Part 8 (1/2)

But this passionate lover of song was an all-round musician She played the piano adreatest difficulties Before her Thursday audiences, however, she limited herself to chamber music, with a special preference for Henri Reber's duets for the piano and the violin These delicate, artistic works are unknown to the amateurs of to-day They seelasses poisonous potions in cups of gold They s, a deadly luxury They do not understand the poet who sings, _”O rus, quando te aspiciareat distinction of simplicity Reber's muse is not for them

Madame Viardot was as learned athe first subscribers to the complete edition of Sebastian Bach's works We knohat an astounding revelation that as Each year brought ten religious cantatas, and each year brought us new surprises in the unexpected variety and iht we had known Sebastian Bach, but noe learned how really to know hireat poet His _Wohlteiven us only a hint of all this The beauties of this famous work needed exposition for, in the absence of definite instructions, opinions differed In the cantatas the h the analogy between the forms of expression, it is easy to see pretty clearly what the author intended in his _Klavier_ pieces

One fine day the annual volume was found to contain a cantata in several parts written for a contralto solo accoato The organ was there and the organist as well So we assembled the instruments, Stockhausen, the baritone, was made the leader of the little orchestra, and Mada the cantata I suspect that the author had never heard his work sung in any such manner I cherish the memory of that day as one of the most precious in my musical career My mother and M Viardot were the only listeners to this exceptional exhibition We did not dare to repeat it before hearers ere not ready for it What would now be a great success would have fallen flat at that ti than to see an audience cold before a beautiful work It is far better to keep to one's self treasures which will be unappreciated

One thing will always stand in the way of the vogue of Sebastian Bach's vocal works--the difficulty of translation When they are rendered into French, they lose all their charm and oftenti characteristics of Mada facility in assi all styles of music She was trained in the old Italian music and she revealed its beauties as no one else has ever done As forSchu in Russian Nothing was foreign to her; she was at horeat friend of Chopin and she reive the most valuable directions about the way he interpreted his works I learned froreat enerally supposed It was as far removed from any manifestation of bad taste as it was from cold correctness She told me the secret of the true _teured It in no way resembles the dislocations by which it is so often caricatured

I have spoken of her great talent as a pianist We saw this one evening at a concert given by Mada so the accoreat artists played the illustrious author's duet for two pianos, which fairly bristles with difficulties, _with equal virtuosity_

When Madaan to break, she was advised to devote herself to the piano If she had, she would have found a new career and a second reputation But she did not want to e, and for several years she presented the sorry spectacle of genius contending with adversity Her voice was broken, stubborn, uneven, and interuise unworthy of her

Her immoderate love of music was the cause of the earlyshe liked and she sang Valentine in _Les Huguenots_, Donna Anna in _Don Juan_, besides other roles she should never have undertaken if she wanted to preserve her voice She came to realize this at the end of her life ”Don't do as I did,” she once told a pupil ”I wanted to sing everything, and I ruined my voice”

Happy are the fiery natures which burn thelory in the sword that wears away the scabbard

CHAPTER XV

ORPHeE

We know, or, rather we used to know--for we are beginning to forget that there is an admirable edition of Gluck's principal works This edition was due to the interest of an unusual woman, Mlle fanny Pelletan, who devoted a part of her fortune to this real monument and to fulfill a wish Berlioz expressed in one of his works Mlle Pelletan was an unusually intelligent woman and an accomplished e and for and distrusted her oers, so that she secured as a collaborator a Ger tiave her the moral support she needed and soed to follow

This collaboration accounts for the change of the contralto parts to counter-tenors It also accounts for the fact that in every instance the parts for the clarinets are indicated in C, in this way attributing to the author a formal intention he never had Gluck wrote the parts for the clarinets without bothering whether the player--to whom he left a freedom of choice and the work of transposition--would use his instrument in C, B, or A This method was not peculiar to Gluck Other composers used it as well, and traces of it are found even in Auber's works

After Daot e the method, but the edition would have lost its unity and she would not consent It was tied to the tribe of Gerion Due to their baneful influence, in a short time, when the old editions have disappeared, the works of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, even of Chopin, will be all but unrecognizable The works of Sebastian Bach and Handel will be the only ones in existence in their pristine purity of form, thanks to the admirable editions of the _Bach und Handel Gesselschaft_ When Mlle Pelletan brought enie_ had been published; _Alceste_ was about to be, and _Armide_ was ready In _Armide_ Damcke had been entirely carried away by his zeal for ”improvements”--a zeal that can do so much harm It was tiinary faults here and there, but he had also inserted things of his own invention He had even gone so far as to re-orchestrate the balletout the author's realbetter than he had done himself It took an enormous amount of tihts and Mlle Pelletan had too high an opinion of Dament

That excellent woan the preparation of Orphee, but she died almost at once So I was left to finish the score alone without that valuable experience and ht by which she solved the raved scores of Gluck's works reproduced his h, but they bore evidence of carelessness and a inaccuracy They are ue and vagueness is not permissible in a serious edition It follows that the different editions of Gluck's works published in the Nineteenth Century, however sumptuous or careful they may be, are worthless The Pelletan edition alone can be consulted with confidence, because ere the only ones to have all extant and authentic docuht We had scores copied for actual perfore and portions of orchestral parts of incalculable value In addition, we had no ai this material other than to reconstitute as closely as possible the thought of the author

Switzerland is a country where artistic productions are not unusual

Every year we have reports of sorandiose performance in which the people take part themselves They come from every direction to help, even from a considerable distance, thanks to the htful land It is not surprising, therefore, to learn that a theatre has been built in the pretty town of Mezieres, near Lusanne, for the perfor poet, named Morax These works are dra country furnishes the singers The work given in 1911 was Allenor--the reat success

Gustave Doret is a real artist and he never for athe Theatre du Jorat for his own exclusive use He dreainal for to the fancies or incoe and influential couarantee fund was subscribed Then they gave a brilliant banquet at which the Princess of Brancovan was present And Paderewski, one of the most enthusiastic promotors of the enterprise, delivered an eloquent address No one should be surprised at either his zeal or his eloquence Paderewski is not only a pianist; he is a reat artist who per the piano marvellously

As he knew that I had spent several years in studying Gluck's works under the microscope, so to speak, Gustave Doret didas _Orphee_, which requires only three principals, Orpheus, Eurydice, and Love It has become the custom to add a fourth, a Happy Spirit, but this spirit is one of Carvalho's inventions and has no reason for existence

There are, however, two _Orphee_ The first is _Orfeo_ which ritten in Italian, on Calzabigi's text, and was first presented at Venice in 1761 The role of Orpheus in this score ritten for a contralto and was designed for the eunuch Quadagni The Venetian engravers of that day were either incompetent or, perhaps, there were none, for the scores of Gluck's _Alceste_ in Italian and Haydn's _Seasons_ were printed froraved in Paris

The coht that _Orfeo_ would ever get so far as Paris, so he appropriated the roht modifications into his opera-comique _Le Sorcier_ Later on Marie Antoinette called Gluck to Paris and thus afforded hienius After he had written _Iphigenie en Aulide_, performed in 1774, especially for the Opera, he had the idea of adapting _Orfeo_ for the French stage To tell the truth he ht of it before, for _Orphee_ appeared at the Opera only three enie_ and it had been entirely rewritten in collaboration with Moline The contralto part had been changed to tenor and so the principal role was given to Legros

While it may be true that the author improved this work in the French version, it is not true in every case There is some question whether the overture existed in the Italian score It is generally believed that it did, but there are old copies of this version in existence and they begin the opera with the funeral chorus and show no overture at all

This overture, although the _Mercure de France_ treats it as a ”beautiful syood introduction to the work,” in reality does not resemble the style of the rest at all It in no way prepares for that ad--unequaled of its kind--which Orpheus's broken hearted cry of ”Eurydice! Eurydice!”