Auld lang syne

by F. Max Müller

I even ventured while at Leipzig to play sometimes at public concerts in the neighbourhood. But when I began to look forward to what I should make of my life, and how I should carve out for myself a useful career, I saw that music was out of the question. There was another consideration which determined my choice. There was much deafness in my family. My mother became deaf when she was still quite young, my grandmother, several of my uncles and cousins, all had lost their hearing, and this induced me, young as I was, to choose a profession which would be possible even if I should share the same misfortune. I could not think of medicine, or law, or the Church—so I said to myself, keep to Greek and Latin, try to be a scholar. A professorship was my highest ambition, but I thought that even if that should fail, I might find a quiet Benedictine cell somewhere, and support myself by my pen. So music had to step into the background, not altogether, but so as not to interfere with more serious work. No, music, though somewhat slighted, has remained a true and faithful friend to me through life. I have enjoyed music until very late in life when I began to feel satisfied, and would much rather hum a symphony to myself than hear it played, often not half so well as I remembered it at Dessau, at the Gewandhaus Concerts at Leipzig, and at the marvellous Conservatoire Concerts in Paris. These were the perfection of instrumental music. Never has any other performance come near them. It was difficult to get a ticket. People used to form queue and stand the whole night in order to secure the next morning an abonnement for the season. To buy a ticket was beyond my means, for when I was at Paris I had entirely to support myself. But a friend of mine took me to the Conservatoire, and I often sat in the corridor without seeing the orchestra, listening as if to organ music. It was perfect. Every instrument of the orchestra was first-rate—the players had mostly passed through the same school, the conductor was an old man with a German name which I forget. Was it Habeneck? He reminded me of Schneider, and certainly his orchestra marched like a regiment of soldiers.

And besides being a constant source of the highest enjoyment to me, music has often helped me in my pilgrimage through life. Both in Paris and later on in London, many a house was open to me which would have remained closed to a mere scholar. Musicians also always took an interest in the son of the poet, Wilhelm Müller, whose songs had been set to music, not only by Schubert, but by many other popular composers. I well remember, when telling Jenny Lind whose son I was, how she held up her hands and said: “What? the son of the poet of the ‘Müllerlieder’! Now sit down,” she said, “and let me sing you the ‘Schöne Müllerin.’” And she began to sing, and sang all the principal songs of that sad idyll, just moving her head and hands a little, but really acting the whole story as no actress on the stage could have acted it. It was a perfect tragedy, and it has remained with me for life. Stockhausen also (who, as I saw too late, has just been celebrating his seventieth birthday) once sang the “Winterreise” to me in the same way, but as I had to accompany him I had only half the pleasure, though even that was great.

How many memories crowd in upon me! I heard Liszt when I was still at school at Leipzig. It was his first entry into Germany, and he came like a triumphator. He was young, theatrical, and terribly attractive, as ladies, young and old, used to say. His style of playing was then something quite new—now every player lets off the same fireworks. The musical critics who then ruled supreme at Leipzig were somewhat coy and reserved, and I remember taking a criticism to the editor of the Leipziger Tageblatt which the writer did not wish to sign with his own name. Mendelssohn only, with his well-tempered heart, received him with open arms. He gave a matinée musicale at his house, all the best known musicians of the place being present. I remember, though vaguely, David, Kalliwoda, Hiller; I doubt whether Schumann and Clara Wieck were present. Well, Liszt appeared in his Hungarian costume, wild and magnificent. He told Mendelssohn that he had written something special for him. He sat down, and swaying right and left on his music-stool, played first a Hungarian melody, and then three or four variations, one more incredible than the other.

We stood amazed, and after everybody had paid his compliments to the hero of the day, some of Mendelssohn’s friends gathered round him, and said: “Ah, Felix, now we can pack up (‘jetzt können wir einpacken’). No one can do that; it is over with us!” Mendelssohn smiled; and when Liszt came up to him asking him to play something in turn, he laughed and said that he never played now; and this, to a certain extent, was true. He did not give much time to practising then, but worked chiefly at composing and directing his concerts. However, Liszt would take no refusal, and so at last little Mendelssohn, with his own charming playfulness, said: “Well, I’ll play, but you must promise me not to be angry.” And what did he play? He sat down and played first of all Liszt’s Hungarian Melody, and then one variation after another, so that no one but Liszt himself could have told the difference. We all trembled lest Liszt should be offended, for Mendelssohn could not keep himself from slightly imitating Liszt’s movements and raptures. However, Mendelssohn managed never to offend man, woman, or child. Liszt laughed and applauded, and admitted that no one, not he himself, could have performed such a bravura. Many years after I saw Liszt once more, at the last visit he paid to London. He came to the Lyceum to see Irving and Ellen Terry act in “Faust.” The whole theatre rose when the old, bent Maestro appeared in the dress circle. When the play was over, I received an invitation from Mr., now Sir Henry, Irving to join a supper party in honour of Liszt. I could not resist, though I was staying with friends in London and had no latch-key. It was a brilliant affair. Rooms had been fitted up on purpose with old armour, splendid pictures, gorgeous curtains. We sat down, about thirty people; I knew hardly anybody, though they were all known to fame, and not to know them was to profess oneself unknown. However, I was placed next to Liszt, and I reminded him of those early Leipzig days. He was not in good spirits; he would not speak English, though Ellen Terry sat on his right side, and, as she would not speak German or French, I had to interpret as well as I could, and it was not always easy. At last Miss Ellen Terry turned to me and said: “Tell Liszt that I can speak German,” and when he turned to listen, she said in her girlish, bell-like voice: “Lieber Liszt, ich liebe Dich.” I hope I am not betraying secrets; anyhow, as I have been indiscreet once, I may as well say what happened to me afterwards. It was nearly 3 A.M. when I reached my friend’s house. With great difficulty I was able to rouse a servant to let me in, and when the next morning I was asked where I had been, great was the dismay when I said that I had had supper at the Lyceum. Liszt had promised to come to stay with me at Oxford, but the day when I expected him, the following note arrived from Amsterdam, probably one of the last he ever wrote:—

A few weeks after, I saw his death announced in the papers.

And thus Liszt left the stage. I saw his entrance and his exit, and when I asked myself, What has he left behind? I could only think of the new school of brilliant executionists of which he may truly be called the founder and life-long apostle. I confess that, though I feel dazzled at the impossibilities which he and his pupils perform with their ten fingers, I often sigh for an Allegro or an Andante by Haydn and Mozart as they were played in my young days with simplicity and purity on very imperfect instruments. Players now seem to think of themselves only, not of the musical poets whose works they are to render. Mendelssohn, Clara Wieck (Madame Schumann) even Moscheles and Hummel acted as faithful interpreters. On listening to them, exquisite as their execution was, one thought far more of what they played than how they played. That time is gone, and no one has now, or will ever have again, the courage to bring it back. If one wants to enjoy a sonata of Haydn one has to play it oneself or hum it, because the old fingers will not do their work any longer.

And Mendelssohn also, whom I had known as a young man, said good-bye to me for the last time in London. It was after the first performance of his “Elijah” in 1847. He too said he would come again next year, and then came the news of his sudden death. I saw him last at Bunsen’s house, where he played at a matinée musicale always ready to please and oblige his friends, always amiable and charming, even under great provocation. Only once I remember seeing him almost beside himself with anger, and well he might be. He possessed a most valuable album, with letters, poems, pictures, compositions of the most illustrious men of the age, such as Goethe and others. The binding had somewhat suffered, so it was sent to be mended, and I was present when it came back. It was at his sister’s house, Fanny Hensel’s, at Berlin. Mendelssohn opened the album, jumped up and screamed. The binder had cut off the blue skies and tree-tops of all the Italian sketches, and the signatures of most of the poems and letters. This was too much for Felix, he was for once infelix. Still, happy and serene as his life certainly was, for he had everything a man of his talents could desire, there were bitter drops in it of which the world knew little, and need not know anything now. There are things we know, important things which the world would be glad to know. But we bury them; they are to be as if they had never been, like letters that are reduced to ashes and can never be produced again by friends or enemies.

He was devoted to his sister Fanny, who was married to Hensel the painter, an intimate friend of my father. When I was a student at Berlin, I was much in their house in the Leipziger Strasse, and heard many a private concert given in the large room looking out on the garden. Mendelssohn played almost every instrument in the orchestra, and had generally to play the instrument which he was supposed to play worst. When he played the pianoforte, he was handicapped by being made to play with his arms crossed. All the celebrities of Berlin (and Berlin was then rich in celebrities) were present at those musical gatherings, and Mendelssohn was the life of the whole. He was never quiet for a moment, moving from chair to chair and conversing with everybody.

Boeckh, the great Greek scholar, lived in the same house, and Mendelssohn had received so good a classical education that he could hold his own when discussing with the old master the choruses of the Antigone. Mendelssohn was, in fact, a man teres et rotundus. He was at home in classical literature, he spoke French and English, he was an exquisite draughtsman, and had seen the greatest works of the greatest painters, ancient and modern. His father, a rich banker in Berlin, had done all he could for the education of his children. He was the son of Mendelssohn the philosopher, and when his son Felix had become known to fame, he used to say with his slightly Jewish accent: “When I was young I was called the son of the great Mendelssohn; now that I am old I am called the father of the great Mendelssohn; then, what am I?” Well, he found the wherewithal that enabled his son, and his other children too, to become what they were, all worthy of their great grandfather, all worthy of the name of Mendelssohn.