Volume I Part 1 (1/2)

The Love Affairs of Great Musicians

Voluhes

NOTE

Portions of a few of the chapters of this work appeared serially in _The Criterion_, and the last chapter was published in _The Smart Set_

While, so far as the author knows, this is the first book on the subject, it is given, perhaps, especial novelty by the fact that advantage could be taken of iven to the public for the first time (with one exception) in the last few months, notably: a revelation of the exact identity of Beethoven's ”Immortal Beloved;” the letters of Liszt to his princess; letters of Chopin long supposed to have been burned, as well as diaries and letters gathered by an intiraphy whose completion was prevented by death; the publication of a vast aneriana; the appearance of a full life of Tschaikovski by his brother, with complete elucidation of raphy of Clara Schuress of her beautiful love story, down to the day of the ht on affairs more or less unknown or misunderstood

Love it is an hatefulle pees, A free acquitaunce without re lees

An hevy burthen light to here, A wikked ey to were

It is kunnyng withoute science, Wisdoht eville savoured good savour; A strengthe weyked to stonde upright, And feblenesse fulle ofay; Reste that traveyleth nyght and day

Also a swete helle it is, And a soroufulle Paradys

Romaunt of the Rose

VOLUME I

CHAPTER I

THE OVERTURE

Musicians as lovers! The very phrase evokes and parades a pageant of arily at keys that ers; the fiddler with his eyelids clenched while he dreaainst his cheek is the satin cheek of ”the inexpressive She;” the singer with a cry in every note; thehis serenade to an ivied ; the dead-marches; the nocturnes; the amorous waltzes; the duets; the trills and trinkets of flirtatious scherzi; the laughing roulades; the discords melted into concord as solitude into the arms of reunion--these are music's very own

So capable of love and its expression is music, indeed, that you almost wonder if any buthave expressed And yet--! Round every corner there lurks an ”and yet” And if you only continue your , you always reach that corner

Your first thought would be, that a good ood lover; that a broken heart alone can add the Master's degree to the usual conservatory diploma of Bachelor of Music; that all musicians must be sentimental, if musicians at all; and finally that only musicians can kno to announce and embellish that primeval theme to which all existence is but variations, o a little further, and closer study will prove that soreatest virtuosos in love could neither reatest tunesters in the world were tyros, ignorains: 1 plus 1 equals 1

If you care to watch the cohort of ood, bad, and worse, that I shall have to deploy before you, you shall see almost every sort and condition of love and lover that humanity can include And incidentally--to tuck in here a preface that would otherwise be skipped--let ive you the people as accurately as I cantogether a nueous fairy stories founded on fact, I have preferred the long labour of hunting down the truth and telling only what I have found and believe to be true Fact and not fancy; presentation and not fiction; have been the aihout Where the facts are sparse, I have not hesitated to say so; have not stooped to pad out gaps, with graceful and rouess or an inference without frankly branding it as such

Furthermore, as far as space permits and documents exist, the musicians tell their own stories in their oords

For theof this little book, I have not been able to include all the men who ever wrote one note after or above another; nor to read all the books ever published in all the world's languages: and yet, that I have been decently thorough will appear, I think, in the list of books at the back This does not clai hundreds of books I have ransacked in vain, it catalogues only such works as I have consulted with profit, and the reader could consult with pleasure

It may be well to say that, with the exception of the occasional necessity or see one side or the other in a hlythese victors or victi their destinations in the next world He who gets into another's heart with understanding, will find it ie in wholesale blame--”_tout co to have coether, I have learned enough to lean almost always a little toward the defence, and still more nearly always toward the praise of the woman in the case

And yet, the whole effort and viewpoint of the ill be found, I think, to be based upon a deep belief that one love is better than two, and that earnestness and honesty and altruism are , than any wealth of money, or of fame, or of amorous experience

As a last chapter to this series of ”true stories,” I have ventured to sum up the conclusions, to which the study of all these affairs has coeneral opinion as to the effect ofto some readers, if I had started out with a hard and fast theory, and then discarded or warped everything contradictory to it, but it would have been a dishonest procedure for one who believes that musicians are neither saints of exaltation nor fiends of lawless ecstasy; but only ordinary clay ovens of fire and ashes like the rest of us He who generalises is lost, and yet I make bold to believe that the conclusion of this book is true and reasonable and in accordance with such evidence as could be collected