Ole Bull: A Memoir

by Sara Chapman Thorp Bull

At six o’clock William and C‑‑‑‑ came out with carriage to take me to the Ole Bull concert. The music this evening plunged me in anguish, and raised me to rapture. The “Mountains of Norway,” and the “Siciliano e Tarantella” were the great pieces. The last is unlike anything I ever heard, and how he looked when he played it! When encored, he played, among other things, “On the Lake where drooped the Willow,” and again, “The Last Rose of Summer.” He loves that as I do. I could not sleep at all, and went up to C.’s room and wrote.

Evening. Ole Bull again. I am extremely happy in him. He is one of my kin....

He played to–night, first, “Recollections of Havana.” This begins with a great swelling movement in the orchestra, and then his part comes in like the under–song of thought. I do not know whether the piece was fine or not. I soon forgot it, and was borne away into the winged life. Being encored, he played “The Last Rose of Summer,” and modulated into “Auld Robin Gray.” These sweet simple strains of human tenderness become celestial in his violin; their individual expression is more, not less, definite by being thus purified. Next, a “Notturno Amoroso,” and, being encored, the “Adagio Religioso.” Both were enchanting. I felt raised above all care, all pain, all fear, and every taint of vulgarity was washed out of the world!

From Boston he went to the chief towns of New England, New York, and Canada, returning to Bristol, R. I., for rest in the months of August and September. He there wrote down his musical thoughts of Niagara. He had spent many days at the falls at different times, and saw them in all lights—in sun and storm. One evening great forest fires added their blaze and glare to the silvery shimmer of the moonlit rapids, and the lurid light with the grand rush and roar of the waters made a deep impression upon him. His enjoyment was heightened during that visit by the society of Mr. George Ticknor and his family, whom he happened to meet there. He had already been hospitably received by Mr. Ticknor in Boston, and the notes of invitation preserved among his papers show that their intercourse at Niagara was of the same pleasant nature. The last winter he spent in Boston, when he again visited this house, so famous for its generous hospitality, and was kindly welcomed by the venerable hostess, grateful recollections of the eminent man and scholar, who had done so much to make him at home when a stranger, crowded upon his memory.

While in Bristol Ole Bull had received a letter from the directors of the Musical Fund Society in Philadelphia, in which they asked him to appear at their first concert for the season, and expressed the hope that he would make his terms as moderate as possible, as their object was to start a fund for the support of poor musicians. He returned a letter of thanks, and said “his only remuneration should be the honor of assisting so highly esteemed a society in its noble efforts.” When they received this answer they resolved to strike a medal in his honor, and it was presented to him at the close of the concert.

The “Niagara,” which he played for the first time in New York that winter of 1844, was disappointing to the general public, while the criticisms were favorable. It gradually came more into favor, and was well received on its first performance in Philadelphia. Another composition, “The Solitude of the Prairies,” won a more immediate popular success, and had to be played at nearly every concert. A religious composition, “David’s Psalm,” was also much liked.

N. P. Willis wrote as follows of the “Niagara”:—

We believe that we have heard a transfusion into music—not of “Niagara,” which the audience seemed bona–fide to expect, but of the pulses of a human heart at Niagara. We had a prophetic boding of the result of calling the piece vaguely “Niagara,”—the listener furnished with no “argument” as a guide through the wilderness of “treatment” to which the subject was open. This mistake allowed, however, it must be said that Ole Bull has, genius–like, refused to misinterpret the voice within him—refused to play the charlatan, and “bring the house down”—as he might well have done by any kind of “uttermost,” from the drums and trumpets of the orchestra.

The emotion at Niagara is all but mute. It is a “small, still voice” that replies within us to the thunder of waters. The musical mission of the Norwegian was to represent the insensate element as it was to him—to a human soul, stirred in its seldom reached depths by the call of power. It was the answer to Niagara that he endeavored to render in music—not the call!