It was on horseback or while riding in his carriage during his daily excursions to the Bois de Boulogne that Auber found his happiest motifs. On returning home he set them to music and inserted them in the opera upon which he was working, and then Scribe supplied the words. In the principal scenes, however, Auber wrote to the verses of his collaborator, and he would begin to work on his return from the theatre, whither he went nearly every evening. In this way he would write on a little table by the side of his piano up to four or five o’clock in the morning. As often as not, he did not go to bed, but slept in his arm-chair. Many of his scores bear traces of the ink which dropped from his pen as he let it fall from his hand when overcome by slumber. The manual of his old square piano bears numerous inkstains on the white keys of the upper octave, which indicate the moment when Auber fell asleep at his work. The musician never needed more than from three to four hours of sleep daily, and throughout his life he took only one meal in twenty-four hours, namely, dinner. On rising, he would drink a cup of camomile, which he swallowed fasting. This was sufficient to sustain him without undue fatigue to the digestive organs up to the time of his only meal at six o’clock. He frequently invited to his table, frugal as it was, young professional lady singers, for he was extremely susceptible to the attractions of the fair sex, and remained a worshipper of beauty even unto death. Venus was his goddess, and he ever adored her most conscientiously.
Auber had eight domestics in his service, and never was man worse served than he. One evening he invited to dinner several professional ladies, as also the learned Mr. Weckerlin, librarian of the Conservatoire. The dinner was good and well served. Music and song followed the repast. One of the ladies being thirsty, the master rang for a glass of water. There was no answer. The housekeeper, the old Sophie, whose face had been familiar for half a century to all Auber’s friends, had gone to bed; the cook had followed her example; the valet-de-chambre had gone out for a walk with John, the English coachman, who remained more than thirty years in the composer’s service: in short, all the servants had disappeared. Auber did not fall into a passion: he never became angry at anything. “As we cannot get anything here,” said he to his guests, “let us go and take an ice at Tortoni’s.”
We have already referred to the numerous inkstains on the old piano, made by the pen which fell from Auber’s hand as sleep overpowered him during his long nocturnal labors, and we now propose to give some details of this interesting and historic instrument, which remains an object of curiosity to all the admirers of the master who visit the instrumental museum at the Conservatoire, and of which we have been able to take a photograph by the gracious permission of M. Pillaut, the learned Conservator of the Museum.
This piano, oblong in form, very light and built of mahogany, was bought by Auber on the 17th of February, 1812, in the showrooms of the celebrated Erard. The manufacturer’s number is 8414. It is a double-stringed instrument, and its compass is only five and a half octaves. When, in 1842, Auber succeeded Cherubini as director of the Conservatoire, he had this piano brought thither and placed it in his study. It was upon this instrument, from which the master could never be separated, and which had become his true friend and harmonious confidant, an indefatigable and never-failing source of inspiration, that Auber composed those charming and spirituel comedies which, so often performed and always with success, have remained models of French comic opera in common with the works of Monsigny, Dalayrac, Grétry, Boïeldieu, Hérold, and other great masters.
Besides the old piano which stood in his private room at the Conservatoire, Auber had another at home, in his house in the Rue St. Georges. This latter was an upright piano which I have often seen. Like his oblong piano, it was stained with ink on the two upper octaves. Auber never thought, like Ambroise Thomas and Charles Gounod, of having made by the firm of Pleyel what is called a composer’s piano, which is both an excellent instrument and a secretary.
AUBER’S PIANO AT THE PARIS CONSERVATOIRE MUSEUM.
Reproduced from a photograph made by special permission.
Auber once related to me that two days before the first performance of “La Muette” (which he completed in three months!) the overture was not yet ready. He composed it with all the fervor which comes of improvisation. The evening before the first production the orchestra rehearsed it for the first time, and the musicians accorded this instrumental preface an enthusiastic reception. On the first night the public were so enchanted with it that it received a double encore. I have never seen this fact mentioned in any of the biographies of the illustrious composer, but I learnt it from Auber himself.
AUBER’S RESIDENCE IN PARIS.
From a photograph.
In this house Auber lived for forty years, and it was here that he died in May, 1871, during the battle with the Paris Commune.