Indian music is thoroughly scientific, based on mathematics, and handed down to the present age after many centuries of growth. But when we hear it for the first time, it seems mere noise, without melody, without harmony, without rhythm. The Maoris have their own music too, but send a New Zealander to hear a long symphony of Beethoven, and, if he can, he will certainly run away long before the finale.
In a lesser degree it is the same with us. Beethoven’s compositions were at first considered wild and lawless. Those who admired Mozart and Haydn could not endure him. Afterwards the world was educated up to his Ninth Symphony, but some of his later sonatas for pianoforte and violin were played by Mendelssohn and David in my hearing, and they both shrugged their shoulders, and thought that the old man had been no longer quite himself when he wrote them. We have grown into them, or up to them, and now many a young man is able to enjoy them, and to enjoy them honestly. I remember the time when Schumann’s songs were published at Leipzig, and the very same songs which now delight us were then by the best judges called curious, strange, interesting, promising, but no more. Yes, there is habit in music, and we are constantly passing through a musical education; nay, the time comes when our education seems finished, and we can learn and take in no more. I have passed through a long school. I began with Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, lived on with Mendelssohn, rose to Schumann, and reached even Brahms; but I could never get beyond, I could never learn to enjoy Wagner except now and then in one of his lucid intervals. No doubt this is my fault and my loss, but surely the vulgus profanum also has its rights and may protest against being tired instead of being refreshed and invigorated by music. Would Mendelssohn have admired Wagner? Would Beethoven have listened to his music, would Bach have tolerated it? Yet these were musicians too, though perhaps not sufficiently educated. To be honest, a great deal of Wagner’s music seems tiresome to me, and I do not see why it should ever end.
My musical education began very early, so early that I cannot remember ever passing through any drudgery. As long as I remember I could play, and I was destined to become a musician, till I went to the University, and Mendelssohn advised me to keep to Greek and Latin. I was born and brought up in Dessau, a small German town in an oasis of oak-trees where the Elbe and the Mulde meet, a town then overflowing with music. Such towns exist no longer.
When I went to school at Dessau, this small capital of the small Duchy of Anhalt-Dessau counted, I believe, not more than ten or twelve thousand inhabitants. Everybody knew everybody. As a boy I knew not only the notables of Dessau, I knew the shops and the shopmen, the servants, the day-labourers (Tagelöhner) who sawed and split wood in the street, every old woman that sold apples, every beggar that asked for a Pfennig—mark, not a penny, but the tenth part of a penny. It was a curious town, with one long street running through it, the Cavalierstrasse, very broad, with pavements on each side. But the street had to be weeded from time to time, there being too little traffic to prevent the grass from growing up between the chinks of the stones. The houses had generally one storey only; those of two or three storeys were mostly buildings erected by the Duke for his friends and his higher officials. Many houses were mere cottages, consisting of a ground floor and a high roof. Almost every house had a small mysterious looking-glass fastened outside the window in which the dwellers within could watch and discuss an approaching visitor long before he or she came within speaking distance. It was the fashion not only to whitewash the plastered walls of houses, but to green-wash, or to blue-wash, or to pink-wash them. All this is changed now; few people remember the old streets, with distant lamps swinging across to make darkness more visible at night, and with long waterspouts frowning down on the pavement like real gurgoyles, and not frowning only, but during a thunderstorm pouring down buckets of water on the large red and green umbrellas of the passers-by.
Dessau was then a very poor town, but a læta paupertas reigned in it; everybody knew how much everybody else possessed or earned, and no one was expected to spend more than was justified by his position. We can hardly understand now with how little people then managed, not only to live, but thoroughly to enjoy the highest pleasures of life. My grandfather, who was the Duke’s Prime Minister, received, I believe, no more than two thousand thalers (£300) salary, though there may have been additional allowances for rent, carriages and horses. But there was a curious mixture of simplicity of life and enjoyments of the highest kind. I remember in my grandfather’s house delightful social gatherings, musical and literary performances. I remember Mozart’s “Don Juan,” Beethoven’s “Fidelio” being performed there, the latest works of Goethe and Jean Paul being read and appreciated with a cup of tea or a glass of wine. A more select circle enjoyed their Shakespeare, their Dante, their Calderon in English, Italian, and Spanish. I remember my grandfather (the son of Basedow, the reformer of national education in Germany) in his Court uniform, driving to Court in his carriage and pair, servants in full livery, everybody making room for him and bowing deep on each side, hat in hand. And when he came back from Court, was it not a real holiday for his grandchildren to turn the pockets of his uniform inside out—the pockets were lined on purpose with soft leather—to see what bonbons and cakes he had brought home for us from Tafel—i.e., dinner at Court? Almost my first recollections come from my grandfather’s house. My mother, after the very early death of my father, who died before I was four years old, had gone back to live at her father’s house. This was a very common arrangement then. Two or three generations often lived together in the same house, and among the better families the house was looked upon as a common home, descending from father to son and grandson. There was a large garden stretching out behind the house, which was our playground. Our neighbours’ gardens were separated on each side from our own by a low hedge only. Next door to us was the house of a soap and candle maker, and I still remember the disagreeable smells on the day when soap was boiled and candles were drawn. People talked across the garden hedge to their neighbours, and all the affairs of the town were discussed there. Our neighbour on the right side took lodgers, and one of them was a young man who had come to Dessau to study music under F. Schneider, and at the same time to give music lessons. He had been a theological student, but had umgesattelt (changed saddles), and now tried to support himself as best he could at Dessau. He often talked to me across the garden hedge (I was only five years old). One day he lifted me across into his own garden, and asked whether I would like to learn the pianoforte. I, of course, said yes, and he then bade me promise to come to him every day for half an hour, but not to say a word to my mother or to anybody else. The bargain was struck; I kept my music quite secret, till, after about half a year or so, I sat down at my grandfather’s pianoforte, and to the amazement of everybody played some easy pieces of Mozart or Diabelli. Of course the young theological student—his name was Kahle—was engaged at once to be my music-master. He charged five Groschen (sixpence) for a lesson, and I made very rapid progress. My mother was very musical; she had a splendid alto voice, and was often invited to sing the solos at the great musical festivals in Germany. My aunts, too, sang very well, and as a little boy I could sing all the songs which they sang, and well remember being put on a table to sing Händel’s great arias, “Schnell wie des Blitzes Strahl,” etc. Dessau at that time was steeped in music.
The reigning Duke kept a first-rate orchestra, and at the head of it was Friedrich Schneider, a well-known composer of the old school, a cantor, like Bach, but also Ducal Capellmeister, and the head of what was then called a musical school, now a conservatorium. This school was frequented by students from all parts of Germany, and it has produced some excellent musicians and well-known composers. There were public concerts given regularly every fortnight at a very low charge, and there were rehearsals twice a week, at which a few people only were allowed to be present. I was one of the few, and every Tuesday and Friday after school I sat there for an hour or two hearing the very best music excellently performed, and being deeply impressed, nay, awed by old Schneider, who stormed at the players when a single note went wrong, and used language which I was not allowed to repeat. He was a character. A small, square man, with greyish hair flowing down to his shoulders, his black eyes full of fire, and sometimes of fury. He was very fond of his glass of wine, which had given to his whole face, and particularly to his nose, a glowing ruddy complexion. He brooked no opposition from anybody, and he was the terror of all the young musicians who showed themselves at Dessau. His orchestra had such a reputation at that time that some of the greatest celebrities considered it an honour either to have their compositions performed or to be allowed to sing or play at his concerts. I remember Paganini, Sonntag, Spohr, Mendelssohn (then quite a young man), and many more passing through their ordeal at Dessau. Mendelssohn’s visit left a deep impression on my mind. I was still a mere child, he a very young man, and, as I thought, with the head of an angel. Mendelssohn’s was always a handsome face, but later in life the sharpness of his features betrayed his Jewish blood. He excelled as an organ player, and while at Dessau he played on the organ in the Grosse Kirche, chiefly extempore. I was standing by him, when he took me on his knees and asked me to play a choral while he played the pedal. I see it all now as if it had been yesterday, and I felt convinced at that time that I too (anch’ io) would be a musician. Was not Weber, Karl Maria von Weber, my godfather, and had he not given me my surname of Max? My father and mother had been staying with Weber at Dresden, and my father had undertaken to write the text for a new opera, which was never finished. Weber was then writing his “Freischütz,” and my mother has often described to me how he would walk about the whole day in his room composing, not before the pianoforte, but with a small guitar, and how she heard every melody gradually emerging from the twang of his little instrument. Both his wife and my mother were expecting their confinement, and it was arranged that if the children should be boys, they should be called Max, if girls, Agathe. We were both boys, and Weber’s son, Max Maria von Weber, became a distinguished traveller, a most charming writer, and at last an influential financier in the Austrian service. He stayed with me several times at Oxford, and we exchanged notes about our respective fathers. He published a life of his father, which has, I believe, been translated into English.
Old Schneider was kind to young Mendelssohn, whenever he came to Dessau; they were both ardent admirers of Händel and Bach, but the more modern and romantic compositions of the young composer did not quite meet the approval of the severe Maestro. Schneider was terribly outspoken, and apt to lose his temper and become violent. He once had a most painful scene with Madame Sonntag, or rather with Countess Something, as she was then. First of all, he thought very little of any composer whose name ended in ini or ante, and he would but seldom yield to the Duke and Duchess when they wished now and then to have some of Rossini’s or Mercadante’s music performed by their own orchestra. But when the Italian Countess ventured to speak to his orchestra and to ask them for a ritardando of her own, he flourished his bâton and broke out: “Madame,” he said, “you may sing as you like, but I look after of my orchestra,” and there was an end of it.
Life went on, and what time I could spare from school work, perhaps too much, was given to music. There was not an air or a symphony of Beethoven’s which at that time I could not have hummed from beginning to end, and even now I often detect myself humming, “Ich bin’s, du bist’s, O himmlisches Entzücken!” Who does not know that duet between Fidelio and Florestan? Much of that humming repertorio has remained with me for life, though I cannot always tell now where an Allegro or Adagio comes from. It comes without being called, I cannot drive it away when I want to be quiet. I hum the bass, I whistle the piccolo, I draw out the notes from the violoncello, I blow the trumpet, in fact I often feel like Queen Bess, “And she shall have music wherever she goes.”
When I was about eleven or twelve, old Schneider allowed me to play with accompaniment of the full orchestra some concertos of Mozart, etc. This was a great event in my quiet life, and everything looked as if music was to be my profession. When afterwards I went to the Nicolai School at Leipzig, the school at which Leibniz (not Leibnitz) had been educated, I lived again in the musical house of Professor Carus. His wife sang sweetly; his son, my old friend, Professor V. Carus, was an excellent violin player, a pupil of David. I myself began to play the violoncello, but without much success, and I joined a chorus under Mendelssohn, who was then director of the famous Gewandhaus Concerts at Leipzig. We often had to sing anything he had composed and wished to hear before performing it in public. As a friend of my father and my mother, Mendelssohn was always most charming to me, but he did not encourage my idea of a musical career. The fact was I had not time to serve two masters. I could not practise and study music as it ought to be practised and studied without neglecting Greek and Latin, and, as life became more serious, my mind was more and more drawn to the thoughts of antiquity, to Homer and Cicero, and away from the delights of music. I heard excellent music at the house of Professor Carus. I still have an old slip of paper on which Mendelssohn, Liszt, David, Kalliwoda and Hiller wrote their names for me one evening after they had been playing quartettes at Professor Carus’s house. (See page [14].)
