Part 7 (1/2)
CHAPTER X
If it is observable that the taste, ear, and talent for music prevail among the inhabitants of the mountain districts of the world far more extensively than among the populations of the plains, it is no less true that nearly all persons belonging to the exalted spheres of life, for instance, emperors and kings and their consorts, as well as princes and princesses of the blood, are not only pa.s.sionately fond of music, but frequently absolute melomaniacs. In none of the reigning houses, however, is this particular branch of art developed to such an extent as in the Hohenzollern family. Thus the collection of the compositions for the flute by Frederick the Great discovered some ten years ago in the lumber rooms of the ”Neues Palais” at Potsdam, and recently published after being edited by Professor Spitta, proves that the royal patron of Voltaire, and the founder of Prussia's military power was no mere dilettante, but a real genius in the art of composition. Prince Louis Ferdinand, the son of Frederick the Great's brother, who courted and met with a premature death at Saalfeld, while rashly engaging the French enemy, against strict orders, showed, with all his eccentricities, remarkable musical gifts, leaving in fact behind him a variety of compositions for orchestras. He also wrote a march which is published under his name.
Among the collection of marches constantly used in the Prussian army, is one composed by Frederick-William III. in 1806, which occupies a place between that of Frederick the Great, written in 1741, and the well-known Dessauer march. In that very same collection are the so-called _”Geschwind Marsch,” No. 148, for infantry_, the _”Parade Marsch” No. 51, for cavalry_, and the _”Marsch Fur Cavallerie” No.
55_, which emanate from the pen of Princess Charlotte of Prussia, niece of old Emperor William, and first wife of the present reigning Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. It is doubtless from her that Prince Bernhardt of Saxe-Meiningen, married to the eldest sister of the present kaiser, has inherited his powers of composition, for his name figures on the t.i.tle page of many a piece of music; and among his other more important works has been the setting to music of _”the Persians of Aeschylus,”_ which has been most successfully staged at Athens. This is published under the initials of _”E.B.” (Erbprinz Bernhardt)_.
Though King Frederick-William IV. did not himself add anything to royal musical literature, as did his predecessors on the throne, he devoted much attention to ecclesiastical melody and song. The Berlin cathedral choir of men and boys--trained to sing without musical accompaniments--owes its origin to his ambition for having a choir in his own Protestant basilica at Berlin, corresponding more or less to the Pope's in the Sistine Chapel of Rome. It was he who engaged Mendelssohn as director of this choir, as well as composer; and it was the latter's successor, the director of the music of the Chapel Royal at the Prussian court, who compiled a collection of volumes containing settings of many of the Psalms of David, most beautifully arranged.
Among living Hohenzollerns, musical talent is most strongly developed.
Prince Albert, regent of Brunswick, is not only a composer of rare genius, but likewise a most talented organist. His son, Prince Joachim, has inherited his talent for composition, and is the author of some eight works, which have been printed for circulation, in court circles only, and have not become the property of the public; the cleverest of them being a festal march, written for his father's birthday, and a grand funeral march. He shares his father's intense devotion to Bach and Handel, as well as his fondness for the works of Mendelssohn, Beethoven and Mozart, and is a most accomplished performer on the violoncello, being a pupil of the well-known master of that instrument, Professor Luedemann. Prince Albert's sister, the widowed d.u.c.h.ess William of Mecklenberg-Schwerin, has been particularly active as a composer of songs for mezzo soprano, but none of her works, which are printed for private circulation under the initials of ”A.H.M.”, have been placed on public sale. Her songs, some thirty in number, are melodious and full of feeling. She seems to thoroughly understand how to bring out the meaning of the words of her composition, the melody of one of them, _”Ein Duerres Blatt”_ furnis.h.i.+ng a particularly striking ill.u.s.tration of this peculiarity; they left a very lasting impression upon my mind. Among her collections is an English song, beginning with the words:
”No ditch is too deep, And no wall is too high, If two love each other They'll meet by-and-by.”
The music of this is particularly sweet, graceful and tender.
Prince Henry, the sailor brother of the kaiser, has written a number of pieces, one of the best known and most popular of which is called the _”Matrosen Marsch,”_ which is to be purchased in all large music stores. He also holds his own as a first-cla.s.s amateur performer, both on the violin and the piano. His sister, the crown princess of Greece, a pupil of Rufer, excels on the organ, as does also the widowed Empress Frederick, while there is not one of the children of the present kaiser who does not possess musical gifts of a high order, which are being developed both in theory and in practice by celebrated professors and masters.
There is no doubt that, but for the weakness of his left arm, Emperor William would have been as skilful a performer as the other members of his family. As it is, his devotion to music is restricted to composition and to conducting. The kaiser is very fond of acting as bandmaster during the musical soirees given at court, and other entertainments of this kind honored by the presence of the reigning family. It has been claimed that he is the first Prussian ruler to thus wield the baton since the days of Frederick the Great. But this is not the case, for I recall being present, many years ago, at a dinner at the palace of Koblenz, given by Empress Augusta in honor of her consort, old Emperor William, who had come over from Ems for the purpose, when during the dinner the old emperor remarked that the band of the Augusta regiment, which was playing at the further end of the White Hall, had played the ballet melody of _”Satanella”_ in too fast a time. Rising from his seat, and pus.h.i.+ng aside the screen which concealed the band from view, he took the baton from the hand of the bandmaster, and after exclaiming: ”Very quietly and slowly, gentlemen, if you please,” he tapped twice on the music-stand in front of him, and then commenced to conduct with as much skill and art as if he had never done anything else in his life. Several times during the course of the piece he exclaimed ”Noch ruhiger,” (still more gently) and when the end of the piece was reached he laid down the baton with the remark, ”Now, that was fine,” and, thanking the band with a very friendly and kindly smile, returned to his seat at table.
The present kaiser's princ.i.p.al contribution to music is undoubtedly his composition of the melody to the ”_Sang am Aegir,_” a poem of considerable power by his friend Count Philipp Eulenburg. The composition begins as follows:
[Ill.u.s.tration: O Ae-gir Herr der Flu-then dem Nix und Nex sich beugt!]
The words may be rendered as:
”Of Aegir, Lord of the Waves, Whom mermaids and mermen revere.”
The bars that follow rivet the attention of the listener on account of their weird originality. They are full of feeling, very melodious, and easily caught by the ear. Towards the close, the melody breaks off into a purely military strain, so that the final bars are suggestive of the sound of trumpets, recalling to mind some ancient martial fanfare.
William has a very marked predilection for Wagnerian music, and is the life and soul of the ”Potsdam-Berlin Wagner Society,” which is one of the most influential social inst.i.tutions of the Prussian capital.
His princ.i.p.al lieutenant and Adlatus in the management of this a.s.sociation, which is in every sense of the word a court inst.i.tution, is Major von Chelius, who holds a commission in the kaiser's own body regiment of Hussars of the Guard. The major is a particular favorite of both the emperor and the empress, and he takes a very prominent part in all the musical entertainments at court, almost invariably playing the piano accompaniments for the singing of Princess Albert of Saxe-Altenburg, and of Prince Max of Baden, who possesses a rich baritone voice. The major is the composer of the popular opera ”_Haschisch,_” and has inherited his musical talents from his mother, a Hamburger by birth. His father is a dignitary of the Court of Baden, while his wife, a most charming woman, was, prior to her marriage, a Fraulein von Puttkamer, a member, therefore, of the same family as the late Princess Bismarck.
But although manifesting a preference for Wagner, the kaiser is not averse to Mozart, or to the Italian school. ”_Der Freischuetz_” is one of his favorite operas, and while he does not care for Falstaff, he is very fond of ”_I Medici_,” and greatly admires Leon Cavallo. He possesses a very correct ear, and a most pleasing voice, and many of his evenings are pa.s.sed in trying new songs, his wife, who is an excellent pianist, playing the accompaniment.
Though quite as pa.s.sionately fond of music as the Hohenzollerns, the Hapsburgs have achieved less distinction as composers, and even as performers. Indeed, there are but two scions of the reigning house of Austria, who can be said to have won any kind of fame as composers, namely, the missing Archduke John, who was the author of an exceedingly pretty and catchy ballet that still figures on the repertoire of the imperial opera, and Archduke Joseph, so well known by the name of the ”Gypsy Archduke,” who has done more than anyone else in Europe to place on record, both in writing and in print, the weird music and extraordinary quaint melodies of the Tziganes, melodies which he has arranged exquisitely for orchestral use. True, there is not a single archduke or archd.u.c.h.ess in Austria and Hungary, who does not play with taste and feeling. Indeed, music seems to be inborn in them, and while the widowed crown princess is devoted to her piano, on which her performances are characterized by a superb technique, but coupled alas! with a complete absence of sentiment, her husband, the lamented Crown Prince Rudolph, was a composer of no mean power and seemed at times to pour forth his entire soul in the melodies which he coaxed from this instrument. Indeed he often sat at the piano for hours, playing, in a manner indescribably expressive and touching, airs improvised on the spur of the moment, which, while they remained impressed on the minds and ears of those present, would seem to fade at once from the memory of the prince himself. His was what may be called a true genius for music.
The member of the House of Hapsburg most famous in the annals of music of the present century, was undoubtedly that Archduke Rudolph, son of Emperor Leopold II., who died a cardinal. He was the protector, the friend and disciple of Beethoven, many of whose most famous works, would a.s.suredly have remained unwritten had it not been for the fact that he received the same powerful support, both material and moral, from the imperial cardinal as Richard Wagner obtained from King Louis of Bavaria.
With regard to Archduke Joseph, the above-mentioned ”Gypsy Archduke,”
there is no doubt that without him the outer world would still have been left in ignorance of the incalculably rich mine of Tzigane music.
He is only distantly related to Emperor Francis-Joseph, being the senior member of a branch of the house of Hapsburg which has been settled for more than one hundred years in Hungary. His father's entire life was spent there, where he held the office of Viceroy, and it is there that Archduke Joseph himself was entirely brought up, and where he has spent his whole existence.
At an early age he was attracted to the gypsies by their music, and it was this that led him to think of their welfare, and to devote himself to the study of the characteristics, the history and the origin of these mysterious nomads. Until he took them under his protection, they were regarded more or less as pariahs of Central and Southern Europe, the hand of every man being against them, and the authorities and people at large combining to subject them to persecution of the most cruel character. Their grat.i.tude to the archduke when he obtained better treatment for them knew no bounds, and was shown, among other instances, in a notable manner during the Austro-Prussian. war, when Joseph was at the head of a division of Magyar troops.
”Our retreat,” so the archduke tells the story, ”before the advance of the Prussian army, immediately preceding the battle of Sadowa, led us to camp one night in the neighborhood of a town in Bohemia. I was lodged in a peasant's cottage, when about midnight I heard the sentry at my door hoa.r.s.ely challenging some new-comer. My aid-de-camp entered, and reported that a gypsy wanted to see me in private.
”On my asking the dusky visitor in Romani what was the matter, he told me that the enemy was approaching to surprise us.