city she loved best, in 1889. The gayety and excite- ments of that city just suited her pleasure-craving nature.
With one sister queen of the opera, and another sister queen of the concert-room, what was left for Amalia Patti but a quiet, uneventful stage life in this double shadow, the applause only of those who really knew something about music, and devotion to the interests of her manager-husband, Maurice Strakosch ? She was graceful and handsome, — all the Pattis were, as I have said. She was an excellent singer, as a matter of course, being a Patti. She had decided talent, but it was not sufficient to place her in the highest rank. Unlike her two more gifted sisters, she had a contralto voice. She was the oldest child of the second marriage, and made her debut in " Beatrice di Tenda," at the Astor Place Opera House, New York, in 1847. Maurice Strakosch first met her in 1848, when arranging a concert tour with Anna Bishop, Parodi, and herself. They were married at the close of that tour, and, as far as I know, " lived happily ever after." She came to Chicago during the tour, again in 1853 with Steffanone, Paul Julien, and her husband, who was an excellent pianist, the most dignified of managers, and most philosophical of men. He always rose superior to the accidents men- acing the box-office and the absurd caprices of artists. Amalia Patti' s next concert visit was in 1854 with Ole Bull. Her voice was not a powerful one, nor was it
48 MUSICAL MEMORIES
very dramatic, but she was always an enjoyable singer. It was a pleasure to listen to her smooth, quiet, melo- dious, and well- trained manner of singing, as it was to watch her pretty face, her graceful, high-bred person- ality, and the quiet elegance of her stage deportment. She appeared many times in Chicago in opera, and while she never roused wild enthusiasm with furious outbursts of declamation or brilliant feats of technic, she was a favorite with musical people because they were confident she would do everything correctly. I have known an audience to go wilder over a single sforzando of Bri- gnoli's, a high C of Wachtel's, or one trill by Adelina Patti, than they would over an evening of perfect en- sembles. In a word, Amalia's career was colorless because it was continually in the Adelina-Carlotta penumbra.
I never met Carlos Patti, the brother, but once. He was born in Lisbon and studied the violin in Milan. Then he went with his half-brother Antonio to Mexico and played in concerts. He was of a roving, adventur- ous nature and had so many of the Southern qualities that he became a favorite in New Orleans, Mobile, St. Louis, and other Southern cities. He was in the Confed- erate States Signal Service and for a time was a member of General Beauregard's staff during the Civil War period. He did not remain long in the service, however, but drifted about from place to place. At one time he was leader at the New Orleans Opera House, at another at the Wakefield Opera House, St. Louis, and at another conducted Fisk's opera troupe. It was about this time, I believe, that he estranged himself from his family by
CARLOS PATTI — PARODI 49
marrying a member of this troupe. He made one or two visits North, and it was during one of these, in 1863, that I met him. He was in the same company with Gottschalk, Brignoli, and Angiolina Cordier. He was a handsome, graceful young fellow, but reserved, melan- choly, and evidently disappointed with his career and his life. It was difficult to make conversation with him, he was so shy and reticent. He had all the family pride, but he knew he had not kept up the family prestige or kept pace with its success. He alone of the four was not well received. He played accurately and skil- fully, but coldly and perfunctorily. His heart was not in it. He had had many troubles, and at last the bur- den became too heavy for him, and he died alone in St. Louis in 1873.
I have mentioned Parodi in connection with Amalia Patti and must say a little about her, as she played quite an important part on the concert and opera stage during the fifties. Maretzek had an opera company in New York in 1850, and when he heard of Barnum's contract with Jenny Lind, he prepared for a struggle by sending to London for Parodi. She had been a pupil of the great Pasta and had a European reputation behind her. As an offset to the Barnum fictions. Maretzek started the story that just as Parodi was about to leave Lon- don, the Duke of Devonshire offered her his hand and fortune, but so great was her sense of duty that she declined both rather than break her engagement. Other myths were set afloat by Maretzek, but he was no match for Barnum in short stories. The people had caught the Jenny Lind fever, and Maretzek and Parodi
50 MUSICAL MEMORIES
must perforce wait until it subsided. After it had run its course, Parodi had quite a little success under Maretzek, and later under Strakosch and Mapleson, and deserved more, for she was really an excellent artist. She was of the Italian type of beauty, tall and stately, and a prima donna of the robust school. Her voice was rich in quality, and she sang in good tune and not without brilliancy, although she was often intensely energetic and " ranted," if I may apply that dramatic term to singing. Her commanding presence and superb posing were very effective in such roles as Semiramide and Norma. She was in Chicago many times during the fifties — in 1851 with Amalia Patti and Arthurson, the tenor; in 1855 with Amalia Patti and Giovanni Leonardi, the tenor; and in 1856 with Tiberini, the tenor, Morini, the barytone, Paul Julien, the violinist, and Henry Ahner, the cornetist of the famous Germania Orchestra, which had disbanded a short time before. All the prima donnas were patriotic in those days, or at least found it profitable to cater to the popular patri- otism, as will be observed in more than one instance in these pages. So at this concert Parodi sang the unsing- able "Star-Spangled Banner" and the "Marseillaise," which last she delivered with as much vigor as if she were shouting it on a barricade to the mob of the Paris streets. In 1859 she was a member of the first regular Italian opera company which appeared in Chicago. I do not remember her after that.
CHAPTER V
THE GERMANIA SOCIETY
THE GERMANIA SOCIETY — GUNGL's OPINION OF AMERICANS — CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GERMANIA — ITS VISIT TO CHICAGO
— A CRITIC'S SOUL-LONGINGS — THE SOCIETY'S LASTING INFLUENCE UPON MUSICAL PROGRESS — THE WORK OF INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS — THE CAREER OF CARL BERGMANN
— THE SAD END OF HIS LIFE — JULIEN, "THE CHARLATAN OF ALL THE AGES" — HIS EGOTISM AND ECCENTRICITIES
— THE "FIREMEN'S QUADRILLE," ETC.
I HEARD the Germania Orchestra play in Boston before I came to Chicago. This remarkable band, officially known as the Germania Society, was the real pioneer of instrumental music in the United States, and deserves to occupy first place in the history of early musical progress in this country by reason of the high standard which it maintained, the new works which it introduced, and the model which it set for the then ex- isting orchestral organizations. There were orchestras at that time in New York, Boston, and a few other places, and there had been some European bands here before the Germania Society arrived, the best of which was Gungl's from Berlin. The latter, however, did such an unprofitable business that the disgruntled Gungl went back to Berlin and made a savage onslaught upon Amer- icans. He declared that they were incapable of enjoying music and much preferred circus riders, rope dancers,
52 MUSICAL MEMORIES
beast tamers, giants, dwarfs, and such like freaks, to mu- sicians. Gungl said this more than fifty years ago. It is curious in this connection to note that Chaliapine, the Russian basso, after his operatic engagement in this country in 1908, said he pitied Americans because they had " no light, no song in their lives," and that they are " children in everything pertaining to art." Be this as it may, it does not affect the high esteem in which the Germania Society was held by lovers of good music.
The Society came to this country in 1848, and gave concerts for five or six years. They were not profit- able, and it disbanded after a prolonged effort to gain a foothold. Nearly all its members remained here and continued their labors for the higher music individu- ally. It was a comparatively small orchestra, but it was composed of earnest, honest, cultivated musicians, who believed in their art and presented it in the noblest form of exposition. It was a hard road they travelled, but they never lowered their standard nor degraded themselves by submitting to commercial considerations. When they could go no farther, they continued their work individually, as I have just said, and several of them took high rank as musical educators. The Society introduced its audiences to the classic symphonies. It incited local orchestras to more convincing work and paved the way for that orchestral development and musical progress achieved by Carl Bergmann and Theo- dore Thomas a few years later.
The first conductor of the Germania Society was Lens- chow, who became disheartened and resigned in 1850. His place was filled by Carl Bergmann, first 'cellist in
A CRITIC'S SOUL-LONGINGS 53
the Society. Business improved under his manage- ment, but notwithstanding its acknowledged reputation, its technical ability, and its extraordinary solo work, for nearly every member was an accomplished solo performer, it disbanded in 1854, after having given concerts in nearly every part of the country. During its travels the Society visited Chicago in 1853, with Camilla Urso, the violinist, then a mere child, and Alfred Jaell, the pianist, as soloists, and upon that occa- sion Chicago heard a symphony for the first time. It was Beethoven's Second. A short time before this the Society had played the same symphony elsewhere, and a reporter for the " Chicago Journal " thus naively expressed his musical soul-longings :
" In St. Louis and Louisville the Germania Orchestra has played a whole symphony of Beethoven and has really brought tears to the eyes of musicians and amateurs. How we should like to witness a performance of such a symphony ! Never, perhaps, shall we have an occasion during our lifetime to hear such a performance ! "
It is consoling to know that the Second Symphony was not his Carcasonne. His pathetic longing for symphonic joy was satisfied, for a few weeks later the Society played the same work in Chicago. I regret, however, that I have been unable to find any record of his feelings on that occasion. Perhaps he was too greatly overcome to trust them to cold type. But I have found what he said about the Society's second concert, and much to my astonishment discover that he transferred his affections to the sepulchral "Zampa," for he says :
54 MUSICAL MEMORIES
" The concert was magnificent in all its parts, especially Zampa's grand overture. The audience was never more enraptured. Camilla Urso, a child of twelve, performed some of the most difficult pieces that were ever composed for violin. The whole band won golden opinions. We heard some of the best judges of music remark that it was the best instrumental concert ever given in Chicago."
This is not very searching criticism, but it clearly describes the reporter's liking. I regret that he was silent about the effect of the Second upon him, but perhaps, like the old lady in the Louvre, he had seen the Apollo Belvidere and Haggles and preferred Raggles.
After the disbanding of the Society, Carl Zerrahn, the first flute, was for many years the accomplished conductor of the Boston Handel and Haydn Society. Carl Bergmann became leader of the New York Philhar- monic Society. William Schultze was for many years first violin in the Mendelssohn Quintette Club and afterwards professor of music at Syracuse University. Carl Lentz became an orchestra leader in Philadelphia, and Albrecht and Plagemann were leading spirits in the organization. Thiedemann went to Baltimore, where I believe he is still living, and did a great work for music in that city. Henry Ahner, first cornet, went to Chicago and organized orchestral concerts of a high order.
Of all these men, Carl Bergmann was the most prominent and best known as a musician. His instru- ment was the 'cello, but he understood them all. He was well equipped for leadership by his musical scholar- ship as well as by his executive ability, and he kept
Carl Bergmann
THE CAREER OF CARL BERGMANN 55
pace with musical progress. He was the first to intro- duce Wagner and Liszt in this country, while conduct- ing the New York Philharmonic concerts, though it was Theodore Thomas who developed the recognition of these composers into a close intimacy. He was for a considerable time also a member of the Mason- Thomas Quartette, which fought the early battles for chamber music. Bergmann went to Chicago in the fifties to lead its Philharmonic Society, but retired in disgust when he found that local musicians were en- gaged in a cabal against him. With all his ability and his scholarship, however, Bergmann was not an industri- ous worker, nor was he regardful of his duties. If his associates took the initiative in such periods of neglect, it angered him. At last he gave himself up to an indo- lent, pleasure-loving manner of life, and this alienated many of his musical associates. Near the end of his career he became very despondent. Friends abandoned him, and he died at last in a New York hospital in 1876, almost alone and forgotten. But he was a great musician, and greatly advanced the cause of music in his earlier and happier days.
It was not long after hearing the Germania Society that I went to a Julien concert. There never was but one Julien; there never will be another. Theodore Thomas, while conceding his ability, aptly called him " the charlatan of all the ages." He was the vainest of men in his dress, adornments, and personal demeanor. His egotism was so sublime that he made no conceal- ment of his conviction that he was a great genius. His gestures and gyrations in conducting were even more
56 MUSICAL MEMORIES
absurdly violent and eccentric than those of the present acrobatic Italian conductors in the summer gardens. It was a joyous spectacle to see him sink exhausted into his chair at the close of one of his grotesque programme music stunts, with his rose-colored gloved hands tightly clasped and wearing an expression of mingled satisfac- tion and superiority that exasperated men and thrilled women. He produced many descriptive pieces of his own, with huge bands, provided with more accessories for evoking noise than Tschaikovsky even dreamed of in his " 1812 " overture, and with more singular sounds than Strauss produces in his "Don Quixote" symphonic poem. The one I particularly remember is u The Fire- men's Quadrille." It was performed in the days when Mose asked Sykesey to "take the butt" while he " lammed " a gentleman of the rival machine who was standing on the hose, but neither Mose nor Sykesey en- countered a conflagration fiercer in its progress than " The Firemen's Quadrille." Julien may be credited with introducing programme music of the melodramatic sort in this country. It is entirely logical that he should end his days in Bedlam.
Louis Antoine Julien
CHAPTER VI
SOME VIOLINISTS
OLE BULL — HIS PERSONALITY — MANNER OF PLATING — A DREAMER — UNSATISFIED VISIONS — THE ROMANCE OF HIS LIFE — HIS NUMEROUS FAREWELLS — CONCERTS IN CHICAGO
— REMENYI — HIS FAR WANDERING — EXTRAVAGANCES AND MANNERISMS — A MEMORABLE AFTERNOON — SUDDEN DEATH — VIEUXTEMPS — CHARACTERISTICS OF HIS STYLE
— NILSSON'S BIRTHDAY AND "THE ARKANSAS TRAVELLER"
— WIENIAWSKY — RELATIONS TO RUBINSTEIN — GAM- BLING LOSSES — WILHELMJ — AN INTELLECTUAL PLAYER
— CAMILLA URSO AS CHILD AND WOMAN — HER LAST DAYS
I BEGIN my recollections of the famous old vio- linists with Ole Bull, not because he was the greatest of them — far from it, — but because for several curious reasons he was the best known and most popular. One of these reasons is purely personal. He was tall, strongly built, with a fine, erect figure, kindly eyes, and light hair which became snowy white before his long career was ended. He was a typical Norseman, and looked, while playing, as Frithjof might have looked when he sang his farewell to the North on the deck of Ellida. His personality was so magnetic that even musicians overlooked his eccentricities and occasional trickeries of technic. It added to the effect of this magnetic influence that he had a poetical nature, sym- pathetic disposition, and vivid imagination — in a word, he was a dreamer, but not an inspired one.
58 MUSICAL MEMORIES
Though greatly lauded, Ole Bull was not a great musician nor a great artist. He was rather a wander- ing Blondel, who played most fascinatingly. It was impossible to resist the magic of his bow even when you suspected it of sleight-of-hand. Who could believe that his closing pianissimo did not end and vanish into the air long before his bowing ceased ? And yet who did not raptly listen and wonder, as if he really recognized the ghost of the last tone floating off ? Perhaps it was a ghost, but this ghostly practice was not artistic. With what exaggeration he was praised one or two instances will show. George William Curtis wrote that his play- ing was " smooth as the summer seas, embosoming deep chromatic shadows and full sunlight, but no lesser things," and Lydia Maria Child called him " a Persian nightingale." It may be objected that these two were not musicians, only rhapsodists. But old John S. D wight surely was musical to his finger tips, and he said that his playing was " between a canary's and a thrush's singing." It is a long distance from a canary's shrilling to a thrush's luscious melody, so that Dwight's comparison is some- what misty ; but it shows that Ole Bull bowled him over like all the rest.
Ole Bull was capricious, but he was so strong in in- dividuality, so fervid of nature, so graceful and yet so vigorous in his work, and so hypnotic in his appeal, that he had little difficulty in carrying away any audience captive. Sometimes there were individual exceptions. A certain critic in the early fifties wrote : " Mr. Woodruff performed on the violin scientifically and gave some most exquisite touches that would gore Ole Bull. By the bye,
OLE BULL'S MANNER OF PLAYING 59
Mr. Bull does not seem disposed to come this way again. Perhaps he has heard of Woodruff." At one of his con- certs in Peoria an old farmer came to the door of the hall and asked Maretzek when all that confounded fid- dling would stop. Maretzek asked the man if he did not like music. " Yes," said the farmer, "but I didn't come to town for that. I want to see the old bull and go home."
Ole Bull belonged to no school. Perhaps that was another secret of his success, for people neither know nor care about schools, but like a player to be himself. Ole Bull certainly was all that. He imitated certain of Paganini's eccentricities by attempting effects of a bizarre sort, but yet he was always Ole Bull. He re- minded you of no one else, and he always played Ole Bull in all his versatile moods. To this extent he was the most eccentric of modern virtuosi, with Remenyi a close second. Who but these two would have climbed to the top of Cheops' Pyramid and played for the ben- efit of the Sphinx ? He rarely attempted the classical, probably because it is so unyielding in construction that it does not admit of moods or humors, so his repertory was comparatively small. He resembled Paganini in an- other respect : he was an ordinary composer. He wrote two pieces in this country, " Niagara " and " Solitude of the Prairie," but they were ephemeral. He was more at home in variations and Norwegian fantasies like his own " El Saterbesok," some measures of which he wrote out in his sprawling notation and gave to me with the remark that it was one of his favorites. And when the kindly faced old man, lovingly bending over his
60 MUSICAL MEMORIES
violin with his eyes closed, played these fantasies, I used to think he was at his best. Perhaps they called up visions of the land he loved very dearly and for which he made many sacrifices. He was, as I have said, a dreamer ; but, alas ! few of his dreams came true. He dreamed in 1855 of being an impresario, leased the New York Academy of Music, and five or six performances under his management ended this dream. Then he dreamed of a great school of music with opera for its basis, but it came to naught. In 1876 he had a dream of giving Italian, German, and English opera. All the great artists were to be engaged, and Verdi was to write an opera for him ; but the dream was only an iridescent bubble — nothing more. Then he dreamed of estab- lishing a Norwegian colony in Pennsylvania for the benefit of his countrymen, but he fell into the hands of swindlers and lost heavily. He dreamed of a national theatre in Norway, but whenever was a national theatre successful without a government back of it ? It is not remarkable that he was a dreamer, for his life was tinged with romance from his childhood, when he de- voured fairy tales and the sagas of the Northland. He travelled far and wide, and everywhere popular love and popular enthusiasm followed him. He was almost as much of a nomad as Remenyi. Perhaps it was his Wanderlust that made him uncertain about returning to a place when he left it. and was the cause of so many Concerts des Adieux. He began farewelling at an early period of his career, and kept it up to the last. My records show that his first appearance in Chicago with Adelina Patti, April 21, 1853, was announced as
c
r
H
ba
o o
c
HIS NUMEROUS FAREWELLS 61
a "Farewell to America," and yet he said that lonely word three times more, on April 26, May 2, and Decem- ber 14 of that same year. (I wonder if any one remem- bers that at the concert of April 26 coupon tickets were used and ushers employed for the first time at a concert in Chicago.) Why, you could n't drive Ole Bull away ! He loved Chicago, and Chicago loved him. On June 29, 1857, he gave " one farewell concert " with Harrison George, an English ballad singer, Horncastle, most delightful of buffo bassos, and Dressier, pianist, and on the next evening gave a second concert, which was " a positive farewell." In 1868 we had another parting, when he came with Madame Varian Hoffmann and Edward Hoffmann, pianist. In April of the fol- lowing year he came to us with the gloomy tidings that he must say a last loving good-bye, as he was going to Norway, never, never to come back, and we sorrowfully parted, never expecting to meet again ; but lo ! in 1872 the big fire had hardly cooled before he was here again with Gertrude Orme, soprano, Candidus, the big sweet- voiced German tenor, and Alfred Richter, the pianist, as chief mourners. Then there was another farewell in 1877, when he came with Isidora Martinez, the pretty little Spanish soprano, Tom Karl, the tenor, and Emma Thursby, expressly to say farewell. In 1880 he was here on the same errand with Alfred Pease, the Beau Brummel of the keyboard, Brausen, tenor, and Ferranti. Does any one remember Ferranti's inimitable singing of " Bevare, bevare, she is a-fooling thee " ? Ole Bull appeared here as regularly after a farewell as " the flowers that bloom in the Spring, tra la " ! But
62 MUSICAL MEMORIES
there must be a last time, and it was in 1880, for shortly after he left us the delightful, kindly old man died.
The name of Remenyi next suggests itself to my memory, for this Hungarian in some ways resembled Ole Bull. He was even more nomadic. His home was everywhere, and he was everywhere at home. He was a Romany roamer by instinct. He wandered farther afield than Ulysses and his "disastrous chances," and " moving accidents by flood and field " were as nu- merous as those which Othello related to Ophelia's father. He played in European cities, on the Pyramids, in the South Sea Isles, in the African diamond fields and among Transvaal kopjes, in New England school- houses, Southern plantations, and Western mining camps, amid the pomps of courts, the conventionalities of concert-rooms, and the flippancies of vaudeville the- atres. Though a Hebrew by nationality, he had all the gipsy traits, and it was the czardas which were his chief delight and highest inspiration. He looked as unlike a professional musician as it is possible to imagine. He was short, corpulent, heavy-featured, and somewhat shambling of gait. A stranger might have mistaken him for a bon vivant, or a justice " with good capon lined," but his looks belied him, for he was at no time in his life " a very valiant trencher man." On the con- trary, he was a most austere ascetic at table. A friend of mine in Chicago, wishing to entertain him, once gave him a dinner of several courses. He declined the oysters, soup, and fish, and seemingly appalled by the entrees, called for crackers, milk, and water. During
REMENYI'S MANNERISMS 63
my acquaintance with him he neither smoked, nor drank even light wine.
Remenyi had certain little tricks of technic like Ole Bull, and what seemed to be affectations, such as swinging his bow around his head like a scimitar and smiting the strings, but I do not think he meant it as an affectation. He had the same magnetic effect upon audiences as Ole Bull, but not produced by his person- ality, for he had not the impressive physique of the Nor- wegian. When in the mood, he could play to musicians so that they sat up and listened. He could always play to the people and set them wild with enthusiasm. He performed the czardas with the true gipsy feeling, and the " Rakoczy March " so that you understood why its fiery rhythm roused the Magyars to revolution. It seems to me, however, that he played best when free from the restrictions of the concert-room and the dis- tractions of an audience — in musical negligee, so to speak. I spent a Sunday afternoon once with him at the house of a mutual friend. Vogrich, his protege, a young musician of extraordinary talent, who has since become a lost Pleiad, was at the piano and played his accompaniments. It was a hot day, and Remenyi soon shed his coat. I can see him now, pacing the room and playing piece after piece, softly talking to himself, and now and then calling attention, with pardonable vanity, to the manner in which he played a phrase or produced an effect, his face wreathed with smiles, for he was the soul of good nature. I do not think he was really vain. He simply had an abiding, unshaken faith in Remenyi. The signature to the
64 MUSICAL MEMORIES
letters he wrote to me usually occupied the larger part of the page, and curious polyglots they were, sometimes made up of half a dozen languages ! He never spoke in an uncertain tone about his playing. After performing a Hongroise at a friend's house, he walked to the mantel, stopped the pendulum of the clock, and solemnly said : " Let this clock forever mark the hour when Remenyi played to you." His egotism was colossal, but it was the harmless egotism of a child. To return to the extempore concert. It lasted until dinner. He was in the playing mood, as well as Vogrich, and neither thought much about time. Their programme reached from the Bach " Chaconne " to Hun- garian folk songs. Remenyi' s memory was prodigious. At the close of one piece Theodore Thomas, who was present, asked him to play a certain concerto. Re- menyi replied that he had not played it for many years, but he would do his best. My friend brought the score to Vogrich, and Remenyi played the violin part, still pacing the floor, without missing a note. Like Ole Bull, again, he had no school. He was uninfluenced by precedents and careless of traditions. He played Remenyi. His tone was bright and appealing, his mastery of technic absolute. He once told me that he always played for one person in an audience. His words were : " There is sure to be in every audience at least one heart to which I may talk. That is enough. I fix my eyes upon him ; we understand each other." He was not an intellectual player, like Cesar Thompson or Wilhelmj, for instance, but an emotional, impulsive, temperamental player, governed by vagrant
HIS SUDDEN DEATH 65
fancies and the moods of the moment. He had ex- travagances and mannerisms, for he was a creature of caprice and impulse. He was always a child, and he kept the freshness, buoyancy, and optimism of childhood to the very last. And how mournful his end ! He died in San Francisco in 1898, from the effects of an apoplectic stroke while playing in a concert. But he died as he had wished. In a letter to a friend some months before his death he wrote : " I know and I feel that I shall die in harness. Yes, my dear boy, I shall die fiddling." He was a worshipper of beauty, a musical poet whose fancies were informed by the Oriental spirit. In his quaint way he once said : " All beauty is a spree to me. It is so I live my life. It is thus I keep life happy when I am getting old my- self, for life could get very, very dreary if one did not search out the sprees." Possibly if he had studied severely and grounded himself in the classics, he might have been a greater artist, but he would not have been Remenyi. His favorite maxim was, " Die echte Verk- larung in dem Kunst ist das ewig natiirliche" ("The true ideal in art is eternally the natural"). Certainly Remenyi lived up to that ideal. In one of his letters to me, received not long before his death, he writes: " I have been playing now many years. But my arm is still strong, and so I will keep on. And I will play after I have gone, ten million years, for the cherubim and seraphim, nichi wahr?"
Going back again several years, I come to Henri Vieuxtemps, one of the great violinists of his time. He
66 MUSICAL MEMORIES
lived in a violin atmosphere, for he began playing al- most as soon as his tiny hands could hold a bow. He was on the concert-stage at six and touring at seven. He came from Belgium, which has produced so many excellent string players, to this country in 1846 ; but I first heard him in 1857, and again in 1870. In 1857 he played in Chicago with Thalberg, — a rare combination, for Thalberg was considered the leading pianist of that period ; but a mysterious misadventure, of which I shall speak when I come to the pianists, suddenly cut short the Western tour. Some rather crude Wild West criti- cisms, with pointed suggestions for more tunes and less flourishing, probably helped to make it easy for him to have the tour come to any sort of a close. One of these critics went so far as to say that Vieuxtemps was a good enough fiddler considering his opportunities, but he would n't go to hear him again unless they reduced the price of tickets to sixty-two and a half cents a dozen. During the season of 1870 Vieuxtemps returned to Chicago with Christine Nilsson, and I had the pleasure of meeting him personally and very informally. The occasion was a birthday dinner which Nilsson gave to some friends, and I shall refer to it more in detail when I come to speak of that Swedish fascinator. Vieuxtemps was there, and the function lasted far into the small hours. Several of the artists present did extraordinary stunts, and conventionalities were thrown to the winds. It was a ludicrous spectacle, that of Vieuxtemps un- bending far enough to play " The Arkansas Traveller," following it up with " Money Musk," in the most rol- licking manner. His violin bubbled over with fun as
VIEUXTEMPS 67
the player stood leaning against the piano upon which Brignoli was improvising a genuine vaudeville accom- paniment, the great Belgian looking as solemn and lugubrious as if he were concertmeister for " Siegfried's Tod." At the close of " The Arkansas Traveller " there was wild applause, but he only looked up with a kind of sickly and far-away expression, as if he were inwardly saying his Peccavi to Frau Musica for the affront he had put upon her. He was plain of appearance and seldom smiled, so that his seriousness still further accentuated the ludicrous performance. He was a very quiet man in those days, but in his early life he had been quite gay, and fond of adventure and a good time. He also had a tem- per of his own, but age had sobered him down. Upon this Bohemian occasion he was the personification of dignity. Vieuxtemps was in most respects the best trained and most cultivated violinist of his day, and played with an elegance of style, a richness of tone, and a perfection of technic which have rarely been excelled even in these days, when the woods are full of good violinists. He died three years after I met him, a wretched sufferer from paralysis of the arm which had been so industrious, ophthalmia, pneumonia, and finally congestion of the brain, caused by an accident. If he had accomplished nothing else, all violinists would have respected his memory, for he left them a concerto which even yet has not been outlawed, but holds its place still in the violin repertory.
Wieniawsky, the Slavic violinist, whom Theodore Thomas called " one of the greatest violinists of the ages,"
68 MUSICAL MEMORIES
was remotely connected with Vieuxtemps, for he left his American tour before it was finished to take the place of violin teacher in the Brussels Conservatory, made vacant by Vieuxtemps's illness. He first came to this country in the season of 1872-1873 with Rubinstein, under Maurice Grau's management, and after giving sev- eral concerts a combination was effected with the Thomas Orchestra, and they gave memorable concerts. They set the standard for piano, violin, and orchestra playing. Wieniawsky had been solo violinist for the Emperor of Russia for twelve years before he came to the United States, which suggests that Czars have some compen- satory enjoyments even if they are targets for bomb- throwers. He was a master of his instrument, and played not only in artistic style, but with a fervor and at times a boldness and dash that thrilled you. It was a delight to hear him play his own " Legende " and " Polonaise," and a still greater one to listen to his passionate performance with Rubinstein of Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata. The two players were admirably mated, both trained musicians, skilled interpreters, and players for whom difficulties did not exist, and both infused with a divine fury at times. Will any one who heard that performance of the great sonata ever forget it ? I met Camilla Urso one evening not long before she died. The Thomas Orchestra a few nights before had played Mr. Thomas's arrangement of the Kreutzer Andante and variations for strings. We were speaking of it, and I remarked that I had not heard it before since Rubinstein and Wieniawsky played it. " But," said the little solemn-faced lady, looking at me out of those big
August Wilhelmj
WIENIAWSKY'S RELATIONS TO RUBINSTEIN 69
expressive eyes with an inquiring glance, " you did not want to hear it again, did you ? " That expressed its effect in a word.
It was not long after I saw Wieniawsky that he died. He had a bad temper, and Rubinstein had a worse one, and the old friendly relations were soon severed. They never spoke to each other again. His health broke down, and he lost nearly all his earnings at the gaming-table and in speculations, for gambling was one of his passions. I have often wondered why it is that the violins gamble so frequently. I cannot recall violas, 'cellos, or double- basses doing it. I am quite certain the trombone never loses money by chance, and that the bassoon, clarinet, and trumpet never take risks in any kind of game. But I know of several violinists who every now and then have " gone broke." Is it because the violins alone of the orchestral family have all the wild, wayward, pas- sionate work to do, and the other instruments have more staid, dignified, and conservative duties to perform ?
Tidings of the death of August Wilhelmj, Wagner's concertmeister at the first Bayreuth performance of the "Nibelungen Trilogy," comes as I am writing this chapter. In some respects he was the most impressive of all the violinists I have heard. He made his Chicago debut in a concert with Carreno, Kate James, and Taglia- pietra in 1878, but I best remember him in a Turner Hall Sunday afternoon concert, amid a cheery Gemilth- lichkeit, which soon developed into a wild display of En- thusiasmus. He was a man of dignified presence, fine figure, and commanding aspect, with a face that reminded
70 MUSICAL MEMORIES
me a little of Rubinstein. He had absolute command of the resources of his instrument. I have heard no other violinist with such breadth, nobility, and distinc- tion in his work. His tone was not only pure and beau- tiful, but it was big and noble, a sonorous clang, indeed, of most majestic sort, which was well adapted to the higher music. He seemed to evoke the noblest qualities of his instrument, and his repertory was largely composed of the works of the masters. His technic was devoid of tricks of any sort. With all his qualities so honest, legitimate, and noble, and with all his broad musical culture, he had not the popularity of some of the other players I have mentioned. I do not think, indeed, that he would have valued it if he had had to secure it by the same means, for he was first musician and then violinist, and his playing above all was intellectual, and marked by classic repose, noble dignity, and most sono- rous volume. And what Wilhelmj was as virtuoso he was as man, — a man of solid attainments, sterling character, scholarly and literary culture, and one of the most delightful of talkers.
And now there comes into my memory a little maiden, hardly in her teens, playing the violin with all the ease, facility, and self-possession of a mature artist. She was a most serious child, with large dark eyes and with a manner and dignity that seemed strange in one so young. I do not think she was ever childish. Her face was so solemn and unchanging in its expression that it seemed as if a smile had never visited it. She began playing the violin in her sixth year. I think when I first met
CAMILLA URSO AS CHILD AND WOMAN 71
and heard her she was about fourteen, and she then ap- peared on the stage as if born to it. Even as a child Camilla Urso was an extraordinary player, with a re- markable technic as well as purity of tone. I next heard her in 1866, when she played in a Philharmonic Concert in Chicago, and again in 1867, when she appeared with the old Boston Mendelssohn Quintette Club, then in all its glory.* She was then in her twenty-fourth year, but still had that same pale, serious, inscrutable face, the same dark, lustrous, melancholy eyes, and the same calm but gracious dignity of manner ; but with the advancing years she had gained a more finished style, greater indi- viduality, and exquisitely graceful motions of the arm in bowing. Camilla Urso was a true, honest artist. She had no affectations, no trickeries. Everything she did was legitimate. She had travelled far and wide. Few if any women violinists have travelled as far, and every- where she made a success of enthusiasm and was rec- ognized as an artist of distinction. But suddenly she dropped out of the musical world as a performer. Why she did it I think no one knows ; but possibly she may have felt that she had reached the limit of her ability, or her physical strength had begun to wane. When I re- call that little serious maiden who visited me one day so many years ago, the young woman who travelled so far and played with great orchestras and with great artists and made her name known and honored, not by press agents and advertising, but by her own merits, the
* The original Mendelssohn Quintette Club was composed of William Schultze, first violin ; Carl Meisel, second violin ; Thomas Ryan, clarinet and viola; Edward Heindl, flute; and Wulf Fries, cello.
72 MUSICAL MEMORIES
woman who suddenly dropped out of her profession, and in the closing year of her life sought to make a living by hard teaching and died almost forgotten, I sometimes wonder what that mask of seriousness hid behind it.
CHAPTER VII SOME PIANISTS
THALBERG AS MAN AND ARTIST — HIS SUDDEN DISAPPEARANCE — GOTTSCHALK — HIS MUSIC AND STYLE — AN AFTERNOON WITH HIM — RUBINSTEIN AND THE AMERICAN TOUR — VON BULOW AND HIS PECULIARITIES — JAELL AND THE DRUM — A PROCESSION OF PIANISTS — WEHLI, THE LEFT- HANDER, AND THE GREASED PIANO — " BLIND TOM " AND HIS FEATS — CARRENO
THALBERG came to Chicago in the mid fifties. The city at that time was hardly graduated from its five-finger exercises, but it was greatly excited over the advent of a real pianist and put on its best clothes to go to the Thalberg-Vieuxtemps-D'Angri concerts, for it had heard that Thalberg was one of the world's great- est players and it wished to do him honor. It was not sure it would intelligently appreciate him, but it would at least pretend to do so. Then, again, few great artists had visited Chicago up to that time. True, Ole Bull had been here, but he came quite informally, like one just dropping in for dinner; but here was a distin- guished guest, son of a prince and a baroness, a grand virtuoso, an elegant man of the world, a fa- vorite of courts, and all that, and he must be received politely. So Chicago turned out in full force and finery, and Thalberg played to " large and fashionable audiences."
74 MUSICAL MEMORIES
The triple combination came to Chicago in 1856. Madame D'Angri, contralto, was a handsome, stately woman, with wicked eyes and a fine voice. A contem- porary criticism in one of the city papers will show how Chicago rose to the occasion : " Thalberg's melodies are of a simple character, like the ripple of the waves on the beach of a summer evening when the moon- beams sleep on a placid sea. To our mind this is a mark of the highest genius. The profoundest philoso- phers always find its illustration in the commonest objects; witness Plato and Him who spake as never man spake. The concert last night was a triumph." The citation is interesting as showing the ndivett and terseness of criticism in the early days, but the reader must remember that the city was very young in the early fifties, that one could shoot wild pigeons on the North Shore, that coyotes used to sneak about on the West Side, and that beyond Twelfth Street on the South Side stretched the lonesome prairie.
Thalberg came again the next season with Parodi, Amalia Patti, Nicolo, and Mollenhauer, and Chicago again made its handsomest courtesy. The series of concerts, however, was left unfinished, for Thalberg suddenly dropped out of sight. One morning the papers contained the announcement that " owing to circumstances rendering Mr. Thalberg's immediate re- turn necessary, the concerts advertised in the West will be indefinitely postponed, with the exception of the one advertised for Chicago, this evening, at Light Guard Hall." What were the circumstances? There was at once a flight of rumors. His agent said he was ill.
SlGISMUND THALBERG
THALBERG'S SUDDEN DISAPPEARANCE 75
No one believed him. It was reported that he had had a falling out with D'Angri. But most startling of all was the rumor that Madame Thalberg had arrived in New York and was anxious to see him. The manager gave me some information, but it was purely confidential. As long experience with managers has made me distrust their stories, confidential ones in particular, it is not worth relating, though the confidence was outlawed long ago. Besides, I doubt not it was idle gossip.
Notwithstanding his aristocratic antecedents, Thal- berg was not a distinguished looking man, nor had he any of those personal affectations cultivated by mu- sicians who wish to be known as such. His playing was almost entirely confined to his own operatic fan- tasies, like the " Moise " and " Lucia," and as he was absolutely at home at the piano, this of course made largely for the success of his playing. These fantasies were something new in the world. The melody of the aria stood out very clearly in the midst of a most dazzling display of scales, arpeggios, shakes, and corus- cations of every sort, and the whole keyboard was none too big for the exhibition of his elegant and absolutely perfect technic. But there was no more soul in it than there is in the head of a kettledrum. It was simply marvellous mechanism. Our sentimental critic was clear off the track with his " rippling waves " and "sleeping moonbeams." It was rather a pyrotechnic display, with the rockets left out, for Thalberg never soared. The real attraction of his work was its ele- gance and its clearness, even in the most intricate mazes with which he enclosed a melody. He had a host of
76 MUSICAL MEMORIES
imitators, and the Thalberg fantasies were all the rage for a time. Every little piano thumper tackled them. But Thalberg, his school of virtuosity, and his fantasies are now only memories. The fantasies to-day are as empty as last year's birds' nests.
Two or three years later came Louis Moreau Gotts- chalk. He was the rage for a time. He was a charmer at the piano and fascinating as a fellow-being. I think he made his first appearance in Chicago in December, 1860, with Carlotta Patti, and what a handsome couple they were ! I am not certain as to the exact date, but I am sure about the extraordinary performance at one of the concerts of the " Tannhauser Overture " arranged for five pianos, Gottschalk being assisted by Irma de Pelgrom, Franz Staab, Israel, and Behrens. That per- formance would have made Wagner himself sit up and take notice. Gottschalk was here again in 1862 with Carlotta Patti, when she gave us the " French Laughing Song" and the " Venzano Waltz" for the first time, as only she could sing them, and in 1864, when, together with Lucy Simons, soprano, Morelli, barytone, and Doehler, violin, he opened Smith and Nixon's Hall, on the corner of Clark and Washington streets. This was Gottschalk's farewell season.
Gottschalk was often criticised for the class of music which he played. It consisted principally of his own compositions, " Bamboula," " Le Savane," " Recordati," " La Marche de Nuit," " 0 ma Charmante," " Le Man- cilliner," " Ojos Creollos," the " Berceuse," " Last Hope," and others. In reality, the music which he
AN AFTERNOON WITH GOTTSCHALK 77
played was not a fair test of his taste or his ability. He once told me that he played these and similar pieces because people liked them, and because he needed the money they brought him, for his own expenses were large, and besides that he was supporting five sisters and a brother at that time. Gottschalk was a great lover of Beethoven's music, especially the sonatas. How well I remember the last time I saw him ! We spent an afternoon together in 1864, and he played for me in his dreamy way the so-called " Moonlight " sonata of Beethoven, some of Mendelssohn's "Mid- summer Night's Dream " music, and his " Lieder ohne Worte," running from one piece to another with hardly a pause except to light a fresh cigar or interview the merry Widow Clicquot. I remember asking him why he did n't play that class of music in his concerts. He replied : " Because the dear public don't want to hear me play it. People would rather hear my ' Banjo,' or ' Ojos Creollos,' or ' Last Hope.' Besides, there are plenty of pianists who can play that music as well or better than I can, but none of them can play my music half so well as I can. And what difference will it make a thousand years hence, anyway ? " All his music was either sensuous or sentimental, for he was tropical by nature, — a wayward, passionate creature, who delighted in reveries and wild, strange rhythms. He had an ex- tremely delicate touch, and a singing quality which I have never heard excelled. And yet he had great power when it was needed, for he was a very strong man, not- withstanding his delicate appearance. Personally he was very fascinating. He had beautiful hands, and was
78 MUSICAL MEMORIES
as vain of them as Artemus Ward used to be of his. He had a fastidious way of encasing them in the most immaculate of gloves, which it took him some time to remove before he began to play. This was not an affec- tation, as many thought. He said it gave him time to compose himself and get at ease. As he was very shy, he did not make many intimate friends. He was poet- ical in his conceptions, and yet had a keen sense of humor. He used to exhibit with great glee the follow- ing poem, written by a New Orleans bard, which he said was the loveliest tribute ever paid him :
I could sit entranced and drink, And feel thy mellow music sink, Deep, deep in my bosom's core, Till liquefied, I felt nothing more ; My soul all wrapt up in ecstasy, And my frame in numb catalepsy.
ii
From heaven the listening star
Entranced looked down And stopped the heavenly car
By charm unknown, And I with mournful strain
The whippoorwill Beyond Lake Pontchartrain
Rejoice I will.
His last letter to me, enclosing his picture, was writ- ten from Rio Janeiro only a few weeks before his death. It seemed fitting that he should die in the tropics which he loved so well, for the nature of this Hebrew Creole was tropical.
RUBINSTEIN 79
Rubinstein was master of them all. He comes back to me most vividly in his concerts at Aiken's Theatre in 1872 with Wieniawsky, and Louise Ormeny and Louise Liebhart, two mediocre vocalists. He was the Jupiter Tonans of the keyboard. His personal appear- ance was impressive. He was athletic in mould, his head was large, and his hair luxuriously abundant and carelessly worn.* His features were rugged, reminding one of some of the portraits of Beethoven, whom he also resembled in some of his traits of character. He was outwardly a cold, stern man, with a face as rigid as stone. He almost utterly ignored audiences, and the more frantic the applause the less likely was he to rec- ognize it. It was only when he was disturbed by the idle chatter of people that he recognized any one, and those recognized under such conditions were not likely to forget the manner of it. He was a man of strong passions, but in performance they were tempered by his dominant artistic nature. He could play with tre- mendous power, sometimes with such vehemence as threatened disaster to the wires, and, on the other hand, his melody-playing was characterized by a delightful singing quality, for with all his energy, which some- times appeared ferocious, he still had great beauty of tone. When it is considered that he played every- thing from memory, and that his repertory embraced hundreds of compositions for piano alone, as well as
* I have sometimes wondered why it is that violinists and pianists so often belong to the long-haired genus. I cannot recall a long-haired 'cellist or double-bass player. 'Cellists usually are also short and fat, like their instruments. Trombonists and cornetists are usually short-haired, and ophicleidists and bassoonists are nearly always bald.
80 MUSICAL MEMORIES
concertos, and that he never practised, only now and then going to the piano to run over a few measures of a piece he had not played for a long time, his great talent will be best appreciated. He was at his best, it seemed to me, in concertos. By his titanic power and impul- sive force he not only made his piano take its proper place in the sea of sound, but he fairly led the orchestra in an authoritative manner. In a word, he dominated audience, players, and sometimes conductors. Such playing had not been heard before and is not likely to be heard again, for no one can imitate him. He has left no school. He belonged to no school. He was a great musician playing Rubinstein.
It is somewhat strange, considering his great success and the large remuneration he received, that he was dissatisfied with his American tour, with the business arrangements, and with piano-playing altogether. It is a little consoling, however, to know that he disliked England more than he did the United States. He once said in my hearing that Americans were too much en- grossed with the love of money to have a real love of art, but they were more impressionable than the English, who were the most unmusical people on earth. I have heard more than one eminent musician say the same thing. In one of his letters about this time he says: " I put myself for a certain time at the entire disposi- tion of the impresario, and may God preserve you from ever falling into such slavery. It is all over with art ; only the shop remains. You become an automatical instrument and the dignity of the artist is lost." Long after this tour he wrote to a friend : " The whole time
RUBINSTEIN'S AMERICAN TOUR 81
I was displeased with myself to such a degree that when a few years later another tour was proposed to me with the offer of fees amounting to half a million, I flatly refused."
Rubinstein had peculiarities which society might call rude, such as his impatience with interruptions or dis- tractions of any kind while he was playing, and his refusals to attend receptions and social functions or to exhibit himself for the gratification of lion-hunters. Critics of a small kind did not like him because he re- fused to recognize them as a class. And yet there have been few musicians who were more genial or larger hearted than Rubinstein, and never was there a more honest or conscientious musician. His purpose in com- ing to this country was to raise the standard of art, but he found he was expected to lower his own standards, and this he was too honest to do, so his tour was a dis- appointment. Perhaps also the fact that he was eager to abandon the keyboard altogether and devote his entire time to composition may have contributed to his dissatisfaction. But who could make his instrument play with such superb control ? Who could impart to it such an orchestral effect, even to the shimmer of strings and the shrilling of trumpets, and thus ennoble it and give it a dignified position in the instrumental family ?
I first heard Von Biilow in 1876. A numerous flight of stories, growing out of his musical and somewhat peculiar domestic relations with Liszt and Wagner, pre- ceded his coming, and his departure was followed by a
82 MUSICAL MEMORIES
long trail of myths and romances. His was an interest- ing personality. He was a little below medium stature, with receding forehead, large, sharp eyes, a somewhat belligerent aspect, and martial bearing. Perhaps it was this latter feature in his make-up that made him so partial to the drum, which he used to say quieted his nerves and soothed his temper because drum-beating was true rhythm. Though he was small in figure, he was big in spirit and tense of nerve, and he played with both as well as with great power and extraordinary facility of technic. He was autocratic, at times belliger- ent, and was even more impatient with audiences than Rubinstein. I saw him once leave the piano in a rage because a lady in the front row was fanning herself out of time. She did not desist until an usher explained to her the cause of his sudden flight. But when engaged in playing, and everything was normal in the audience, he was very cool and self-possessed. He had a phe- nomenal memory, as is well known, and his exploits with the Beethoven sonatas and the symphonies when he conducted them do not need retelling. His pro- grammes were noble models and his readings a fine display of musical scholarship. He bid good-bye to Chicago in May, 1876, and went away, taking with him the good-will of Americans. He was not so fortunate with his own countrymen. Some of them had sharply criticised his readings, particularly of Beethoven. In a parting speech he alluded to it as " beer criticism," cen- sured his countrymen for their copious libations to Gam- brinus, and followed it up with a general philippic on beer-drinking. This was too much for the Teutonic
A PROCESSION OF PIANISTS 83
temper in Chicago. Hence the outbreak- Probably it did not worry the little man much, for he dearly loved a row.
I recall several other pianists, but I can only refer to them briefly. Among them are Alfred Jaell, who came to this country with the Germania Society, already re- ferred to, — a showy, brilliant player in the Thalberg manner, and a charming, likable man, whose greatest de- light, moved perhaps like Von Bulow, by sense of rhythm, was to beat the bass drum when the Germania drummer had a night off ; De Meyer, the Vulcan of the keyboard, who astonished every one with his rapidity and nearly deafened them with his thundering sonority ; Rive-King, who came in the eighties, and of whose work I princi- pally remember that wonderful shake in Liszt's Second Rhapsody ; Essipoff, the Russian lady, who played Chopin divinely and without the antics of another well- known Chopin player, and who was one of the most refined and poetical pianists I have ever heard ; Joseffy, who made his Chicago debut in 1879, a most graceful, polished player, who was a great favorite for many years, but has practically retired now, I believe ; poor Rummel, a player of much ability, who showed the first symptom of musical decline by a sudden loss of memory at a concert I attended ; and Anna Mehlig, a fine, well- trained musician, who first appeared in Chicago with the Thomas Orchestra. Mr. Thomas used to call her his " piano pounder" because of her massive tone. He was a warm admirer of her musical ability and artistic play- ing and once said to me she was almost the only one
84 MUSICAL MEMORIES
who played under his baton to whom he did not have to give a thought. He knew the piano was all right and so could give his entire attention to his orchestra.
I must not omit Wehli, the left-hander, from my list, though "he never would be missed." He made a specialty of pieces for the left hand alone, whence he de- rives the above sinister appellation. His name recalls a ludicrous episode which happened many years ago in the Crosby Opera House, during a German opera season. Grover, the manager, very foolishly arranged for piano solos by Wehli in the entr'actes. Habelman and Her- manns were respectively the leading tenor and basso. Upon one occasion Wehli took his seat at the piano, ran his hands over the keys, suddenly held them up and looked at them, and left the stage. A " super " came in and wiped the keys carefully, and Wehli returned. Supposing that he had been offended because of dust on the keyboard, I somewhat sharply criticised his action on the next morning. In reply, I received the follow- ing note explaining the situation.
Teemont Hocsk, Sunday.
"Dear Sir, — Your remarks would have been very just you made that day but I hope you will permit me to explain the reason for my wanting to have the piano cleaned. The Ger- mans are jealous at my uniform success and at the kind sup- port I receive from the critics. The piano was besmeared with German lard or tallow of some kind about half an inch thick and prevented my playing as the fingers slipped about. I would feel deeply obliged if you would give this affair proper publicity in your valuable paper. Jas. M. Wehli."
I learned afterwards that the greasing of the keys was done by Hermanns and Habelman. Hermanns's
"BLIND TOM"— CARRENO 85
artistic sense of the unities was affronted because he thought the piano solo interrupted the movement of the opera, and Habelman was enraged because Wehli had expressed an ardent desire to slap the face of the sweet singer of " Adelaide," though for some unknown reason he never gave himself that pleasure.
" Blind Tom " can hardly be classed as a pianist, but as a lusus musicce he was certainly remarkable. He flourished in Chicago in the seventies, but he had been exhibited in public eight or ten years previous to that time. He had a wonderful memory, though it was given out that he was feeble-minded. It added to the remarkable char- acter of his feats that he was also blind. He had had no instruction and did not even know the rudiments of music, and yet he could play three airs at once and re- peat any piece after a single hearing of it, rarely missing a note or striking a false one. He enjoyed his own per- formances quite as heartily as his audience did, and when they applauded he joined in, clapping his hands with great glee. His father and mother were slaves in Georgia, and when they were offered for sale, the price was $1500 without Tom and $1200 ivith him. His purchaser made a fortune exhibiting him. I think he is still living, but whether he retains his musical faculty I do not know.
When I began this work, I intended not to recall any one now actively engaged in the profession of music, but Carreno is nearing the close of her remark- able career and has proved such a striking exception to most musical experiences that I cannot refrain from
86 MUSICAL MEMORIES
saying something about her. She is one of the few in- fant phenomenons who have more than made good the promise of childhood. She was born in Venezuela in 1853, and consequently is now in her fifty-fifth year. As a child she was possessed of great personal charm and beauty, and she is still a beautiful, stately woman. As a young player (I first heard her, I think, in 1863) she was moody, sometimes playing divinely, sometimes recklessly, as she happened to feel. Time, however, has softened her moods. She is growing old in years with exceeding grace and growing old in music with all the grace of the finished artist. When I heard her only a few evenings ago, playing poor MacDowell's Concerto, it seemed to me that the kindly faced, gray-haired woman played far more artistically than she had done as the young woman of passionate moods, and that she had developed wellnigh perfect artistry. I remembered her well as a girl, and now, after all these years, it was pleasant to sit and listen again to her playing and recall the old days with a pleasure not marred by the old lament, "jEheu, fugaces anni!"
CHAPTER VIII SOME PRIMA DONNAS
NILSSON — QUALITIES OF HER SINGING — HER MOODS AND HABITS — MANY ADMIRERS — A MEMORABLE BIRTHDAY — PAULINE LUCCA AND HER ROMANTIC CAREER — ETELKA GERSTER — A BRIEF AND BRILLIANT CAREER — THE FAMOUS GERSTER-PATTI EPISODE — LAGRANGE, MINNIE HAUCK, AND MARIE ROZE — ANOTHER FAMOUS EPISODE — KELLOGG AND CARY — CADENZAS AND CAR VENTILATION — MATERNA AND LEHMANN — TWO GREAT WAGNER SINGERS — LEHMANN'S PLEA FOR THE ANIMALS
IF ever a prima donna has had a charmed life it is Christine Nilsson. I wonder was it because she was the seventh child of a seventh child ! She told me so once with such a serious expression of face that I think she really believed in the nu- merical significance. It seems to me but yesterday that I saw her, — tall, willowy, with high cheek- bones, expressive blue eyes, flashing teeth, ash-colored hair, and shapely hands. The outlines of her face were a little severe, yet how attractive, even fasci- nating, she was, especially if you happened to see her in her favorite color of gray ! And can it be pos- sible that she is now a sedate, retired old lady in her sixty-fifth year? It must be so, for all the "Who's Whos" affirm she was born in 1843.
Christine Nilsson first appeared in concerts in Chicago with Brignoli, Vieuxtemps, Verger the barytone, and
88 MUSICAL MEMORIES
Annie Louise Cary, and during the same year (1871) she sang in the oratorios of " The Messiah " and " The Creation" with Imogene Brown, Annie Louise Cary, Alexander Bischoff, and Myron D. Whitney. She also sang here in concerts in 1883 with Hope Glenn, Del Puente, and the Mendelssohn Quintette Club, and in opera in 1884, as well as in " The Messiah " and "Elijah," with the long-ago defunct Oratorio Society. Has any one who heard her sing in the great duet from "The Huguenots" or "I know that my Redeemer liveth" ever forgotten it? She had a voice of remark- able sweetness and beauty, vocalization of the most skilful and fluent sort, and brilliant fioriture. She had a peculiar grace of manner and seemed to sing with her expressive eyes and every motion of her supple figure. She was also capable of producing certain rare effects, such as the sotto voce, which she would employ when she wished to make an unusual impression, so that in one sense her singing appeared calculated. Her finest operatic roles, it always seemed to me, were those of Valentin in " The Huguenots," in which she reached a powerful dramatic climax ; Alice in " Robert the Devil," which afforded her an opportunity of displaying her qualities in all their perfection; the title role of Mignon, which was rewritten for her,* and in which she was very fascinating by reason of her remarkable singing, though she was not so great a Mignon as Lucca ; and Marguerite in " Faust." I have seen every variety of Marguerites from the passionate to the cold-blooded, from satin-gowned and bediamonded
* The part was originally written for mezzo-soprano voice.
NILSSON'S MOODS AND HABITS 89
Marguerites to Marguerites in peasant garb. The stage Marguerites indeed seem to belong to one extreme or the other, — all nature, all art, or all nobodies ; but Nilsson found a happy medium by a combination of art and nature, though again her Marguerite was not so great as Lucca's. But whose was, unless it was Ellen Terry's on the dramatic stage ? It is a long slant from Gounod's garden music to burnt-cork minstrelsy, but how effective she made " The Old Folks at Home " — a fitting pendant to Patti's " Home, Sweet Home ! "
Nilsson was a singular bundle of moods, contrarieties, and little superstitions, and yet she was a sunshiny, opti- mistic creature. She would have made an accomplished diplomat. She could say more without committing her- self than any one I ever knew. She always observed a most courteous demeanor before audiences and had a personal appeal in her singing that gave each one in the audience the impression that she was singing for him or her. She never permitted herself to be disturbed or sur- prised or to confess she was in an awkward situation. She had no quarrels with her fellow artists, for she kept a naturally imperious disposition in check, nor did she display jealousy, except perhaps upon one occasion when she forced her manager to give her a sum equivalent to that which Mapleson was paying Patti. She was diplo- matic in her card-playing, of which she was fond. Upon one occasion, during a game in the Lenten season, a caller was announced. The cards disappeared as if by magic, and the caller found her deeply engrossed in a devotional work and reluctant to be torn away from it. Here is one of her diplomatic little speeches to an
90 MUSICAL MEMORIES
audience : " I am so sorry to bid you good-bye, but per- haps I will come back, buy a little home, and stay with you always, if you will let me." Was there ever neater blandishment for a guileless, unsuspecting audience ? Oh ! but she was a past mistress of flattery ! Here is an extract from one of her diplomatic letters : " I love the Americans. I send them my love, and I beg them to understand that on no account would I quit the stage without singing again in the United States. I am sorry I cannot go again this year, but I cannot. They are not to think it is because I do not want to. I long to see your country and your people once more. Some of the dearest friends I have in the world are there. They are all my friends, are they not ? I assure you I admire America, and I want you to say so. And don't forget to give them my love, and say I shall be sure to go and see them as soon as I can." Nilsson was also demo- cratic as well as diplomatic. As the gallery is not in the habit of passing bouquets up to the stage, she now and then would provide them herself, and have some one take them to the upper proscenium box and throw them to the stage at the proper time. Then she would pick them up, kiss them, lift her eyes with a rapturous smile, and thus acknowledge the gift the gods had sent her. She also had her little superstitions, which she sought to overcome by carrying a horseshoe with her as a mascot. A gipsy once told her she must beware of fire. She lost somewhat heavily by the Chicago fire, and also by the subsequent fire in Boston, against which her horse- shoe failed to protect her. Her superstitions, however, were harmless, for she had strong common sense back of
NILSSON'S MANY ADMIRERS 91
them. It was eminently sensible advice which she once gave a young operatic aspirant : "It is not enough to possess a voice and knowledge of music and some his- trionic talent, or whatever it is, to carry you through an opera ; you must be physically, brutally strong. It is the knowledge of this which makes lyric artists so sensitive when they are said to be ill. They know that without physical strength to sing through such an opera as ' Lohengrin,' for instance, art, talent, genius, what you will, are of no avail."
Nilsson had a host of admirers of all conditions. She once wrote : " My ambition is to make heaps of money, invest it well, fall desperately in love with a handsome man, and in the course of time go back with him and a couple of handsome children to Sweden. I should like to ride about with them in a nice carriage, showing them to old friends." There was once some gossip about her betrothal to Gustav Dore, the artist. He proposed to her, but was rejected. Far from being discouraged, he proposed a second time, whereupon she told him she would take six months to think it over ; but at the end of that time her reply was in the negative, and Dore re- treated from the field. She had a devoted admirer in Chicago in 1871, one Jerome Meyer, who seized every opportunity to see her at the Sherman House, followed her carriage in the streets, and at last went to the hotel with a coach and four to urge her to elope. It became necessary to call in the police and have the frenzied suitor removed. But, as Nilsson said in the above letter, she did make heaps of money, and invested it, and al- though she lost some of it, she married a handsome
92 MUSICAL MEMORIES
man ; for the half Creole, August Rouzaud, was a very handsome man with a very cavalier manner, as I re- member him. But he was not happy long. He was possessed with the idea that he was responsible for her financial losses, and when he tried to make up for them, he only made bad matters worse. This preyed upon his mind so continuously that reason finally gave way, and he was removed to an asylum, where he died. She subsequently married Count de Miranda, a Spanish noble- man, and retired from the stage.
My pleasantest memory of Christine Nilsson is con- nected with her birthday celebration at the Sherman House in Chicago in 1871, to which I have already made allusion. She was in the gayest of moods that evening, waived all the conventionalities, and showed herself a Bohemian of the most rollicking, sunshiny kind. Verger sang musical caricatures of the leading barytones on the stage. Vieuxtemps sacrificed his high art ideas to the humor of " The Arkansas Traveller " and the fascinations of " Money Musk " ; Brignoli played his Battle March, which he thought was an inspiration, and was inclined to be offended when he looked round and saw the company, with Nilsson in the lead, doing an extraordinary cake walk to its rhythm, for Brignoli took that march very seriously. Nilsson gave some ludicrous imitations of the trombone, double-bass, tym- pani, and bassoon, and sang humorous songs. The closing act of the revelry, which lasted far into the email hours, was a travesty on the Garden Scene in " Faust " by Nilsson and Brignoli, in which the big tenor's gravity of mien and awkwardness of love-making
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PAULINE LUCCA 93
was admirably set off by Nilsson's volatile foolery. It was a night of hilarity and fun-making long to be re- membered. And now I read that the once famous singer spent her sixty-fourth birthday in the Swedish village of Gardsby and delighted an enthusiastic audience with the song, " I think I am just fourteen." I should not be surprised if she honestly believes it, for she is one of the elect who can never grow old in spirit.
While I am writing this chapter, a cablegram brings the tidings of Lucca's death in Vienna. The despatch gives her more stately name, Baroness Pauline Wall- hofen-Lucca, but I remember her as simply Pauline Lucca. She was sixty-seven years of age when she died, and had been teaching most of the time since 1884, when she retired from the stage she had so brilliantly adorned. When I saw her she was in the very prime of her career. She made her Chicago debut in 1873 in " Favorita," but not in her best part. Her most successful roles were Zerlina in "Fra Diavolo," Cherubino in "Nozze di Figaro," Zerlina in "Don Giovanni," the title role in " Mignon," Selika in " L'Africaine," and Marguerite in " Faust." Meyerbeer was such an admirer of her talent that he made a codicil to his will to the effect that if Lucca were engaged to play Zelika at the Berlin Opera House, " L'Africaine " might be produced in Germany in the German language. She appeared in his opera in the same year, at London in Italian, and at Berlin in German. Her Marguerite was not only one of the most artistic performances on the operatic stage, but
94 MUSICAL MEMORIES
also an innovation upon the conventional representa- tions of the part, for she was a brunette Gretchen with black braids reaching nearly to her pretty feet. She created as much surprise at the time as Fechter's blond Hamlet did a few years previously. She was a graceful, handsome, and sprightly little creature, a most accom- plished actress, and one with the highest regard for dramatic truth and propriety. In fact, it is difficult to say which was her greatest attraction, her beautiful, sympathetic singing, teste "Kennst Du das Land?" in " Mignon," or her dramatic power, teste the scene with Mephistopheles at the church door in " Faust." If she had devoted her talent to the dramatic stage, she might have been one of the great actresses of her time. She not only identified herself with the character she was representing, but her respect for the unities was so great that she paid little attention to applause or demands for encores.
On the stage Lucca was engrossed with her art. Off the stage, she was a different person. She had a pecul- iar personal fascination which few could resist. The Emperor William had yielded to it and appointed her his favorite court singer. Bismarck was a victim and frankly declared he would give much to possess a con- fidential secretary with so clear a head as that of his " amiable little Pauline," and publicly exhibited his admiration by having his picture taken with his " amia- ble" friend at his side — a German Hercules and Om- phale. Even stern old Von Moltke succumbed in spite of all his strategetical defences. She was devoted to the army, and the army was devoted to her, and it was this
LUCCA'S ROMANTIC CAREER 95
devotion which led to her romantic marital experiences. She had an offer from Prince Lobkowitz, but notwith- standing his musical traditions, she rejected him, where- upon he generously got himself killed in a duel. The story of her two husbands is interesting. The first one, Baron von Rahden, was wounded in the Franco-German War, and she went to the military hospital to nurse him. The second husband, Baron Wallhofen, a cavalry of- ficer, was wounded at the same time, was an inmate of the same hospital, and shared her attentions. In 1872 she brought a suit in this country for divorce from Von Rahden without his knowledge, alleging infidelity as the cause. He tried to have it set aside subsequently, but failed, and consoled himself by promptly marrying the object of Lucca's jealousy. Thereupon Lucca married Wallhofen, who had followed her to the United States, and, I presume, lived as happily and contentedly with him as such an impulsive, exacting little woman could. Like the Duchess of Gerolstein, she dearly loved " the military." She would have made a stunning vivandiere. In private life she was quite democratic, plain of speech, unassuming of attire, and fond of Wurst and Schwarzbrod — perhaps because they were military rations. She was also frank, forcible, and independent in expression of opinion. Upon one occasion I was her neighbor at dinner, and observing that she frequently held her hand to her head, I asked her if she was in pain, to which she replied she had a headache. She then proceeded to anathematize both her head and the ache with most ornate and ingeniously combined German military ex- pletives. Evidently she had no use for expletives which
96 MUSICAL MEMORIES
were not military. Ordinary ones were inadequate to ex- press her feelings or relieve her mind. Then, again, they were the vernacular of the camps, and for this reason she chose them. Perhaps also, as she was at that time somewhat tangled up in the affairs of her two soldier barons, they may have been a still further relief. Any- way, they seemed to comfort her and restore her equa- nimity, for she soon was vivacious and talkative and became the life of the company. She evidently was not overcome with the consuming love for America which Nilsson displayed with such protestation. She had just come from New York, which she described as a colossal city with a million people indefatigably trying to get each other's money away. It would take another Co- lumbus, she said, to discover any appreciation or en- joyment of the artistic or intellectual there.
Now this sprightly little woman has gone and will never have headaches again nor deliver delightful mili- tary expletives so bewitchingly as she did that evening. Requiescat in pace.
Etelka Gerster, the Hungarian singer, who made her Chicago debut January 13, 1879, had one of the short- est and most brilliant careers on record. One week she was a comparatively obscure vocalist, and the next week a dozen cities were competing for her. Her first per- formance spread her fame all over Europe. She was a meteor in the musical firmament, shooting into sight out of the darkness, flaming a little way in dazzling flight, then disappearing again into the darkness, leaving no sign.
ETELKA GERSTER 97
Gerster was not a handsome woman, like so many of her contemporaries, but her face lightened up pleasantly and displayed a very attractive earnestness in dramatic roles ; for while she was by no means a finished actress, she was a natural one. Her voice was a pure soprano without a flaw in it. Her high register was clear and birdlike, much resembling Jenny Lind's, and her middle and low tones were full and rich. She displayed no effort in singing, taking even the most florid passages with perfect ease, and this facility, joined with her clear, pure tones, the carrying power of her voice, her precision of pitch, and her wonderfully brilliant fioriture, made her one of the most attractive and popular singers of her day. It is a pity that such a splendid career was so short-lived. She was in this country several times, but the last time, in 1885, there could be no mistake. That exquisite voice was in ruins and beyond hope of resto- ration. Could it have been saved and could she have had a few more years on the stage, Patti, Nilsson, and all the other artists of the period would have had to look to their laurels, for she had every requisite of the perfect singer. She was not powerfully dramatic, like Lucca, for instance, but the public are not in the habit of looking to the operatic stage for actresses. When they do they are usually disappointed.
Off the stage Gerster was a very enjoyable person to meet, as she had no affectations and did not care to talk shop. She was quite domestic, an accomplished house- keeper and excellent cook. At hotels she usually sent for the chef and arranged the details of her menus with him. If these arrangements failed in the slightest
98 MUSICAL MEMORIES
degree, she would get angry, for she had a quick temper. Once she told the proprietor he must discharge his chef, for he had put too much salt in her soup. On another occasion she wished for olive oil, and the bottle Miss Kellogg had been using was brought to her. She would not even look at it, and ordered it taken away with the remark that it was horrid stuff and fit only for an American. The situation was a little strained, for Gerster did not like Miss Kellogg and of course would not like what Miss Kellogg liked. But as Miss Kellogg was more difficult to suit than Gerster, except when her mother did the cooking, it is most likely that the oil was good enough even for the Hungarian.
The most interesting event in this artist's career was the Gerster-Patti war. It was not a very long one, though it reached from Chicago to San Francisco, but it was hot and spectacular while it lasted. The two singers were in the same troupe on one of Mapleson's Western tours and were mortally jealous of each other. Mapleson unwisely incensed Gerster by showing favors to Patti. When they appeared together on the stage, Patti would receive a profusion of flowers, some of them official, doubtless, but Gerster would get the most ap- plause, and this so embittered Patti that at last she refused to sing at the same time with her. One day Gerster saw a poster with Patti's name on it larger and blacker than hers, whereupon she disappeared and was not found for two or three days. Patti declared that Gerster had the evil eye, and that when they reached San Francisco she would probably cause an earthquake. Ger- ster, however, got back handsomely, for when she saw the
Etelka Gerster
THE FAMOUS GERSTER-PATTI EPISODE 99
Governor of Missouri kiss Patti, she quietly observed in Patti' s hearing that there was no harm in a man's kissing a woman old enough to be his mother. That settled it. They spoke no more, but regarded each other haughtily from a distance. They travelled in separate cars. When Gerster learned that there was to be an extra concert in Denver, for which she and Patti were billed, she engaged a special train to take her to New York, and it kept Mapleson occupied a whole day in pacifying her with sympathetic appeals and direful threats of the courts. Whenever Gerster's name was mentioned, Patti would make the finger sign to avert evil, and Gerster was not slow in devising simi- lar methods of displa}dng her tender regard for Patti. At last they reached San Francisco, where the two had a picturesque variety of quarrels ; but Gerster mercifully spared the city from destruction by looking at it only with her good eye. The eruption was confined to the troupe. It finally died away with low mutterings and occasional sputterings, but the Colonel told me on his return that even then he could feel some of the seismic vibrations, and that the episode was one of the worst he had experienced in a career which was as liable to cyclonic disturbances as a Kansas prairie.
Anna de Lagrange is now hardly more than the shadow of a name, and yet she was a far better artist than many whose names are recorded in the dictionaries of music. She came to New York in 1853 and was engaged both in opera and concerts for three or four years, appearing several times in Chicago. She was
100 MUSICAL MEMORIES
then past her prime, but she was still an accomplished singer. Her voice was not remarkable for power, nor was her dramatic talent extraordinary, but she was a true artist, and her work showed the results of consci- entious study and love of her art. She was extremely modest and dignified in her stage bearing and averse to passionate display in her roles. An interesting story is told in this connection which will serve also to intro- duce Brignoli, the tenor. They were singing together at Havana, one evening, in " Lucia." Brignoli took the part of Edgardo, in which vocally he was supreme ; but that evening he failed to make an impression, and in the last act the house was half empty. This was something new for Brignoli. The next day he asked a friend to explain the embarrassing situation. The friend said : " Why, you sang false and had no heart in your music. Cubans will not excuse such faults." Brignoli some- what testily replied : " It was not my fault ; Lagrange was so cold that she froze me." Brignoli's complaint reached Lagrange's ears. She resolved to be ardent enough at least to convince him that he could not again attribute his bad singing to her want of fervor. In the meantime Brignoli had been communing with himself and came to the conclusion that perhaps he was the freezer. The next evening both of them warmed up, and the result was curtain calls, bravas, and flowers from the warmed-up Cubans. I think both were right, for naturally the two were politely prim and courteously cold. A passionate climax could not be achieved by either of them without a tremendous tour de force- But it would be hard to find a more faithful artist than
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LAGRANGE, HAUCK, AND flOZB 10 1
Lagrange. She never marred a season with disappoint- ments, never wrangled with her managers, and never descended to the petty jealousies so common among singers. She was a beautiful dresser and fond of orna- ments, which was somewhat curious for one so quiet and retiring, but if she had any personal vanities she sacrificed them in favor of her art. Like Lilli Lehmann, she was extremely fond of animals and travelled with quite a menagerie, including three dogs, a parrot, a mocking-bird, and a husband, all docile and well trained. It may well be imagined that the managers looked askance at the entire retinue, for managers do not rel- ish impedimenta of this sort ; but they overlooked it in consideration of having for once a prima donna who did not spend most of her time devising ways to evade the conditions of her contract.
I must couple Minnie Hauck and Marie Roze together, though he would have been a bold man to attempt such a feat in 1878. The two artists never loved each other. Perhaps " Carmen " had something to do with it. The title role was originally written for Marie Roze, but she found so much fault with the vagaries of the cigar girl and the music, that Bizet at last fixed it up for Galli- Marie. Meanwhile Minnie Hauck looked the opera over and saw her opportunity. " Carmen " just suited her. The cigar girl did not frighten her in the least. It was just the kind of reckless abandon and strenuous adventure she liked, and she made a tre- mendous success with the part. Marie Roze, after the opera had become popular, tried it and did not succeed.
WA MUSICAL MEMORIES
She was too gentle and proper for the Seville vixen. Mary's little lamb trying to be a wild-cat is a tame comparison. Then, again, the ladies had husbands. Minnie Hauck's husband was the Chevalier Hesse von Wartegg, a writer of considerable note, whose pen, during opera seasons, was mostly employed in writing requests to the manager and inditing defences of his wife. Marie Roze's first husband was Jules Perkins, the American basso, who died in 1875. She subse- quently married Colonel Henry Mapleson, son of Colo- nel J. H. Mapleson, late of Her Majesty's forces and still later of Her Majesty's Theatre. I give the senior colonel all his titles, for he was very particular about them. He always leaned heavily upon Her Majesty and was thought to resemble the Duke of Wellington. The young colonel not only fought his wife's battles, but was continually planning fresh engagements. He was also an indefatigable press agent for her. It used to be a common saying among members of the company when he came in sight : " Attons done ! Voila Mapleson, qui nous plante encore une biographic de sa femme" Many were the scrimmages which he conducted, but the most ludicrous one occurred in Chicago, and I had the pleas- ure of being a witness of the movements and counter movements as well as the confidential recipient of the statements both of the Chevalier and the junior colonel. For the opening night of the season of 1878 "The Marriage of Figaro" was announced, with Roze as Susanna and Hauck as Cherubino. At three o'clock that afternoon Hauck went to the theatre and pre- empted the prima donna's room by depositing her
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ANOTHER FAMOUS EPISODE 103
things therein. An hour later Roze's maid reached the theatre and proceeded to the same room only to find it filled with the hated rival's traps. Roze notified the colonel. He was promptly on the scene and began operations by removing Hauck's belong- ings to the opposite room and instructing his wife to be at the theatre precisely at six. At half-past five, however, Hauck sent the Chevalier to the theatre to see that everything was right. The Chevalier found that everything was not right and ordered Roze's be- longings removed, replaced his wife's, and had every- thing, including the door, stoutly locked. At six Roze arrived prepared "to hold the fort," but as she couldn't get into the fort to hold it she sent for the colonel, who sent for a locksmith, who opened up. Hauck's things were unceremoniously bundled out. At half-past six Hauck came to the room to dress, and much to her surprise and to the Chevalier's chagrin Roze was in there calmly dressing. What passed between them probably no one will ever know, but Hauck went back to the Palmer House and notified Strakosch she would not sing that evening. The Chevalier was promptly on hand to explain why, and the colonel to wonder why not. The volatile Max went into spasms, as was his wont. It would not do to put off the opera, it was too late to change it; so the opera began without Cherubino, Strakosch meanwhile wrestling with Hauck and at last persuading her to change her mind. She finally went to the theatre, appeared when the opera was half through, suitable excuses having been in- vented, and glared at Susanna until the final curtain,
104 MUSICAL MEMORIES
and then — but a veil must be drawn. One can only say with Virgil :
" Can such deep hate find place in breasts divine? "
Both the ladies were great favorites. Minnie Hauck was a pretty woman with fine eyes, an excellent singer, and an actress both vigorous and vivacious, though now and then she would lapse, as once in the chamber scene in " Sonnambula," when she actually fell asleep and was only roused by the shouts of the villagers. Her finest parts were Amina in this opera, Katharine in Goetz's " Taming of the Shrew," and Carmen. Her belligerent disposition and pluckiness in action may perhaps be traced to the fact that most of her young life was spent in Kansas.
Marie Roze, on the other hand, was amiable, good- natured, and kindly disposed, and an unusually beau- tiful woman. Her Aida, Helen of Troy in Boito's " Mefistofele," and Marguerite (though she was a somewhat stout Gretchen) were a joy to the eye. Her embonpoint was now and then embarrassing. In "Mignon" Tom Karl rushed into the burning house to save her, but was unable to carry her. Gottschalk, who was something of an athlete, came to the rescue and succeeded. She had a very agreeable mezzo- soprano voice, and she had been well trained ; and while not an artist in the grand style, it was always a pleasure to see and hear her.
I must also couple Clara Louise Kellogg and Annie Louise Cary together, for they are two of the most suc- cessful American singers. It may interest the reader
CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG 105
who remembers the elegant Kellogg in her palmy days to know what N. P. Willis thought of her when she was a girl of eighteen. He wrote in his " Home Journal " : " She has not only wondrous music in her voice but what music expresses in her soul. Mocking-bird like, many have the utterance, but few know the full burthen of what they utter." Kellogg made her debut in her nineteenth year as Gilda in " Rigoletto," enjoyed twenty years of success in concerts, Italian and English opera, both in Europe and the United States, and retired in 1882. She was one of the elegant, aristocratic ladies of the stage, stately in manner and refined to a degree. Her costumes were the envy of the profession and the admiration of audiences, for she was always the best dressed person in the house. She was a fascinating figure as Violetta or Filina, but sometimes her ravishing trousseaus were a little too fine for the characters, for Kellogg was bent upon having them all " walk in silk attire." She had a voice of great compass and beautiful quality, somewhat like Patti's, and her singing was al- ways refined, free from mannerisms, and marked by grace and ease. I do not remember to have heard a more perfect piece of vocal artistry than her singing of the " Mignon " polacca. Indeed, it almost seemed as if the composer must have had her in mind, so perfectly was it fitted to her style.
Kellogg had other qualities besides the musical. She was a good financier, made a good deal of money and invested it well. She was also a smart impresario, and for a time had an opera troupe of her own, which she managed with great success, the operas being given in
106 MUSICAL MEMORIES
English. The troupe included Van Zandt, Montague, Zelda Seguin, Castle, Maas, Carleton, Hamilton, Peakes, and Conly. Maas, a good actor with a beautiful tenor voice, had an amusing experience upon one occasion. He was of light weight, while Kellogg was of generous size. They were singing together in " Trovatore," and in a scene where Leonora makes a passionate rush to embrace Manrico, the little tenor, unable to withstand her mo- mentum, was upset. Some of these sudden stage upsets are very funny. I remember seeing Gazzaniga start from the back to the front of the stage in the most impressive manner, with eyes uplifted and arms up- raised, to sing her aria, and when halfway there, sit squarely down with a " thud " anything but " dull." Whatever it was that tripped her, it brought her down as well as the house.
Kellogg preserved her fine singing quality to the last and had the good sense to retire before vocal impair- ment or age compelled her to do so. She was very for- tunate all through her career, but much of her good fortune was due to her mother, a shrewd, sensible woman, who fairly adored her. She took the best of care of her and her voice, went to the theatre with her, and at the close of the performance was ready with her wraps, and guarded her against draughts all the way back to the hotel. She prepared her food for her and saw that it was nourishing. She was equally care- ful of her at functions, for her daughter was a great favorite in society. She never made herself obnoxious to managers and never disagreed with them. She simply stood between her daughter and all disagreeable
Clara Louise Kellogg In "La Trariata'"
ANNIE LOUISE CARY 107
things, so that the latter was absolutely care free and not exposed to anything unpleasant. There was one exception to this, however. She and Cary were once naughty girls, though in reality they liked each other.
No one could really dislike Cary. No one ever sang herself deeper into the hearts of the people. Cary made her first appearance in Chicago at a concert in Farwell Hall in 1870, and her operatic debut took place three years later, when she appeared in " Aida" as Amneris, with Campanini as Rhadames. In 1874 she also sang the part of Ortrud in " Lohengrin " with great success, in 1879 and 1880 was a member of Kellogg's Concert Company, and a year or two later sang with Gerster. Indeed, what did she not sing ? Operatic roles from Amneris to Nancy in " Martha " ; oratorios, ballads, in Handel and Haydn concerts ; and in all the big Cincin- nati festivals until she retired in 1882 and married. She had a noble contralto voice of violoncello quality and a free and facile manner of singing which appealed to every one. She appeared at home on the stage, though she once told me that she often suffered from stage fright, and she was at home with her audiences, for she was fairly radiant with kindly good humor, though she never carried familiarity too far. She was simply a Maine girl, fond of neighbors wherever she found them. She was democratic and unconventional, and her friendly, sonorous " Hello " was but the expres- sion of her warm, sunny nature. She was as unlike the popular conception of an operatic artist as it is pos- sible to imagine. Prima donnas are not usually hail fellows well met. They do not carry their sewing on
108 MUSICAL MEMORIES
the trains. They do not mingle with people. They do not give you a stout grip of the hand. They do not break out into sunbursts of smiles or resound- ing laughs, or send wireless despatches to friends in the audience. Once Cary went to an Illinois town to sing and had to put up at an inferior hotel. The room to which she was assigned was not clean. The windows were dingy. It was forlorn and uncomfort- able, but it was the best room in the house. She ordered the maid who showed her up to bring a broom, a pail of water, and a mop, and help her clean up. In a short time the room had undergone a change into u something rich and strange," and Cary, feeling relieved, for she could not abide dirt, sat down with her knitting and awaited the hour for the concert. Strakosch, when her manager, paid her a high compliment by declaring that, well or sick, she was always ready to go on and do her best. She could sing every night and never complained when suddenly called upon. " She is a jewel ! " said Strakosch.
The trouble between Cary and Kellogg, to which I have alluded, was not very serious. It occurred on a trip to San Francisco. The first spat was about a ca- denza in which Kellogg was a little tangled. Cary said that Kellogg broke down, and Kellogg declared that Cary broke down. She said she ought to know that cadenza, as she had sung it scores of times. Cary in- sisted that she sang it right, and Kellogg insisted that she did n't, and which of the two was right or wrong no one knows to this day. The audience supposed both were right, as it did n't know anything about it anyway.
Annie Louise Cary
MATERNA AND LEHMANN 109
Then they had a radical difference of opinion about car ventilation. Kellogg wanted the car warm, Cary wanted it cold. If it were too warm, Cary would go to the back platform, sit on a campstool, and leave the door open. "Why," said Kellogg to me, "I had to have a curtain put up so as to keep from freezing, and would you believe it ? she slept all that night with the ventilators open. She did, really ! "
I think the cadenza and car ventilation were the most serious troubles in Cary's long and happy career. Per- haps it is not too late for Mrs. Raymond and Mrs. Strakosch even now to get together and settle those two problems. They might regard them more dispassion- ately and from a broader point of view.
I must close this chapter of memories with some ref- erence to the two great Wagner singers, Materna and Lehmann. Materna, who made her Chicago debut in 1882, presents a singular study in musical evolution, for she began singing in Offenbach and Suppe roles. Then she entered upon grand opera via " Don Giovanni " and " L' Africaine," and at last became Wagner's chosen Briinhilde and the creator of his Kundry, and was iden- tified with his music-dramas until her retirement in 1897. Her voice was admirably adapted to the delivery of the Wagner music by reason of its breadth and power, and her personations were effective because of her thorough study of the parts with the composer * and
* In the above connection I cannot refrain from adding this charac- teristic story of Materna and Cosima Wagner, now going the rounds of the German papers. Madame Wagner insisted upon her ideas of interpreta- tion in certain passages, Materna combated them, i'l learned these
110 MUSICAL MEMORIES
her noble, passionate style of declamation, as well as of her dignified, stately, and impressive personal appearance.
Lilli Lehmann has only recently retired from the stage, and is now teaching in Germany. Her voice was one of great beauty as well as power and flexibility, and her magnetic influence so strong that many who went to scoff at Wagner returned converted. Her persona- tions were so informed with emotional power that few could resist their spell. She was a singer possessed not alone of a beautiful voice, fluent technic, and most en- gaging presence, but of the rare power of impressing the listener with the beauty of the Wagner conceptions and the dramatic quality of his music. I have often thought that there should be some subtle connection be- tween the song and the singer, and that music would be more noble if sung by a person of noble character ; but this is not always the case. It was true, however, in Lilli Lehmann's case, for she was a woman of rare love- liness, kindliness, and nobility. Surely I can offer no better illustration of this than the following letter, which she wrote to the " Chicago Tribune " during her last visit to America, making an appeal for kindly treatment of the animals in the Lincoln Park Zoo, and which is printed here verbatim et literatim :
Dear Sir, — I cannot go out of the country without to leave you a kind of Testament. 10 years ago I wrote to the Park and Fooddeparteinent to gave the foxes and wolves
things from the master himself," she said finally, thinking it would close the incident. It failed, however, for quick as a flash Madame Wagner re- torted: " Poor Richard did n't always know himself what he wanted."
LEHMANN'S PLEA FOR THE ANIMALS 111
boxes where to lay in the night, because every animal has his nightquarter made by himself, and I consider it as a cruelty of highest unconscience to keep what animal ever 25-30 years in a small cage without place to take exercise, no place to stay or lay warm, without any protection against storm, rain, snow or heat. It is to terrible to think of it, that I could despair nearly. I have told this man, Mr. De Vry, 10 years before I told him now. The park is large enough to make some large houses and to put boxes in of lumber for theyr night quarters.
I was yesterday to see the Bronx park in New York. There all the animals have large Places to walk, and there is no one who takes his house with straw fillet up. They are unhappy enough to be unfree, and if we take them theyr lib- erty, we at least must give them all everybody needs.
Please to make up this question in your paper, and dont
stop till the RICH Chicago has given to some foxes, wolves
and other animals who in theyr distress and unhappiness must
give pleasure to the wwhuman people.
Very sincerely,
Lilli Lehmann Kalisch,
K. K. Kamersangerin. Nethebland Hotel.
CHAPTER IX MORE FOOTLIGHT FAVORITES
ANNE BISHOP'S LONG CAREER — FABBRI AND "THE STAR-SPAN- GLED BANNER" — FREZZOLINI'S VANITY — PICCOLOMINI, THE FASCINATING IMPOSTOR — HER FAREWELL — DI MUR- SKA — HER CADENZAS AND MENAGERIE — EMMA ABBOTT'S CAREER — ALBANI, THE "CHAMBLY GIRL " — BURMEISTER AND OTHERS
AS memory reverts to the past, a long succession /-% of singers comes into review, — good, bad, and indifferent. I can only single out a few of the best, for their name is Legion. Anne Bishop wellnigh belongs to ancient history. She antedated Jenny Lind in this country, for she sang in New York in 1847. She was the wife of Sir Henry Bishop, the English com- poser, but as he would not consent to her singing in public, she eloped with Bochsa, the famous harpist, so that she might have the opportunity she desired, and then she kept on singing almost forever and a day. The dates are somewhat startling, — birth, 1814 ; debut, 1831 ; still singing in 1884, when she was seventy, and not ceasing until death retired her in the same year. She first appeared in Chicago in 1851, with Sanquirico, basso ; Lavinia Bandini, violinist ; and Bochsa, harpist. No one can doubt her versatility and industry when they read one of her programmes of that season, which testifies that she sang on the same evening " Casta
Anne Bishop
FABBRI AND "THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER" 113
Diva," " Sweet Home," " John Anderson, my Joe," " Coming thro' the Rye," an entire scena from " Roberto Devereux," the mad scene from " Lucia," a tableau of Mexican life, introducing Mexican and Castilian airs, and "Hail Columbia," which she sang attired as the Goddess of Liberty. She was not a great artist. Her voice was not of good quality, but she was quite a showy singer, and sing she would. So she kept on singing until " all her lovely companions were faded and gone," and I have little doubt she entered the golden gates singing.
Inez Fabbri was another industrious and sensational singer, but unlike Bishop, she had a fine voice in her day, and audiences always went into wellnigh hysterical raptures whenever she appeared. She too was fond of singing in character. It was in 1861, when the war spirit was in the air, that she came to Chicago, and during that season she sang in Brazilian, Hungarian, and French costumes. Her most dazzling make-up was exhibited on Washington's birthday. A full orchestra was in attendance. The stage was decorated with flags, and Ellsworth's Zouaves went through their evolutions, their handsome captain little dreaming of the personal tragedy so rapidly approaching. At the close of the concert the Zouaves drew up in line, and Fabbri ad- vanced as the Goddess of Liberty, carrying a huge flag which it was all she could do to lift. Bringing the staff down upon the stage with a bang, she rose to her full height, and with stentorian voice began the National Hymn, closing it in this fashion :
114 MUSICAL MEMORIES
" 0 the shtar spankelt panner, long may she wave On ter lant of ter free and ter home of ter prave ! "
The anniversary itself, the near approach of the Civil War, the flamboyant blare of the orchestra, and the Goddess' struggle with the English, aroused the audience to a pitch of patriotic frenzy.
Frezzolini, whose real name was the unromantic one of Poggi, was another extremely sensational singer. She didn't sing so long as Anne Bishop, but she sang until the last thread of voice was gone. She was a tall and rather elegant-looking woman when in repose, but the moment she began singing, the charm was gone. Her attitude became painfully an- gular, and her facial contortions and grimaces were distressing. She was an extremely vain woman, and though handicapped, as I have stated, she sought in every way to attract admiration. She had had a brilliant past, had been loaded with jewels and gifts of various kinds, but ruined herself by her extraordi- nary efforts to keep up her fascinations and play a part in the gay world, and at last died at Paris in obscurity and poverty. She was past middle age when Maurice Strakosch introduced her to Chicago. She had a voice of good compass, flexibility, and strength; but a singer so conscious of herself and so consumed with vanity could hardly be expected to do really artistic work.
The little Tuscan singer Piccolomini comes next in my memory. Oh, but she was a gay deceiver!
Marietta Piccolomim
PICCOLOMINI, THE FASCINATING IMPOSTOR 115
She had a weak voice of limited range and ordinary flexibility, sang out of tune carelessly or unconsciously, and with no style at all. As a matter of fact she had neither musical faculty nor facility in any marked degree. If the music was easy, she got along fairly well. If it was difficult, she scrambled through it the best she could with a most bewitching smile on her pretty face. She was one of the handsomest, most coquettish, and fascinating of impostors, and fooled the public to the top of her bent, the public apparently not unwilling to be fooled in such a cap- tivating way. She was honest enough to acknowledge it once by declaring : " They call me little impostor, and they give me bouquets and applauses and monies. Why not be an impostor ? " Artemus Ward rather cleverly took her measure, although he knew little about music, when he wrote : " Fassinatin' people is her best holt. She was born to make other wimmin mad because they ain't Piccolomini." It was her youth, beauty, piquancy, and chic that carried her through and offset her lack of talent. She even had the monumental audacity to advertise a long farewell to " the American public " in 1859. A short extract will do :
" I came to this country so proud, so free and so charming in its youth and freshness, with high hopes which have been more than realized. An artist who is satisfied is a miracle ; so I am a miracle. But perhaps the public, or a portion of it, has been dissatisfied. That is not my fault. I never pre- tended to divine genius. I would rather stay here than go to Europe. But one, even a spoiled girl and a prima donna as well, cannot always have her own way. So I salute you
116 MUSICAL MEMORIES
all. I would be charmed to do it personally, but the country- is so big and the population so immense I fear the time would not be sufficient."
And then the little impostor flitted away with her pockets bursting with gold and was never heard of more.
Di Murska, the Hungarian, was another fascinating though by no means handsome little woman, who made her Chicago debut in 1874 with Carreno, Sau- ret, Ferranti, Braga of the "Angel's Serenade," and Habelman. She was a music-box with endless possi- bilities, and few could excel her in spectacular vocali- zation. She would undertake any flight, and if it were not dazzling enough, would add cadenzas of her own, as she flew along, which were the very extrava- gance of vocalism. Her resources of flexibility and range were sufficient for any effort, and as she herself was fearless, fantastic, and eccentric, nothing suited her better than to astonish audiences with these sponta- neous outbursts. She was a bundle of eccentricities. Her special superstition was a golden belt, which she always wore as a surety of good luck. She had an inclination for marrying, and outlived five husbands of different nationalities, beginning with an Irishman and closing with an American. She carried a menag- erie bigger than Lagrange's. It included a huge New- foundland dog, an Angora cat, two or three parrots, a chameleon, and a trained crow. The words De Vivo, her manager, used to utter, when they were getting ready to leave a city, or when any reference was made
Ilma di Murska
EMMA ABBOTT'S CAREER 117
to Di Murska's Zoo, would not look well in print. And De Vivo was not an impatient man either.
Emma Abbott was a good little Chicago girl who piously resolved, when Clara Louise Kellogg and Dr. Chapin's church started her on the road to the stage, not to sing in operas which were improper, never to appear in a page's costume, never to sing on Sundays, and above all not to appear in the wicked " Traviata." She made these resolutions when she was quite young, just after she had concertized with the Lumbards, but outgrew them, and ended by appearing in " Traviata," and many other heterodox operas, even in some for which the " Abbott kiss " was specially invented. She was a frequent visitor to Chicago, her birthplace, appearing in concerts, and in Italian and English operas, as well as in some of the Sullivan operettas. She also must be cred- ited with bringing out Masse 's " Paul and Virginia " (they were a handsome pair, she and Castle, " under the sheltering palm "), Guarany's " Gem of Peru," and Gounod's " Mireille." She was a slight, pale-faced, sensitive little woman, and an indefatigable worker. She had a very pure, pleasant voice, but some of her mannerisms were unpleasant. At the outset her voice was as rigid as her determination to become a singer. She manufactured a very fluent technic out of this un- bending voice, by the hardest kind of work, and richly deserved the success which she secured both in fame and money.
Albani (stage name of Mademoiselle Lajeunesse, after- wards Madame Gye) first appeared in Chicago in 1875,
118 MUSICAL MEMORIES
as Elsa in " Lohengrin." She was a very lovely looking Elsa, but it did not seem to me a great artistic perform- ance, nor did she appear at that time thoroughly in- formed with the Wagner spirit, though my recollections of her performance of the role may be influenced by subsequent performances of the great Wagner artists. I much preferred her in other roles (for her repertory was very large). She was very successful in oratorio and festival work. Her voice was rich, pure, and appeal- ing, and there was no lack of power. She was born and brought up in an atmosphere of music. Canada was her native country, and the Canadians are very proud of their " Chambly Girl." *
I can only briefly mention among others in this flight of song-birds, Emma Thursby, who was one of the most successful and admired of American concert singers ; Ambre, a dramatic singer of great intensity, who fascinated the King of Holland, and Eleanor Sanz, a handsome singer of no intensity, who fascinated Al- fonso XII of Spain ; Alwina Valleria, a Baltimore girl, who sang three Marguerite roles — Gounod's, Boito's, and Berlioz's, — but who was most charming in English opera ; Marie Litta, the Bloomington, Illinois, girl, whose brilliant promise was extinguished by her untimely death ; Emma Nevada, a showy singer, whose daughter is just about to come out in opera in Italy ; and pretty
* i'An' w'en All-ba-nee was get lonesome for travel all roun' de worl' I hope she '11 come home, lak de bluebird, an' again be de Chambly girl 1 "
Drummond's " Habitants."
BURMEISTER 119
little Rose Hersee, who sang so delightfully with Parepa in English opera, of both of whom I shall speak more particularly in another chapter.
And last, but by no means least, Mademoiselle Burmeister, the most faithful, the most conscientious, the most reliable, the most willing, and the best equipped all- round artist of them all for every sort of work. I think her repertory must have included the entire list of modern operas, and she was equally at home in French, German, or Italian. She was usually cast for secondary parts, but she was an understudy for the whole prima donna establishment, and I am not certain she could not have taken the tenor and bass roles, or led the orchestra. A manager who had Burmeister on his salary list was sure of his announcements, for she could be relied upon to fill any vacancy. She has now retired from the stage with the respect and admiration, if not the love, of every one connected with it. Her name did not appear in very large letters upon posters, nor was it often ob- servable in newspaper criticisms, but impresarios will look a long time before they find another Burmeister.
CHAPTER X
TENORS AND BASSOS
their comparative popularity — brignoli, his style and voice — superstitions and anecdotes — campaninl's triumphs — jealousy of capoul — a bout with maple- son — wachtel, the cab-driver — old-time advertis- ing curiosities — adams, best american tenor — amodio and bellini in the "liberty duet" — her- mann's interpolation — formes in concert and opera — myron d. Whitney's oratorio triumphs
IF in recalling memories of operatic tenors and bassos it shall seem that those of tenors have more vital interest than those of bassos, it can only be ex- plained by the fact that the tenors are the more popular of the two, and more is known about them. Edouard de Reszke once said that grand opera was ungrateful for bassos, that composers would not write for them and the public would n't pet them, and that " all the big fees go to the prima donnas and tenors, while a basso has to worry along on the pay of a chorus girl." This is the truth. The operatic tenor lives in clover. All the Elviras and Leonoras love him. He has all the love songs and serenades to sing. Whatever stage business there may be in the line of kneeling at the feet of inamoratas, kissing of hands, and embracing of stage heroines, belongs exclusively to him. The ladies send him little billets and adore him in secret,
BRIGNOLI, HIS STYLE AND VOICE 121
He has the monopoly of all the pretty music and may sing it badly if he is handsome and interesting. All tuneful lays are his. His roles include the handsome brigands, the dashing cavaliers, the romantic lovers, and languishing swains. The basso, on the contrary, knows that he is not interesting and that the ladies do not care for him. He has no lover roles. If he is a brig- and, he is a cutthroat ; if a cavalier, he is some dilapi- dated old duke ; if a sailor, he is a pirate ; if a father, he is an old dotard. He has no bravura work cut out for him, and his arias are ponderous and often dreary. He has little to do but wander about the stage, an ab- ject picture of vocal misery and dramatic drudgery. Like the operatic contralto, he is a lonely person for whom the public little cares.
Among the tenors I have known, Brignoli always seemed to me the most interesting personality, as well as one of the most captivating singers. He made his American debut in 1856 and was a member of the first regular Italian opera troupe which appeared in Chi- cago (1859). The season was opened with "Martha," and Brignoli was Lionel. During the next ten or fifteen years he sang in Chicago almost every season, either in concerts or opera, and was a universal favorite. He is said to have been very delicate, as well as timid and nervous, in his early youth, but when I first saw him he was robust and broad-chested, and gradually grew quite stout, in spite of which he always carried himself with a kind of aristocratic elegance. He told me once that he never wholly overcame stage fright,
122 MUSICAL MEMORIES
and I fancy that his lack of pronounced dramatic ability and his awkwardness of gait may have con- duced to it. If he found himself in the vicinity of the prima donna, he was always nervous, and in scenes re- quiring the platonic stage embrace he would implore her not to touch him. Brignoli was an indifferent actor, but he was a master of tone-production. His tones had a silvery quality and were exquisitely pure. He never forced his voice beyond the limit of a sweet musical tone, and rarely expended much effort except in reaching a climax, or in closing an aria with one of those marvellously beautiful sforzandos which other tenors tried in vain to imitate. He never sang the high C, that stock in trade of sensational tenors, though he could reach it with ease, for he had great range and power of voice. He used to say that " screaming is not singing ; let those fellows wear their throats out if they will; Brignoli keep his." And he did. His highest am- bition was tonal loveliness, and in this quality he had few equals. To hear him sing "M'Appari" and "II mio tesoro," or the music of Manrico and Edgardo, was to listen to vocalization of absolute beauty, to an exposi- tion of bel canto of the Italian romantic school as perfect for a tenor as was Adelina Patti's for a soprano.
Brignoli was curiously superstitious. He never would undertake a journey on Friday, and always timed his trips so as not to arrive on that day. The thirteenth day of the month, thirteen persons at table, or any- thing else related to these numerals, always frightened him. He was a famous cook and salad maker, but if his macaroni stock boiled over or he spilled a drop of
P. Brignoli
BRIGNOLFS SUPERSTITIONS 123
oil in making a salad, he was certain some misfortune would happen. He carried a deer's head with him for a mascot, and used to talk and sing to it. At night he would place it on the window-sill to insure good weather for the next day, in case he was to sing. If the day opened brightly, he would congratulate his mascot ; but if it opened cloudy and threatening storm, he would pick it up, box its ears, uttering Italian maledictions at the same time, and then not speak to it for a day or two. He also had a superstition about the color of horses, and always stipulated that his carriage should be drawn by a pair of black horses, and, as another sign of good luck, that his manager should wait upon him before he started for the theatre. He was of a generous disposi- tion, — too generous, indeed, for his own good, — and would divide his money with any one. He made a handsome fortune in this country, but lived at such an extravagant rate, and flung away money so lavishly, that he died penniless. He once, and only once, made a speech to an audience. As there was no other person available on that occasion, he was requested by Nilsson to go before the curtain and tell the audience that she was slightly indisposed. After a while he plucked up courage and made the following oration :
" Ladies and gentlemen ! Mademoiselle Nilsson is a leetle 'orse, and begs you — a — indulge — ance — a."
As the audience manifested some surprise, Brignoli began again:
" Vat ! you do no understand it. Then, I begin again. Mademoiselle Nilsson is a little horse and begs your kind indulgence."
124 MUSICAL MEMORIES
This time he retired amid applause and laughter only to be again confused when Nilsson asked him why he had called her a pony. Brignoli could only throw up his hands in despair. He never ventured to make an address again.
Before taking vocal lessons he had studied the piano and composed some pieces for that instrument. One of them, the march, to which I alluded in a previous chapter, was quite sensational. It was called " The Crossing of the Danube." The introduction, which imitated the booming of cannon, volleys of musketry, and cavalry bugle-calls, led up to the march, which contained vivid reminiscences of Verdi and Meyerbeer, and the piece closed with a climax, based upon the Russian National Hymn, after the manner of Tschai- kovsky's " 1812 " overture. I think he told me he wrote his march for Gilmore. In any event, it was in the style which Patrick Sarsfield greatly loved.
Brignoli's last public appearance in Chicago was in a concert at Hershey Hall in May, 1884. He was in the city again in September of that year. He had retired from the stage, but at a social visit he surprised his friends as he entered by singing " Then you '11 remem- ber me " with much of his old-time beauty of voice. At that time he was hoping to establish a school in the near future for the perpetuation of his method of vocal- ization, but the hope was never realized. A day or two later I met him walking pensively on State Street, and we stopped and spoke together. Patti was then sing- ing at McVicker's Theatre, and was billed to appear in "Lucia" that evening. I asked him if he was going
CAMPANINI'S TRIUMPHS 125
to the opera. He mournfully shook his head and ex- claimed : "No! I cannot afford it, and I will not ask them for a pass. I sang in ' Lucia ' with Adelina when she made her debut. To-night she must transpose her part. Old Brignoli can still sing his where it is written. Adelina gets $5000 a night; old Brignoli gets fifty cents." We shook hands and parted. Some friends helped him get to New York, where he died a few weeks later. In his death one of the purest and most perfect exponents of beautiful melody passed away.
Italo Campanini, son of an Italian blacksmith, inher- ited his father's brawn. He was a fine specimen of the natural, elemental man, and there was much of this quality in his singing, for his lungs were capable of almost any effort, and his throat was equal to any requisition made upon it ; but, great singer as he was, there were times when he sacrificed musical effect to mere noise. He had an astonishing vigor, virility, and energy. His best parts were Rhadames in " Ai'da " and Don Jose in " Carmen," though he ventured once into Wagner's musical domain and achieved great success in " Lohengrin." In " Carmen " he reached the maximum of his power. In the scene before the Plaza del Toros, in the last act, he threw himself into the passion of the part with ferocious energy, and made the tragic denoue- ment one of the most thrilling scenes I have ever wit- nessed on the operatic stage. I know of no personation like it except the elder Salvini's Othello in the scene where he vents his rage upon Iago. The part was admirably adapted to him physically, musically, and
126 MUSICAL MEMORIES
dramatically. In all parts requiring the display of brutal passion he had few equals. Campanini also did some festival work, but when he sang in oratorio numbers or concerted pieces he was not always satisfactory, for he lacked self-control and subordination, and sometimes dominated the situation at the expense of the other singers by singing at the audience in the most stento- rian manner. Theodore Thomas, under whose baton he sung at times, vigorously remonstrated with him once about this habit. Campanini asserted himself in his imperious way, but Thomas was not a man to be swerved from his purposes when in his own field. I was witness of one of these encounters, at the close of which Campanini had to yield, but he was honest enough to acknowledge to me afterwards that Thomas was right.
Campanini was a good-hearted man. His worst fail- ings were personal vanity, a furious temper, and impa- tience under correction. He was also of a jealous disposition, and this jealousy manifested itself once in a ludicrous manner. He had had some unpleasantness with Capoul, who was as vain as a peacock, and espe- cially vain of his accomplishments as a tenor lover on the stage, particularly in " Faust." Upon one occasion, when Capoul had secured the admiring attention of the audience by his realistic love-making in the garden scene of that opera, Campanini, in the stage box, conducted himself in such a manner as to make him- self the centre of attraction and spoil the effect of the scene. Capoul declared after that he would never sing if Campanini were allowed to be present, and
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A BOUT WITH MAPLESON 127
Campanini declared he would not sing if he were not permitted to be in the house at any and all times. The jealousy between the two was all the sillier because no comparison between the two men as tenors was pos- sible. Upon another occasion Campanini had an en- counter with Mapleson, Senior, in which he worsted the doughty Colonel, — a feat not often performed. He appeared one morning at rehearsal with four trum- peters, who were to produce a certain effect which the conductor did not favor. When in good form, Cam- panini could hold his own even with four trumpets. Mapleson at once took his conductor's part and said to Campanini, —
"Why are you interfering here? I am the man- ager."
Campanini replied, " Well, I am first tenor here."
Mapleson then said, " You were not called to rehearsal anyway. What business have you to be here ? "
To this Campanini answered, " I know my business better than you do yours"; and evidently he did, for the four trumpeters played that evening and Campanini had his shout.
I heard Mario twice only. It was in 1872, not long after Chicago's great fire, and he sang in churches, which were the only concert-rooms available at the time, with Carlotta Patti, Annie Louise Cary, Carreno, Sauret, and Scolari, the basso. He had only the ghost of a voice left, but he retained his method in all its beauty and perfection. His voice was really in hopeless ruin, but his singing showed still the fine school of the old days.
128 MUSICAL MEMORIES
It was mournfully suggestive of the great Mario of the
past, —
4 ' Mario can soothe with a tenor note The soul from purgatory,"
but perhaps it was an object-lesson to some tenors who thought they knew how to sing.
Theodor Wachtel, a tenor who could tear passion into tatters, was the son of a German stable-keeper, and in his youth drove cabs for his father. The significance of his occupation will be apparent later on. He was the most robust of robust tenors, and his capacity for shouting was seemingly unlimited. He could even shout down a chorus, and that is no ordinary feat. He always carried his high C with him, and would exhibit it several times of an evening without displaying a sign of vocal fatigue. But at last he met his Waterloo in Chicago. He appeared at the Globe Theatre, supported by Lichtmay, Canissa, DeGebele, Hermanns, Vierling, Franosch, and others, in February, 1872. That was the first musical event of any importance after the Great Fire. The operas announced were " Martha," " Huguenots," u Trovatore," and " The Postilion of Lonjumeau." The manager's announcement of the season is such a curi- osity of bombast that I give it entire.
"Wachtel, Wachtel, Wachtel! " The Great, the Magnetic Tenor ! !
" The famous German tenor whose phenomenal and mag- nificent voice flows like the Rhine itself, turbulent, restless, through all the storied tracts of music. A magnificent foun- tain, meant, as the poet has intimated, to flow on forever. The princely haste of a lyric monarch commissioned to sound
WACHTEL, THE CAB-DRIVER 129
his natural gifts to all the world and with only one lifetime to accomplish his purpose." *
But I must return to Wachtel. His crowning tri- umph was in " The Postilion of Lonjumeau," and his crowning number was the rondo, or Postilion's Song. He shouted his high notes in the manner of one hailing a deaf cabby, and the whip-snapping accompaniment was delivered with the skill of an expert Jehu. The pace told upon him at last. After ten years of the operatic cab business his throat gave out. " Martha " and " The Huguenots " were cancelled. The doctor gave him a laryngitis certificate and told him a change of climate would be necessary for his recovery. Thus ended the first " after the fire " operatic season. With all his bluster and pomposity he had a fine vein of sentiment. Shortly after this time he resumed sing- ing, and one evening a telegram was brought to him between acts, announcing the death of his son. He
* The above is certainly literary gorgeousness. It was a time, how- ever, of advertising efflorescence, and managers competed with each other in the verbal display of their attractions. Just before the fire the Swiss Bell Ringers were announced as
THE CAMPANALOGIANS.
Marvellous Heterogeniconsolidatoire, received everywhere by intelligent audiences, sanctioned by the clergy, indorsed by the press and people.
On the same day the billboards bore the following emblazonment:
SPALDING, ROGERS, AND HANLON'S CIRCUS.
WITH iEROPALITIC MIRACLES, ZAMPILG3ROSTRATION, l'echille PERILEUSE, AND THE QUADRUPLE ANABATH- RON PERFORMED BY A QUARTETTE OP ACROBATIC BRAVES, WITH ENLIVENING INTERLUDES TO RELIEVE HIGHLY WROUGHT SENSIBILITIES.
9
130 MUSICAL MEMORIES
finished the opera, and at the end of the last act inter- polated the song, " Gute Nacht, mein herzliches Kind " (Good night, my dearest child).
Charles R. Adams, the American tenor, was in Chi- cago during the late fifties, both in opera and oratorio. He was the most accomplished native tenor of his time, and had not merely a very powerful voice, but a very sweet one and one of great range. He sang with dra- matic expression and a peculiarly refined and artistic finish. His Tannhauser and Lohengrin had made him a famous reputation both in this country and in Europe, and the oratorio performances given by the Chicago Musical Union, with Christine Nilsson and himself as soloists, were events to be remembered. I believe he ended his career as a teacher in Boston. Like some of our American composers, Dudley Buck and Professor Paine, for instance, Adams was better known in Ger- many than in his own country.
I have space to mention only a few more tenors, among them Irfre, who sang as if inspired in the Lucia sextet * ; Lotti, a German tenor di grazia, whose singing of " Meinen Engel ! nenn' Ich mein," was transporting ; Alvary, whose Siegfried was the ideal of immortal youth ; Candidus, the big German tenor, whom I first met at a New York Arion and Chicago Germania Man- nerchor Commerz, and whose voice was as big and fine as himself ; Capoul, whom Campanini did not love and
* Theodore Thomas held that the " Lucia " sextet and the " Rigoletto " quartet were the inspirations of Italian opera.
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whom the women adored, a dapper little French tenor, graduated from the Opera Comique ; Habelman, hand- some and sweet- voiced, a good, all-round musician and capital actor, whose Fra Diavolo was one of the most dashing and picturesque figures on the stage ; and De Lucia. Can any one forget the ring of De Lucia's pierc- ing voice and the intensity of simulated passion with which he delivered the last despairing outcry of Canio, in " Pagliacci " (" La commedia e finita ") ?
For reasons already stated I can only briefly allude to the great bassos of memory. One of the earliest was Colletti, whose relation to the stage was much like that of Mademoiselle Burmeister. No operatic perform- ance in those days was quite complete without him, for he was not only always ready for his own parts, but, when necessary, for the parts of the other bassos also. Amodio and Bellini must be coupled together. They were large men, with large voices and a large style, who made the rafters of the old wigwam in which Abraham Lincoln was first nominated ring with their sonority when they sang the " Liberty Duet " (" Suoni la tromba"), from " Puritani." Susini and Junca, among the older bassos, were accomplished, faithful artists, making no complaints, like all the rest of those big bass fellows, when people did not appreciate them and prima donnas and tenors carried off all the applause. Castel- mary visited Chicago once only. He also was an accom- plished singer, and his Mephistopheles in " Faust " a most artistic performance. It may be remembered that, like Remenyi, he died upon the stage, at the close of a
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performance, in 1897. Another famous Mephistopheles was the big, huge-voiced Hermanns. His action of the part was fine, but his make-up was hideous enough to have frozen Marguerite stiff at first sight. But this Teutonic giant can never be disassociated in my memory from his Beppo, the bandit, in " Fra Diavolo," and the song, " I 'm afloat," which he once interpolated in the third act, and which he delivered with stentorian voice in this style :
" I 'm a bloat, I 'm a bloat On der dark rolling tide ; The ocean's mein home And mein park is my pride."
Carl Formes brought the biggest and most impres- sive bass from Germany that ever passed through the American Musical custom house. I first heard him in concert in Chicago (1857), the year of his arrival in the United States, but I remember only one num- ber in that programme, Schubert's " Wanderer." His singing of this impressive Lied was so majestic in man- ner, and withal so tender, for a voice that resembled an organ tone in depth, strength, and sonority, that one could hardly remember anything else. He was then in his prime. He had a strong, leonine face, high forehead, long wavy black hair, and an Apollo Belvi- dere throat and chest. He was built on a massive scale and his voice corresponded, for he surpassed all his contemporaries as a basso profundo. He visited Chicago often and lived here for a time. His great operatic roles were Mai vol io in " Stradella " ; Plunket in "Martha"; Falstaff in "The Merry Wives of
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Windsor"; Sarastro in "The Magic Flute"; Marcel in " The Huguenots " ; Rocco in " Fidelio " ; Bertram in " Robert the Devil " ; and Leporello in " Don Gio- vanni." He was a versatile singer, equally at home in Plunket's rollicking drinking song, or the impres- sive " Isis and Osiris " and " In diesen heilgen Hallen " from "The Magic Flute." His Leporello and Rocco always seemed to me his most finished performances. His conception of the former was quite original, for, un- like most singers in that part, he did not make him a clown, but a fitting attendant for his reckless master. In 1889, when a very old man, he sang in opera in San Francisco and died in the same year. He used to say that preservation of his voice was due "to God's grace and the Italian method."
Myron D. Whitney, the best of American bassos, is still living, in the enjoyment of his otium cum dignitate and the memories of a long career of uninterrupted popular admiration and vocal success. He sang for a few seasons in opera most acceptably and was for a time with the America Opera Troupe, but his crown- ing achievements were in oratorio and festivals. He made his first oratorio success in Birmingham and Oxford, England, where the test was a severe one, for the English are an oratorio-loving people, and most of the traditions centre about Birmingham. He had a smooth, rich, resonant bass, admirably schooled, and delivered with refinement, dignity, and classical repose. As an oratorio singer, indeed, he had no equal in his
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time, and his superior has not yet been found. He is the soul of geniality and has a quiet humor that makes him a most delightful companion. He has always been universally beloved on and off the stage, and respected and honored as few singers have been.
CHAPTER XI ENGLISH OPERA
THE PYNE-HARRISON TROUPE — CAROLINE RICHING8 — HER INDUSTRY AND VARIOUS VENTURES — THE OLD QUARTETTE
— ZELDA SEGUIN, CASTLE, AND CAMPBELL — HENRI DRAY- TON — THE SCARED CAT — PAREPA — HER ANCESTRY — DIFFICULTIES OF AVOIRDUPOIS — BOUTS WITH THE CLERGY
— HER MARRIAGE — MADAME RUDERSDORF's TRIBUTE — THE BOSTONIANS — JESSIE BARTLETT DAVIS — THE " PINA- FORE " FEVER
THE advance detachment of English opera in Chicago was the Pyne-Harrison troupe. It came to this country from England in 1855, and Louisa Pyne was its leading figure. She was somewhat short in stature, blond haired and blue eyed, with an unusually pleasing and expressive face, and a stage presence which was the ideal of courtesy and dignity. She had been very successful in England and was a great favorite of Queen Victoria, who pensioned her when she retired. She was a most accomplished musician and had a remarkably sweet and fluent voice as well as an engaging manner of singing. She came to Chicago in 1856, but did not appear in opera. She brought with her her sister Susan, Harrison, tenor, Horncastle, basso, Borrani, barytone, and Reif, pianist, and they gave concerts. In this connection memory recalls Tom Whiffen, whose
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wife was niece of the Pynes, though neither was a member of the troupe. Whiffen came to the United States in 1868 and appeared as a singer in the Galton troupe, but subsequently rose to distinction as an actor. He was one of the few men whom it is a privilege to know — a genial, refined scholar and gentleman, an ardent lover of books, and a companion of the best actors, singers, and bookmen of his time. I met him in Chicago, when he came here in a " Pinafore " company, and he strongly reminded me of Thackeray's George Warrington.
In 1858 Chicago was introduced to English opera with a performance of the " Crown Diamonds," by the Durand troupe, which comprised Rosalie Durand, Misses King and Hodson, and Messrs. Arnold, Trevor, and Lyster. This troupe was followed by another headed by Lucy Estcott, a charming little singer; but financial difficulties overtook her, and the season was cut short. Next came a still stronger troupe in 1859 (Cooper's), with Annie Milner, Rudolphsen, Aynesley Cook, and Brookhouse Bowler, as principals. After giving Chicago "