My dear Dr. Mason: I am glad to hear that you are to share your pleasant "Memories" with your friends. I hope, in looking back to the happy times when you were young, you will not forget your annual visits to dear old Farmington; for if you do not remember them in words, many old admirers will wonder how you could fail to make much of occasions so precious to them.
As one of Miss Porter's girls, who can now live over again the coming to town of William Mason, Theodore Thomas, J. Mosenthal, G. Matzka, F. Bergner, and the long-looked-for chamber-concerts, I feel sure that in all of your generous giving of a God-given genius, you never gave more real pleasure than you gave those school-girls and teachers hungry for a taste of life outside the school, and for good music, the best of all company. You were then to them what you only hoped to be after years of hard work,—great men in your profession,—and they could not have dressed with more care or been more excited if they had been going to listen with royalty to the greatest of the old masters.
Among the choicest of my pictures of Farmington days is that of the girls in white and dainty pinks and greens and blues, with flowers to wear and flowers to throw to you, almost dancing down that beautiful street on a summer day to "the concert," and in the foreground a quaint dark figure whom all the girls remember on festive occasions as bearing the burden of her choice with a New England sense of propriety at war with her keen sympathy with all that is natural in young people, and with the pride in her good-looking family which made her blind to their youthful follies. That was long ago when we were giddy girls, but the verdict of our heads and hearts was a true one.
Sure that your memories, dear Dr. Mason, must be bright in the sunlight of so many warm friendships, I am listening to the music of long ago.
March 31, 1901.
LOUIS MOREAU GOTTSCHALK
I KNEW Gottschalk well, and was fascinated by his playing, which was full of brilliancy and bravura. His strong, rhythmic accent, his vigor and dash, were exciting and always aroused enthusiasm. He was the perfection of his school, and his effects had the sparkle and effervescence of champagne. He was as far as possible from being an interpreter of chamber or classical music, but, notwithstanding this, some of the best musicians of the strict style were frequently to be seen among his audience, among others Carl Bergmann, who told me that he always heard Gottschalk with intense enjoyment. He first made his mark through his arrangement of Creole melodies. They were well defined rhythmically, and he played them with absolute rhythmic accuracy. This clear definition in his interpretation contributed more than anything else to the fascination which he always exerted over his audience. He did not care for the German school, and on one occasion, after hearing me play Schumann at one of the Mason-Thomas matinées, he said: "Mason, I do not understand why you spend so much of your time over music like that; it is stiff and labored, lacks melody, spontaneity, and naïveté. It will eventually vitiate your musical taste and bring you into an abnormal state."
Although an enthusiastic admirer of Beethoven symphonies and other orchestral works, he did not care for the pianoforte sonatas, which he said were not written in accordance with the nature of the instrument. It has been said that he could play all of the sonatas by heart; but I am quite sure that Mr. Richard Hoffman, who was his intimate friend, will sustain me in the assertion that such was not the fact.
I have known Mr. Hoffman for more than fifty years, having met him for the first time in the year 1847 or thereabout. His playing is still characterized by precision, accuracy, and clearness in phrasing, with an excellent technic, combined with repose. I have many times enjoyed his artistic interpretations, and I heard him with great pleasure not a long while ago, on the occasion of his fiftieth anniversary as a teacher in this country.
Returning to Gottschalk, a funny thing happened one day. At the time of which I write, forty-five years ago, William Hall & Sons' music-store was in Broadway, corner of Park Place, and was a place of rendezvous for musicians. Going there one day, I met Gottschalk, who, holding up the proof-sheet of a title-page which he had just received from the printer, said: "Read that!" What I read was, "The Latest Hops," in big block letters after the fashion of an outside music title-page. "What does this mean?" I asked. "Well," he replied, "it ought to be 'The Last Hope,' but the printer, either by way of joke or from stupidity, has expressed it in this way. There is to be a new edition of my 'Last Hope,' and I am revising it for that purpose."