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CHAPTER II

Clara Schumann and Joachim. The American Minister's. The Museum. The Conservatory. The Opera. Tausig. Christmas

BERLIN, December 12, 1869.

I heard Clara Schumann on Sunday, and on Tuesday evening, also. She is a most wonderful artist. In the first concert she played a quartette by Schumann, and you can imagine how lovely it was under the treatment of Clara Schumann for the piano, Joachim for the first violin, De Ahna for the second, and Müller for the 'cello. It was perfect, and I was in raptures. Madame Schumann's selection for the two concerts was a very wide one, and gave a full exhibition of her powers in every kind of music. The Impromptu by Schumann, Op. 90, was exquisite. It was full of passion and very difficult. The second of the Songs without Words, by Mendelssohn, was the most fairy-like performance. It is one of those things that must be tossed off with the greatest grace and smoothness, and it requires the most beautiful and delicate technique. She played it to perfection. The terrific Scherzo by Chopin she did splendidly, but she kept the great octave passages in the bass a little too subordinate, I thought, and did not give it quite boldly enough for my taste, though it was extremely artistic. Clara Schumann's playing is very objective. She seems to throw herself into the music, instead of letting the music take possession of her. She gives you the most exquisite pleasure with every note she touches, and has a wonderful conception and variety in playing, but she seldom whirls you off your feet.

At the second concert she was even better than at the first, if that is possible. She seemed full of fire, and when she played Bach, she ought to have been crowned with diamonds! Such noble playing I never heard. In fact you are all the time impressed with the nobility and breadth of her style, and the comprehensiveness of her treatment, and oh, if you could hear her scales! In short, there is nothing more to be desired in her playing, and she has every quality of a great artist. Many people say that Tausig is far better, but I cannot believe it. He may have more technique and more power, but nothing else I am sure. Everybody raves over his playing, and I am getting quite impatient for his return, which is expected next week. I send you Madame Schumann's photograph, which is exactly like her. She is a large, very German-looking woman, with dark hair and superb neck and arms. At the last concert she was dressed in black velvet, low body and short sleeves, and when she struck powerful chords, those large white arms came down with a certain splendor.

As for Joachim, he is perfectly magnificent, and has amazing power. When he played his solo in that second Chaconne of Bach's, you could scarcely believe it was only one violin. He has, like Madame Schumann, the greatest variety of tone, only on the violin the shades can be made far more delicate than on the piano.

I thought the second movement of Schumann's Quartette perhaps as extraordinary as any part of Clara Schumann's performance. It was very rapid, very staccato, and pianissimo all the way through. Not a note escaped her fingers, and she played with so much magnetism that one could scarcely breathe until it was finished. You know nothing can be more difficult than to play staccato so very softly where there is great execution also. Both of the sonatas for violin and piano which were played by Madame Schumann and Joachim, and especially the one in A minor, by Beethoven, were divine. Both parts were equally well sustained, and they played with so much fire – as if one inspired the other. It was worth a trip across the Atlantic just to hear those two performances.

The Sing-Akademie, where all the best concerts are given, is not a very large hall, but it is beautifully proportioned, and the acoustic is perfect. The frescoes are very delicate, and on the left are boxes all along, which add much to the beauty of the hall, with their scarlet and gold flutings. Clara Schumann is a great favorite here, and there was such a rush for seats that, though we went early for our tickets, all the good parquet seats were gone, and we had to get places on the estrade, or place where the chorus sits – when there is one. But I found it delightful for a piano concert, for you can be as close to the performer as you like, and at the same time see the faces of the audience. I saw ever so many people that I knew, and we kept bowing away at each other.

Just think how convenient it is here with regard to public amusements, for ladies can go anywhere alone! You take a droschkie and they drive you anywhere for five groschen, which is about fifteen cents. When you get into the concert hall you go into the garde-robe and take off your things, and hand them over to the care of the woman who stands there, and then you walk in and sit down comfortably as you would in a parlour, and are not roasted in your hat and cloak while at the concert, and chilled when you go out, as we are in America. Their programmes, too, are not so unconscionably long as ours, and, in short, their whole method of concert-giving is more rational than with us. I always enjoy the garde-robe, for if you have acquaintances you are sure to meet them, and you have no idea how exciting it is in a foreign city to see anybody you know.

—

BERLIN, December 19, 1869.

I suppose you are muttering maledictions on my head for not writing, but I am so busy that I have no time to answer my letters, which are accumulating upon my hands at a terrible rate. This week I have been out every night but one, so that I have had to do all my practicing and German and Harmony lessons in the day-time; and these, with my daily hour and a half at the conservatory, have been as much as I could manage.

On Monday I went to a party at the Bancroft's, which I enjoyed extremely. It was a very brilliant affair, and the toilettes were superb. At the entrance I was ushered in by a very fine servant dressed in livery. A second man showed me the dressing-room, where my bewildered sight first rested on a lot of Chinamen in festive attire. I could not make out for a second what they were, and I thought to myself, "Is it possible I have mistaken the invitation, and this is a masquerade?" Another glance showed me that they were Chinese, and it turned out that Mr. Burlingame, the Chinese Minister, was there, and these men were part of his suite. The ladies and gentlemen had the same dressing-room, which was a new feature in parties to me, and as we took off our things the servant took them and gave us a ticket for them, as they do at the opera. I should think there were about a hundred persons present. There were a great many handsome women, and they were beautifully dressed and much be-diamonded and pearled. Corn-colour seemed to be the fashion, and there were more silks of that colour than any other.

Mr. Burlingame seemed to be a very genial, easy man. I was not presented to him, but stood very near him part of the time. He looks upon the introduction of the Chinese into our country as a great blessing, and laughs at the idea of it being an evil. He says that the reason railroads can't be introduced into China is because the whole country is one vast grave-yard, and you can't dig any depth without unearthing human bones, so that there would be a revolution on the part of the people if it were done now, but it will gradually be brought about. He travels with a suite of forty attendants, and says he has got all his treaties here arranged to his wishes, and that Prussia has promised to follow the United States in everything that they have agreed on with China. He is going to resign his office in a year and go back to America, where he wants to get into politics again. Mr. Bancroft introduced many of the ladies to the Chinese, one of whom could speak English, and he interpreted to the others. It was very quaint to see them all make their deep bows in silence when some one was presented to them. They were in the Chinese costume – Turkish trousers, white silk coats, or blouses, and red turbans, and their hair braided down their backs in a long tail that nearly touched their heels.

On Thursday I went to Dr. A.'s to dinner. He seems to be a very influential man here, and is a great favorite with the Americans. He has a great big heart, and I suspect that is the reason of it. Mrs. A., too, is very lovely. I saw there Mr. Theodore Fay, who used to be our minister in Switzerland, and who is also an author. He is very interesting, and the most earnest Christian I ever met. He has the tenderest sympathies in the world, and in a man this is very striking. He has a high and beautiful forehead, and a certain spirituality of expression that appeals to you at once and touches you, also. At least he makes a peculiar impression on me. There is something entirely different about him from other men, but I don't know what it is, unless it be his deep religious feeling, which shines out unconsciously.

Last week I made my first visit to the Museum. It is one of the great sights of Berlin, but it is so immense that I only saw a few rooms. In fact there are two Museums – an old and a new. I was in the new one. It is a perfect treasure house, and the floors alone are a study. All are inlaid with little coloured marbles, and every one is different in pattern. One of the most beautiful of the rooms was a large circular dome-roofed apartment round which were placed the statues of the gods, and in the centre stood a statue in bronze of one of the former German kings in a Roman suit of armour. Half way up from the floor ran round a little gallery in which you could stand and look down over the railing, and here were placed on the walls Raphael's cartoons, which are fac-similes of those in the Vatican, and are all woven in arras. They are very wonderful, and you feel as if you could not look at them long enough. The contrast is impressive as you look down and see all the heathen statues standing on the marble floor, each one like a separate sphinx, and then look up and see all the Christian subjects of Raphael. The statues are so cold and white and distant, and the pictures are so warm and bright in colour. They seem to express the difference between the ancient and the modern religions. We went through the rooms of Greek and Roman statues, of which there is an immense number, and on the walls are Greek and Italian landscapes, all done by celebrated painters.

We had to pass through these rooms rather hastily in order to get a glimpse of the "Treppen Halle," which is the place where the two grand stair-cases meet that carry you into the upper rooms of the Museum. This is magnificent, and is all gilding and decoration. An immense statue stands by each door, and on the wall are six great pictures by Kaulbach, three on each side. "The Last Judgment," of which you're seen photographs, is one of them. I ought to go to the Museum often to see it properly, but it is such a long distance off that I can't get the time. Berlin is a very large city, and the distances are as great as they are in New York.

At the last "Reading" at the conservatory the four best scholars played last. One of them was an American, from San Francisco, a Mr. Trenkel, but who has German parents. He plays exquisitely, and has just such a poetic musical conception as Dresel, but a beautiful technique, also. He is a thorough artist, and he looks it, too, as he is dark and pale, and very striking. I always like to see him play, for he droops his dark eyes, and his high pale forehead is thrown back, and stands out so well defined over his black brows. His expression is very serious and his manner very quiet, and he has a sort of fascination about him. He is a particular favorite of Tausig's.

After he played, came a young lady who has been a pupil of Von Bülow for two years. She plays splendidly, and I could have torn my hair with envy when she got up, and Ehlert went up to her and shook her hand and told her before the whole school that she had "real talent." After her came my favorite, little Fräulein Timanoff, who sat down and did still better. She is a little Russian, only fifteen, and is still in short dresses. She has almost white hair, it is so light, and she combs it straight back and wears it in two long braids down her back, which makes her look very childish. It is really wonderful to see her! She takes her seat with the greatest confidence, and plays with all the boldness of an artist.

Almost all the scholars in Tausig's class are studying to play in public, and I should think he would be very proud of all those that I have heard. There are many scholars in the conservatory, but he teaches only the most advanced. He only returned to Berlin on Saturday, and I have not yet seen him, though I am dying to do so, for all the Germans are wild over his playing. The girls in his class are mortally afraid of him, and when he gets angry he tells them they play "like a rhinoceros," and many other little remarks equally pleasing.

—

BERLIN, January 11, 1870.

Since my last letter I have been quite secluded, and have seen nothing of the gay world. I have been to the opera twice – once to "Fantaska," a grand ballet, and the second time to "Trovatore." The opera house here is magnificent, and I would that I could go to it every week. It is extremely difficult to get tickets to it, as the rich Jews manage to get the monopoly of them and the opera house is crowded every night. It is the most brilliant building, and so exquisitely painted! All the heads and figures of the Muses and portraits of composers and poets which decorate it, are so soft and so beautifully done. The curtain even is charming. It represents the sea, and great sea monsters are swimming about with nymphs and Cupids and all sorts of things, and one lovely nymph floats in the air with a thin gauzy veil which trails along after her. The scenery and dresses are superb, and I never imagined anything to equal them. The orchestra, too, plays divinely.

The singing is the only thing which could be improved. The Lucca, who is the grand attraction, is a pretty little creature, but I did not find her voice remarkable. The Berlinese worship her, and whenever Lucca sings there is a rush for the tickets. Wachtel and Niemann are the star singers among the men. Niemann I have not heard, but Wachtel we should not rave over in America. I am in doubt whether indeed the Germans know what the best singing is. They have most wonderful choruses, but when it comes to soloists they have none that are really great – like Parepa and Adelaide Phillips; at least, that is my judgment after hearing the best singers in Berlin, though as the voice is not my "instrument," I will not be too confident about it. Everything else is so far beyond what we have at home that perhaps I unconsciously expect the climax of all – the solo singing, to be proportionally finer also.

They have beautiful ballet-dancers here, though. There is one little creature named Fräulein David, who is a wonderful artist. She does such steps that it turns one's head to see her. She is as light as down, and so extremely graceful that when you watch her floating about to the enchanting ballet music, it is too captivating. There were four other dancers nearly as good, who were all dressed exactly alike in white dresses trimmed with pink satin. They would come out first, and dance all together, sometimes separately and sometimes forming a figure in the middle of the stage. Then suddenly little David, who was dressed in white and blue, would bound forward. The others would immediately break up and retire to the side of the stage, and she would execute a wonderful pas seul. Then she would retire, and the others would come forward again, and so it went. It was perfectly beautiful. Finally they all danced together and did everything exactly alike, though little David could always bend lower, and take the "positions" (as we used to say at Dio Lewis's,) better than all the rest.

On Friday I am going to hear Rubinstein play. I suppose he will give a beautiful concert, as he and Bülow, Tausig and Clara Schumann are the grand celebrities now on the piano, Liszt having given up playing in public. After our lesson was over yesterday, Ehlert took his leave, and left us to wait for TAUSIG – my dear! – who was to hear us each play. He came in very late, and just before it was time to give his own lesson. He is precisely like the photograph I sent you, but is very short indeed – too short, in fact, for good looks – but he has a remarkably vivid expression of the eyes. He came in, and, scarcely looking at us, and without taking the trouble to bow even, he turned on me and said, imperiously, "Spielen Sie mir Etwas vor. (Play something for me.)" I got up and played first an Etude, and then he asked for the scales, and after I had played a few he told me I "had talent," and to come to his lessons, and I would learn much. I went accordingly the next afternoon. There were two girls only in the class, but they were both far advanced. I had never heard either of them play before. The second one played a fearfully difficult concerto by Chopin, which I once heard from Mills. It is exquisitely beautiful, and she did it very well. From time to time Tausig would sweep her off the stool, and play himself, and he is indeed a perfect wonder! If, as they say, Liszt's trill is "like the warble of a bird," his is as much so. It is not surprising that he is so celebrated, and I long to hear him in concert, where he will do full justice to his powers. He thrills you to the very marrow of your bones. He is divorced from his wife, and I think it not improbable that she could not live with him, for he looks as haughty and despotic as Lucifer, though he has a very winning way with him when he likes. His playing is spoken of as sans pareil.

I spent a very pleasant Christmas. The family had a pretty little tree, and we all gave each other presents. It was charming to go out in the streets the week before. The Germans make the greatest time over Christmas, and the streets are full of Christmas trees, the shops are crammed with lovely things, and there are little booths erected all along the sidewalks filled with toys. They have special cakes and confections that they prepare only at this season.

CHAPTER III

Tausig and Rubinstein. Tausig's Pupils. The Bancrofts. A German Radical

BERLIN, February 8, 1870.

I have heard both Rubinstein and Tausig in concert since I last wrote. They are both wonderful, but in quite a different way. Rubinstein has the greatest power and abandon in playing that you can imagine, and is extremely exciting. I never saw a man to whom it seemed so easy to play. It is as if he were just sporting with the piano, and could do what he pleased with it. Tausig, on the contrary, is extremely restrained, and has not quite enthusiasm enough, but he is absolutely perfect, and plays with the greatest expression. He is pre-eminent in grace and delicacy of execution, but seems to hold back his power in a concert room, which is very singular, for when he plays to his classes in the conservatory he seems all passion. His conception is so very refined that sometimes it is a little too much so, while Rubinstein is occasionally too precipitate. I have not yet decided which I like best, but in my estimation Clara Schumann as a whole is superior to either, although she has not their unlimited technique.

This was Tausig's programme:

Tausig's octave playing is the most extraordinary I ever heard. The last great effect on his programme was in the Rhapsody by Liszt, in an octave variation. He first played it so pianissimo that you could only just hear it, and then he repeated the variation and gave it tremendously forte. It was colossal! His scales surpass Clara Schumann's, and it seems as if he played with velvet fingers, his touch is so very soft. He played the great C major Sonata by Beethoven – Moscheles' favorite, you know. His conception of it was not brilliant, as I expected it would be, but very calm and dreamy, and the first movement especially he took very piano. He did it most beautifully, but I was not quite satisfied with the last movement, for I expected he would make a grand climax with those passionate trills, and he did not. Chopin he plays divinely, and that little Bourrée of Bach's that I used to play, was magical. He played it like lightning, and made it perfectly bewitching.

Altogether, he is a great man. But Clara Schumann always puts herself en rapport with you immediately. Tausig and Rubinstein do not sway you as she does, and, therefore, I think she is the greater interpreter, although I imagine the Germans would not agree with me. Tausig has such a little hand that I wonder he has been able to acquire his immense virtuosity. He is only thirty years old, and is much younger than Rubinstein or Bülow.

The day after Tausig's concert I went, as usual, to hear him give the lesson to his best class of girls. I got there a little before the hour, and the girls were in the dressing-room waiting for the young men to be through with their lesson. They were talking about the concert. "Was it not beautiful?" said little Timanoff, to me; "I did not sleep the whole night after it!" – a touch of sentiment that quite surprised me in that small personage, and made me feel some compunctions, as I had slept soundly myself. "I have practiced five hours to-day already," she added. Just then the young men came out of the class-room and we passed into it. Tausig was standing by the piano. "Begin!" said he, to Timanoff, more shortly even than usual; "I trust you have brought me a study this time." He always insists upon a study in addition to the piece. Timanoff replied in the affirmative, and proceeded to open Chopin's Etudes. She played the great A minor "Winter Wind" study, and most magnificently, too, starting off with the greatest brilliancy and "go." I was perfectly amazed at such a feat from such a child, and expected that Tausig would exclaim with admiration. Not so that Rhadamanthus. He heard it through without comment or correction, and when Timanoff had finished, simply remarked very composedly, "So! Have you taken the next Etude, also?" as if the great A minor were not enough for one meal! It is eight pages long to begin with, and there is no let-up to the difficulty all the way through. Afterward, however, he told the young men that he "could not have done it better" himself.

Tausig is so hasty and impatient that to be in his classes must be a fearful ordeal. He will not bear the slightest fault. The last time I went into his class to hear him teach he was dreadful. Fräulein H. began, and she has remarkable talent, and is far beyond me. She would not play piano enough to suit him, and finally he stamped his foot at her, snatched her hand from the piano, and said: "Will you play piano or not, for if not we will go no farther?" The second girl sat down and played a few lines. He made her begin over again several times, and finally came up and took her music away and slapped it down on the piano, – "You have been studying this for weeks and you can't play a note of it; practice it for a month and then you can bring it to me again," he said.

The third was Fräulein Timanoff, who is a little genius, I think. She brought a Sonata by Schubert – the lovely one in A minor – and by the way he behaved Tausig must have a particular feeling about that particular Sonata. Timanoff began running it off in her usual nimble style, having practiced it evidently every minute of the time when she was not asleep, since the last lesson. She had not proceeded far down the first page when he stopped her, and began to fuss over the expression. She began again, but this time with no better luck. A third time, but still he was dissatisfied, though he suffered her to go on a little farther. He kept stopping her every moment in the most tantalizing and exasperating manner. If it had been I, I should have cried, but Timanoff is well broken, and only flushed deeply to the very tips of her small ears. From an apple blossom she changed to a carnation. Tausig grew more and more savage, and made her skip whole pages in his impatience. "Play here!" he would say, in the most imperative tone, pointing to a half or whole page farther on. "This I cannot hear! – Go on farther! – It is too bad to be listened to!" Finally, he struck the music with the back of his hand, and exclaimed, in a despairing way, "Kind, es liegt eine Seele darin. Weiss du nicht es liegt eine SEELE darin? (Child, there's a soul in the piece. Don't you know there is a soul in it?)" To the little Timanoff, who has no soul, and who is not sufficiently experienced to counterfeit one, this speech evidently conveyed no particular idea. She ran on as glibly as ever till Tausig could endure no more, and shut up the music. I was much disappointed, as it was new to me, and I like to hear Timanoff's little fingers tinkle over the keys, "Seele" or no "Seele." She has a most accurate and dainty way of doing everything, and somehow, in her healthy little brain I hardly wish for Seele!

Last of all Fräulein L. played, and she alone suited Tausig. She is a Swede, and is the best scholar he has, but she has such frightfully ugly hands, and holds them so terribly, that when I look at her I cannot enjoy her playing. Tausig always praises her very much, and she is tremendously ambitious.

Tausig has a charming face, full of expression and very sensitive. He is extremely sharp-sighted, and has eyes in the back of his head, I believe. He is far too small and too despotic to be fascinating, however, though he has a sort of captivating way with him when he is in a good humor.

I was dreadfully sorry to hear of poor Gottschalk's death. He had a golden touch, and equal to any in the world, I think. But what a romantic way to die! – to fall senseless at his instrument, while he was playing "La Morte." It was very strange. If anything more is in the papers about him you must send it to me, for the infatuation that I and 99,999 other American girls once felt for him, still lingers in my breast!

On Saturday night I went for the first time to hear the Berlin Symphony Kapelle. It is composed only of artists, and is the most splendid music imaginable. De Ahna, for instance, is one of the violinists, and he is not far behind Joachim. We have no conception of such an orchestra in America.¹ The Philharmonic of New York approaches it, but is still a long way off. This orchestra is so perfect, and plays with such precision, that you can't realize that there are any performers at all. It is just a great wave of sound that rolls over you as smooth as glass. As the concert halls are much smaller here, the music is much louder, and every man not only plays piano and forte where it is marked, but he draws the tone out of his violin. They have the greatest pathos, consequently, in the soft parts, and overwhelming power in the loud. Where great expression is required the conductor almost ceases to beat time, and it seems as if the performers took it ad libitum; but they understand each other so well that they play like one man. It is too ecstatic! I observed the greatest difference in the horn playing. Instead of coming in in a monotonous sort of way as it does at home, and always with the same degree of loudness, here, when it is solo, it begins round and smooth and full, and then gently modulates until the tone seems to sigh itself out, dying away at last with a little tremolo that is perfectly melting. I never before heard such an effect. When the trumpets come in it is like the crack of doom, and you should hear the way they play the drums. I never was satisfied with the way they strike the drums in New York and Boston, for it always seemed as if they thought the parchment would break. Here, sometimes they give such a sharp stroke that it startles me, though, of course, it is not often. But it adds immensely to the accent, and makes your heart beat, I can tell you. They played Schubert's great symphony, and Beethoven's in B major, and I could scarcely believe my own ears at the difference between this orchestra and ours. It is as great as between – and Tausig.

BERLIN, March 4, 1870.

Tausig is off to Russia to-day on a concert tour, and will not return until the 1st of May. Out of six months he has been in Berlin about two and a half! However, as I am not yet in his class it doesn't affect me much, but I should think his scholars would be provoked at such long absences. That is the worst of having such a great artist for a master. I believe we are to have no vacation in the summer though, and that he has promised to remain here from May until November without going off. Ehlert and Tausig have had a grand quarrel, and Ehlert is going to leave the conservatory in April. I am very sorry, for he is an admirable teacher, and I like him extremely.

We had another Musical Reading on Sunday, at which I played, but all the conservatory classes were there, and all the teachers, with Tausig, also, so it was a pretty hard ordeal. The girls said I turned deadly pale when I sat down to the piano, and well I might, for here you cannot play any thing that the scholars have not either played themselves or are perfectly familiar with, so they criticise you without mercy. Tausig plays so magnificently that you know beforehand that a thing can never be more than comparatively good in his eyes. Fräulein L. is the only one of his pupils that plays to suit him. I do not like her playing so much myself, because it sounds as if she had tried to imitate him exactly – which she probably does. It does not seem spontaneous, and she is an affected creature. They all think 'the world' of her at the conservatory, and I suppose she is quite extraordinary; but I prefer Fräulein Timanoff – "die kleine Person," as Tausig calls her – and she is, indeed, a "little person." On Sunday Fräulein L. played the first part of a Sonata by Chopin, and Tausig was quite enchanted with her performance. I thought he was going to embrace her, he jumped up so impetuously and ran over to her. He declared that it could not be better played, and said he would not hear anything else after that, and so the school was dismissed, although several had not played that expected to do so.