I HAVE already had something to say of Eduard Remenyi, the Hungarian violinist who accompanied Brahms to Weimar in 1853. He was a talented man, and was esteemed by Liszt as being, in his way, a good violinist. He remained at Weimar after Brahms left there, and I became intimately acquainted with him. He was very entertaining, and so full of fun that he would have made a tiptop Irishman. He was at home in the Gipsy music of his own country, and this was the main characteristic of his playing. He had also a fad for playing Schubert melodies on the violin with the most attenuated pianissimo effects, and occasionally his hearers would listen intently after the tone had ceased, imagining that they still heard a trace of it.
Not long before leaving Weimar I had some fun with him by asking if he had ever heard "any bona-fide American spoken." He replied that he did not know there was such a language. "Well," said I, "listen to this for a specimen: 'Ching-a-ling-a-dardee, Chebung cum Susan.'" I did not meet him again until 1878, twenty-four years after leaving Weimar. I was going up-stairs to my studio in the Steinway building when some one told me that Remenyi had arrived and was rehearsing for his concerts in one of the rooms above. So, going up, I followed the sounds of the violin, gave a quick knock, opened the door, and went in. Remenyi looked at me for a moment, rushed forward and seized my hand, and as he wrung it cried out: "Ching-a-ling-a-dardee, Chebung cum Susan!" He had remembered it all those years.
SOME DISTINGUISHED OPERA-SINGERS
MY concert-playing and teaching have naturally made me more interested in instrumental than in vocal music. Moreover, the principal celebrities who came to visit Liszt during my sojourn at Weimar were composers and instrumentalists. For that reason I met but few distinguished opera-singers during my stay abroad. However, I heard the best of them in opera or concert.
In Boston, about the year 1846-47, the Havana Italian Opera gave a season at the Howard Athenæum of that city, and created considerable interest. They gave, I think for the first time in this country, Verdi's "Ernani," which was received with great favor. The principal soprano was Mme. Fortunata Tedesco, who was afterward at the Grand Opéra in Paris from 1851 to 1857. The tenor was Signore Perelli, who had an exceptionally fine voice. Both of these singers had well-trained voices and were well supported by chorus and orchestra. As this was my first experience in opera, it produced a deep and lasting impression.
The opera season in Leipsic in the year 1852, beginning about the 1st of February and continuing up to the 1st of May, was notable, for it afforded the opportunity of hearing in quick succession three singers of world-wide reputation: Henriette Sontag, Johanna Wagner, and De la Grange.
HENRIETTE SONTAG
The singer of whom I have the liveliest impression is Henriette Sontag, whom I heard in Leipsic on her first appearance after she had been twenty years in retirement. The interest I took in the occasion was much increased by the fact that I had a seat next to Moscheles, who was very communicative, and gave me an interesting history of his long acquaintance with Sontag, whom he had heard at her last appearance, I think, before her retirement. He was naturally on the qui vive, and impatiently waited for the opera to begin. Like many of her other old admirers who were in the theater, he was full of expectancy mingled with dread of possible failure. She appeared as Maria in Donizetti's "Fille du Régiment" In this part the voice of the singer is heard before she appears on the stage, and as soon as Moscheles heard Sontag's voice trilling behind the scenes, he exclaimed with delight, "It is Sontag! Nobody I have heard since she left the stage could do that! She is the same Henriette!"
Some of the rôles in which I heard her were Amina in "Sonnambula," Martha in the opera of that name, Susan in "The Marriage of Figaro," and Rosina in "The Barber of Seville." I enjoyed the lovely feminine quality of her voice and manner. There was something peculiarly charming and womanly about her. She sang with unfailing ease and grace, her voice being so flexible that it sounded like the trilling of birds. The most difficult roulades and cadences were given with absolute accuracy and rhythm. It was simply fascinating.