I
Musicians always took a deep interest in Irving’s work both as actor and manager. They seemed to understand in a peculiarly subtle way the significance of everything he did.
II
BOITO
Boito came to the Lyceum on June 13, 1893, when we were playing Becket. I talked with him in his box and in the little drawing-room of the royal box. He afterwards came round on the stage to see Irving. He was wonderfully impressed with Becket. He said to me that Irving was “the greatest artist he had ever seen.” Two nights later, 15th June, he came to supper in the Beefsteak Room. Irving had got some musicians and others to meet him. The following were of the party: A. C. Mackenzie, Villiers Stanford, Damrosch, Jules Claretie, Renaud, Brisson, Le Clerc, Alfred Gilbert, Toole, Hare, Sir Charles Euan Smith, Bancroft, Coquelin Cadet—an extraordinary group of names in so small a gathering.
III
PADEREWSKI
Paderewski was greatly taken with Irving’s playing and with the man himself. He came to supper one night in the Beefsteak Room. Irving met him several times and was an immense admirer of his work. He offered to write for Irving music for some play that he might be doing.
I remember one very peculiar incident in which Paderewski had a part. Whilst we were playing in New York, Hall Caine, who had been up in Canada trying to arrange the copyright trouble there, came to New York also. One Sunday in November 1895 he and I took a walk in the afternoon. Our destination took us down Fifth Avenue, which in those days was a great Sunday promenade. Hall Caine was soon recognised—he is, as some one said, “very like his portraits”; and as he has an enormous vogue in America certain of the crowd began to follow him at a little distance. It is of the nature of a crowd to increase, if merely because it is a crowd; and in a short time I saw, when by some chance I looked back, a whole streetful of people close behind us and the crowd momentarily swelling. We increased our pace a little, wishing to get away; but the crowd kept equal pace. Between 42nd and 40th Street we met another crowd coming up the Avenue following Paderewski who was walking with a friend. We stopped to talk, whereupon both crowds pressed in on us—it was too interesting an opportunity to be missed to see two such men, and each so remarkable in appearance, together.
It was with some difficulty, and by going into a hotel on one side and leaving it by another that we managed to escape.
IV
GEORG HENSCHEL
Georg Henschel was from the very first a great admirer of Irving away back from 1879, and so he used to come to the Lyceum and sometimes stay to supper in the Beefsteak Room, or in the room we used before it. I shall never forget one night when he sang to us. There were a very few others present, all friends and all lovers of music. Two items linger in my memory unfailingly; one a lullaby of Handel and the other the “Elders’ Song” from Handel’s Susannah. We had all become great friends before he went to Boston where—I think succeeding Gerische—he took over the conductorship of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He had wished to study practically orchestral music. One forenoon—February 28, 1884—by previous arrangement Irving and I went to the Music Hall to hear his orchestra play Schumann’s Manfred. It was quite a private performance given entirely for Irving; the gentlemen of the orchestra, all fine musicians, were delighted to play for him. He was entranced with the music and the rendering of it. When we were driving back to the Vendôme Hotel in Commonwealth Avenue where we were both staying he talked all the time about the possibilities of producing Byron’s play. He had had it in his mind for a long time as a work to be undertaken; indeed the répétition which we had just heard was the outcome of his having mentioned the matter to Henschel on a previous occasion. He was nearer to making up his mind to a definite production that morning than he had ever been or ever was afterwards.
It was agreed between them that later on, if he should undertake to do Julius Cæsar, for which he had already arranged the book, Henschel was to compose the music for it.
V
HANS RICHTER
Hans Richter was another great admirer of Irving. He too is a great master of his own art, and has the appreciative insight that only comes with greatness. Richter was not only a musician; he had had so much experience of stage production at Bayreuth and elsewhere that if he did not originate he at least understood all about it. I remember one day, 24th October 1900, after lunch with the Miss Gaskells in Manchester, when he talked with me about the new effect for The Flying Dutchman at the Wagner Festival on the following year. This was especially regarding lighting. They had succeeded in so arranging lights that the two ships were to approach each other, one in broad sunlight, the other bathed in moonlight.
With Hans Richter I had once the felicity of another such experience in its own way as Irving’s comprehensive reading of Hamlet; truly another delightful experience of the survey of a great work at the hands of a master. It was when in the house of my friend E. W. Hennell, Hans Richter amongst a few friends sat down to the piano and gave us a résumé of Wagner’s Meistersinger, singing snatches of the songs as he went on, and now and again explaining some subtle purpose in the music that he played. It was an hour of breathless delight which no money could purchase. With my wife I attended the Wagner Cycle at Bayreuth that summer and heard the opera in all its magnificent perfection; but I never got so clear an insight to the great composer’s purpose as when Richter pictured it for us.
VI
THE ABBÉ FRANZ LISZT
On 14th April 1886 Abbé Liszt came to the Lyceum to see Faust and to stay to supper in the Beefsteak Room. He was then the guest of Mr. Littleton, staying at his house at Sydenham. At that time musical London made such a rush for the old man that it was absolutely necessary to guard him when he came to the theatre. All the real music lovers of the younger generation wanted to see him, for they had not had opportunity before and were not likely to have it again. He was then seventy-five years of age and had practically given up playing inasmuch as he only played to please himself or his friends. That night he was accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Littleton together with the sons and daughters-in-law of the latter, and by Stavenhagen his pupil, and Madame Muncacksy. As it was necessary to keep away all who might intrude upon him—enthusiasts, interviewers, cranks, autograph-fiends, notoriety seekers who would like to be seen in his box—we arranged a sort of fortress for him. Next to the royal box on the grand tier O.P. was another box separated only by a partition, part of which could be taken down. This box was on the outside from the proscenium. We had the door of this box screwed up so that entrance to it could only be had through the royal box. Liszt sat here with some of the others unassailable, as one of the Mr. Littletons kept the key of the other box and none could obtain entrance without permission.
There was an interesting party at supper in the Beefsteak Room, amongst them, in addition to the party at the play, the following: Ellen Terry, Professor Max Müller, Lord and Lady Wharncliffe, Sir Alexander and Lady Mackenzie, Sir Alfred Cooper, Walter Bach and Miss Bach, Sir Morell Mackenzie, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Littleton, Mr. and Mrs. Augustus Littleton, Mr. and Mrs. William Beatty Kingston, and the Misses Casella.
Liszt sat on the right hand of Ellen Terry who faced Irving. From where I sat at the end of the table I could not but notice the quite extraordinary resemblance in the profiles of the two men. After supper Irving went round and sat next him, and the likeness became a theme of comment from all present. Irving was then forty-eight years of age; but he looked still a young man, with raven-black hair and face without a line. His neck was then without a line or mark of age. Liszt, on the other hand, looked older than his age. His stooping shoulders and long white hair made him seem of patriarchal age. Nevertheless the likeness of the two men was remarkable.
Stavenhagen played, but as it was thought by all that Liszt must be too tired after a long day no opening was made for him, much as all longed to hear him. The party did not break up till four o’clock in the morning. The note in my diary runs:
“Liszt fine face—leonine—several large pimples—prominent chin of old man—long white hair down on shoulders—all call him ‘Master’—must have had great strength in youth. Very sweet and simple in manner. H. I. and he very much alike—seemed old friends as they talked animatedly though knowing but a few words of each other’s language—but using much expression and gesticulation. It was most interesting.”
The next day Irving and my wife and I, together with some others, lunched with the Baroness Burdett-Coutts in Stratton Street to meet Liszt. After lunch there was a considerable gathering of friends asked to meet him. Lady Burdett-Coutts very thoughtfully had the pianos removed from the drawing-rooms, lest their presence might seem as though he were expected to play. After a while he noticed the absence and said to his hostess:
“I see you have no pianos in these rooms!” She answered frankly that she had them removed so that he would not be tempted to play unless he wished to do so.
“But I would like some music!” he said, and then went on:
“I have no doubt but there is a piano in the house, and that it could be brought here easily!” It was not long before the servants brought into the great drawing-room a grand piano worthy of even his hands. Then Antoinette Sterling sang some ballads in her own delightful way. The contralto tones went straight to one’s heart.
“Now I will play!” said Liszt. And he did.
It was magnificent and never to be forgotten.
VII
GOUNOD
Gounod came, as far as I know, but once to the Lyceum. That was during the first week of the season—6th September, 1882–during the continuance of the run of Romeo and Juliet. He came round to Irving’s dressing-room at the end of the third act and sat all the time of the wait chatting. Gounod was a man who seemed to speak fully formed thoughts. It was not in any way that there was about his speech any appearance of formality or premeditation. He seemed to speak right out of his heart; but his habit or method was such that his words had a power of exact conveyance of the thoughts. One might have stenographed every sentence he spoke, and when reproduced it would require no alteration. Form and structure and choice of words were all complete.
After chatting a while Irving was loth to let him go. When the call-boy announced the beginning of Act IV.—in which act Irving had no part—he asked Gounod to stay on with him. So also at the beginning of Act V. When he had to go on the stage for the Apothecary scene, he asked me to stay with Gounod till he came back—I had been in the dressing-room all the time. Whilst Irving was away Gounod and I chatted; several things he said have always remained with me.
He was saying something about some “great man” when he suddenly stopped and, after a slight pause, said:
“But after all there is no really ‘great’ man! There are men through whom great things are spoken!”
I asked him what in his estimation were the best words to which he had composed music. He answered almost at once, without hesitation:
“‘Oh that we two were maying!’ I can never think of those words without emotion! How can one help it?” He spoke the last verse of the poem from The Saint’s Tragedy:
“Oh! that we two lay sleeping
In our nest in the churchyard sod,
With our limbs at rest on the quiet earth’s breast,
And our souls at home with God.”
As he spoke, the emotion seemed to master him more and more; at the last line the tears were running down his cheeks. He spoke with an extraordinary concentration and emphasis. It was hard to believe that he was not singing, for the effect of his speaking the words of Charles Kingsley’s song was the same. His speech seemed like—was music.
Later on I asked him who in his opinion was the best composer. “Present company, of course, excepted!” I added, whereat he smiled. After a moment’s thought he answered:
“Mendelssohn! Mendelssohn is the best!” Then after another but shorter pause: “But there is only one Mozart!”
VIII
SIR ALEXANDER MACKENZIE
Sir Alexander Mackenzie, who was one of the oldest and closest of Irving’s friends, had much to do with him in his productions. He composed the music for Ravenswood and Coriolanus. At Irving’s burial in Westminster Abbey a part of the latter, the Marcia Funèbre, was played whilst the coffin was being borne from the choir to the grave.
In addition to these important works, Mackenzie wrote the music for Manfred, which Irving intended at one time to produce. He was also engaged on the music for Richard II., a large part of which was completed when the play was abandoned owing to Irving’s serious illness in 1898.
Mackenzie in an “interview” shortly after Irving’s death, told a pretty story of how the end of Ravenswood had been changed. Irving had arranged that the last scene should be the waste of quicksand, wherein Edgar was lost, seen in the cold glare of moonlight—suggestive of misery. When, however, he heard the music—of which the finale is the love motive in a triumphant burst—he seemed much struck by it. He said nothing at the time, but the next morning the composer received a letter thanking him for the hint and adding:
“And the moonlight on the sea I shall change to the rising sun.”