My rage and despair at this treatment of Valentino—one of the first conductors in the world—may be imagined.
“It’s all right,” quoth Master Masson, “they will all turn up on the day.”
Valentino shrugged his shoulders resignedly, raised his baton, and they started.
In two seconds all was confusion; the parts were one mass of mistakes, sharps and flats left out, ten-bar pauses omitted, a little further on thirty bars clean gone.
It was the most appalling muddle ever heard, and I simply writhed in torment. There was nothing for it but to give up utterly my fond dream of a grand orchestral performance.
Still, it was not lost time as far as I was concerned, for, in spite of the shocking execution, I saw where my worst faults lay, and, by Valentino’s advice, I rewrote the whole mass—he generously promising to help me when I should be ready for my revenge.
But alas! while I worked my parents heard of the fiasco, and made another determined onslaught by ridiculing my chosen vocation, and laughing my hopes to scorn. Those were the bitter dregs of my cup of shame; I swallowed them and silently persevered.
Unable, for lack of money, to employ professional copyists, and being justly afraid of amateurs, when my score was finished I wrote out every part myself. It took me three months. Then, like Robinson Crusoe with the boat he could not launch, I was at a stand-still. How should I get it performed? Trust to M. Masson’s musical phalanx? That would be too idiotic. Appeal to musicians myself? I knew none. Ask the help of the Chapel Royal? My master had distinctly told me that was impossible, no doubt because, had he allowed me such a privilege, he would have been bombarded with similar requests from my fellow-students.
My friend, Humbert Ferrand, came to the rescue with a bold proposal. Why not ask M. de Châteaubriand to lend me twelve thousand francs? I believe that, on the principle of it being as well to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, I also asked for his influence with the Ministry. Here is his reply:
“Paris, 31st Dec. 1824.