HAMBURG, Easter Sunday, 1875.
With regard to playing in concert, I find myself doubting whether on general principles it is best to get one's whole musical training under one master only, as Fannie Warburg, for instance, has done; for my experience teaches me that though nearly all masters can give you something, none can give you everything. If, with my present light, I could begin my study over again, I should first stay three years with Deppe, in order to endow the spirit of music that I hope is within me, with the outward form and perfection of an artist. Next, I should study a year with Kullak, to give my playing a brilliant concert dress, and finally, I would spend two seasons with Liszt, in order to add the last ineffable graces—(for never, never should an artist complete a musical course without going to LISZT, while he is on this earth!)—The trouble is, however, that one master always feels hurt if you leave him for another! No one can bear the imputation that he can't "give you everything."
But in truth I am getting very impatient to be at home where I can study by myself, and take as much time as I think necessary to work up my pieces. Deppe and Fräulein Timm are like Kullak in one thing. They never will give me time enough, but hurry me on so from one thing to another, that it is impossible for me to prepare a programme. So I have given up my plan of a concert in Berlin this spring. They have one set of ideas and I another, and I see I shall never be able to play in public until I abandon masters and start out on my own course. Two people never think exactly alike. Masters can put you on the road, but they can't make you go. You must do that for yourself. As Dr. V. says, "If you want to do a thing you have got to keep doing it. You mustn't stop—certainly not!" Concert-playing, like everything else, is routine, and has got to be learned by little and little, and perhaps, with many half-failures. But if the "great public" will only tolerate one as a pupil long enough, eventually, one must succeed. At any rate, IT is probably the best and the only "master" for me now!
On Wednesday I return for a while to Berlin, to the American boarding-house, No. 15 Tauben Strasse, whither you can all direct as formerly. This winter has been rather a contrast to last. Then I lived entirely among North Americans, whereas here I am almost exclusively with South Americans. There are any number of these latter in Hamburg, and you have no idea how fascinating many of them are—so handsome and so bright. They all have a talent for music and dancing. Their music is entirely of a light character, but they have rhythm and grace in a remarkable degree. When I hear them play I always think of George Sands's description in her novel "Malgré-tout" of the artist Abel—the hero of the book, and a great violinist. She says, "Il racla un air sur son violon avec entrain."—That is just what these South Americans do—"racler!" They all play the piano just as with us the negro plays the fiddle, without instruction, apparently, and simply because "it is their nature to." I saw at once where Gottschalk got his "Banjo" and "Bananier," and the peculiar style of his compositions generally, and since I've met so many South Americans I can readily imagine why he spent so much of his time in South America. I long to go there myself. I think it must be a fascinating place for an artist.
One of the South Americans here at the house is a boy of fifteen, named Juan di Livramento, or, I should say, Juan Moreiro Aranjo di Livramento! (They all have about a dozen names in the grandiloquent style of the Spaniards.) This boy is a curious youngster. He is tall and lithe, with the most magnificent dark eyes I ever saw or conceived, thick silky black hair, all in a tumble about his head, a delicate and very expressive face, and a clear olive complexion—a perfect type of a Spaniard. He seems born to dance the Bolero, like Belinda, in Mrs. Edwards's novel. It is the prettiest thing to see him do it—and in fact he does it on all occasions without any reference to propriety, being an utterly lawless individual. He frequently gets up from the dinner-table, throws his napkin over his shoulders, snaps his thumbs, and begins a dance in the corner of the room, between the courses. It has got to be such an every-day thing that nobody looks surprised or pays any attention to him. We dine late, and as there are a good many boarders, it takes some time always to change the plates. Juan, who is like so much mercury, never can sit still during these intervals. When asked to ring the bell for the servant, he will spring up like a shot, give it a violent pull, and then take advantage of being up to dance in the corner, or at least to cut a few antics, fling his leg over the back of his chair, and come down astride of it. This is his usual mode of resuming his seat.
On the days when he doesn't dance, he keeps up a continual talking. He will rattle on in Spanish till Herr S. gets desperate, and tries to reduce him to order. It is a rule that German must be spoken at table, but Juan thinks it sufficient if he applies the rule only so far as not to speak Spanish, his native language. He goes to school where, of course, he learns English and French, and he is always trying to get off some remarks in these languages. He speaks all wrong, but that does not cause him the least embarrassment.—On Sundays especially is Juan perfectly irrepressible, for then Frau S. goes to dine and spend the evening with her parents, and Herr S. is left to maintain order. He is an indulgent old man, and very fond of Juan, so that the latter has not the least fear of him, and I nearly die trying to keep my face straight when they have one of their scenes.
"You shall NOT speak Spanish at the table," said poor old S. the other day, in a rage. Spanish is jargon to him, and Juan had been talking it for some time at the top of his voice across Herr S., to his friend Candido, who sat opposite. Juan knew very well that that meant he must speak German, but instead of that he began in foreign languages, and said to Herr S., in English, "Do you spoke Russish (Do you speak Russian)?"
Herr S., to whom English is as unintelligible as Spanish, naturally making no reply to this brilliant remark, Juan continued—"'Spring is Coming,' Poem by James K. Blake," and then he began to recite with much gesticulation—
| "Spring is coming, spring is coming, |
| Birds are singing, insects humming; |
| Flowers are peeping from their sleeping, |
| Streams escape from winter's keeping, etc." |
I won't pretend to say what the rest of it was, as his pronunciation was utterly unintelligible. Herr S. rolled up his eyes and made no further protest, for he found he only got "out of the frying-pan into the fire," Juan having a historical anecdote called "The Dead Watch," which he occasionally substitutes for the poem.