"In me, wanderer that I am,—in me, with the Heimweh in my heart never to be stilled but in that home where Schumann has already gone,—you see Florestan."
"Louis Boehner!"
Filled with wonder, and scarcely knowing what I did, I took a little piece of paper which he unwrapped from many folds and placed in my hand. On it these words were written:—
"Peace and joy attend thee, Louis Boehner! and mayst thou never want for such a friend as thou hast been to
ROBERT SCHUMANN."
I could say no word; never have I felt a profounder emotion than when, at this moment, I drew so near one whose brow Art had crowned with a living halo.
Students of German music and composers will need no word to bring before them the fulness of this incident. But to others I may briefly mention some facts connected with Schumann's "Carnival, or Scènes Mignonnes, on Four Notes." Not by any means representing the pure depths of Schumann's soul, this strange [pg 293] medley is yet pregnant with historic associations. The composer wrote it in his young days, stringing twenty-two little pieces on four letters composing the name of Asch, a town of Saxony, "whither," according to Sobolewski, "Schumann's thoughts frequently strayed, because at that time there was an object there interesting to his sensitive soul." In the letters A, S, C, H, it must be remembered that the H in German stands for our B natural, and S or es for E flat. The Leipsic "Neue Zeitschrift für Musik" was begun and for ten years edited by Schumann,—in what spirit we may gather from his own words:—"The musical state of Germany, at that time, was not very encouraging. On the stage Rossini yet reigned, and on the piano Herz and Hünten excluded all others. And yet how few years had passed since Beethoven, Weber, and Schubert lived among us! True, Mendelssohn's star was ascending, and there were wonderful whispers of a certain Pole, Chopin; but it was later that these gained their lasting influence. One day the idea took possession of our young and hot heads,—Let us not idly look on; take hold, and reform it; take hold, and the Poetry of Art shall be again enthroned!" Then gathered together a Protestant-league of music, whose Luther and Melancthon in one was Schumann. The Devil at which they threw their inkstands and semi-breves was the Philistines, which is the general term amongst German students, artists, poets, etc., for prosaic, narrow, hard, ungenial, commonplace respectabilities. "Young Germany" was making itself felt in all coördinate directions: forming new schools of plastic Art in Munich and Dresden,—a sharp and spirited Bohemian literature at Frankfort, under the lead of Heine and Boerne; and now, music being the last to yield in Germany, because most revered, as it is with religion in other countries, a new vitality brought together in Kühne's cellar in Leipsic the revolutionists, "who talked of Callot, Hoffmann, and Jean Paul, of Beethoven and Franz Schubert, and of the three foreign Romanticists beyond the Rhine, the friends of the new phenomenon in French poetry, Victor Hugo." This was the Davidsbund, or League of David (the last of the "Scènes Mignonnes" is named "Marche des Davidsbündler contre les Philistines"). An agreeable writer in the "Weimarer Somitagsblatt" has given us a fine sketch of this company, which we will quote.
"The head of the table was occupied by a lively, flexible man of middle age, intellectual in conversation, and overflowing with sharp and witty remarks. He was the instructor of more than one of the young musicians around him, who all listened to his observations with profound attention. He was very fond of monopolizing the conversation and suffering himself to be admired. For he called many a young, highly promising musician his pupil, and had, besides, the certain consciousness of having moulded his daughter Clara, at that time a girl of fourteen, into a prodigy, whose first appearance delighted the whole world, and whose subsequent artist-activity became the pride of her native city, Leipsic. By his side sat a quiet, thoughtful young man of twenty-three, with melancholy eyes. But lately a student in Heidelberg, he had now devoted himself entirely to music, had removed to Leipsic and was now a pupil of the 'old schoolmaster,' as the father of Clara Wieck liked to be called. Young Robert Schumann had good reason to be melancholy. After long struggles, he had only been able to devote himself entirely to music comparatively late in life, and had been obliged to pass a part of his precious youth in studies which were as uncongenial as possible to his artist-spirit. He had finally decided for the career of a virtuoso, and was pursuing the study of the piano with an almost morbid zeal, when the disabling of one of his fingers, a consequence of his over-exertions, obliged him to give up this career forever. He did not yet suspect that this accident would prove fortunate for him in the end, by directing him to [pg 294] his true vocation, composition. Perhaps, too, it was the first germ of love, in the garb of admiration for the wondrous talent of Clara, which made young Robert so quiet and dreamy. His companions were all the more lively. There sat the eccentric Louis Boehner,[1] who long ago had served as the model for E.T.A. Hoffmann's fantastic pictures. Here J.P. Lyser, a painter by profession, but a poet as well, and a musician besides. Here Carl Bauck, the indefatigable, yet unsuccessful composer of songs,—now, in his capacity of critic, the paper bugbear of the Dresden artists. He had just returned from Italy, and believed himself in possession of the true secret of the art of singing, the monopoly of which every singing-master is wont to claim for himself. C.F. Becker, too, the eminent organist and industrious collector, belonged to this circle, as well as many more young and old artists of more or less merit and talent."[2]
Florestan then stood before me; and with him, although invisible, stood that sacred circle, which had unconsciously borne within it the germs of so many future sorrows and glories.
"With him," said Louis Boehner, "I began life, when we were boys together at Heidelberg; with him I stood when the dawn of a better day, which since has blessed hill and vale, was glowing for his eye alone; this breast held his sorrows and his hopes, when he was struggling to reach his Clara; these hands saved him when in his madness he cast himself into the Rhine; these eyes dropped their hot tears on his eyelids when they were closed in death."
Overcome by his emotion, he sat down and sobbed aloud.