CHAPTER XII.

Eisenach. Gotha. Erfurt. Andernach. Weimar. Tausig.

BERLIN,August 15, 1871.

Well, here I am back in smelly old Berlin! I really hated to leave Heidelberg, it was such a paradisiacal spot, but we saw so much that was beautiful afterwards, that my impression of it has become a little dimmed. From Heidelberg we went to Eisenach, its rival in a different way, for here we went over the Wartburg—the Castle famous for having been the dwelling of the holy St. Elizabeth, and where Luther translated the Bible and spent ten months of his life disguised as a knight. I saw his room, a bare and comfortless hole, but with a splendid view from the windows. The Castle is in good repair, and is a noble pile. I suppose the Duke of Weimar spends some time there every summer, as it looks as if it were lived in. It is endlessly interesting. There is a lovely little chapel in it where Luther used to preach, with everything left in just as it was in his time—a little gem. The Wartburg is on a very high hill, and the views from it are superb. Among other things to be seen from it is the Venusberg, which is the mountain Wagner has introduced in his famous opera of Tannhäuser. He was so carried away by the Wartburg when he concealed himself near it, as he was being pursued by the government to be arrested as a revolutionary, twenty years ago, thathe never rested until he had united the legends of St. Elizabeth and of the Venusberg in his opera. Liszt, also, wrote an oratorio on St. Elizabeth ashistribute to the Wartburg.

From Eisenach we went to Gotha, a lovely place, all shaded with trees, and surmounted by a very imposing castle, with two immense towers. It is an enormous edifice, and is surrounded by a magnificent park, through which goes the slowly winding river. I believe that Gotha belongs to the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, brother of the Queen of England, or something. At all events, in the middle of this river is an island where the ducal family is buried, and it is so thickly planted with trees whose boughs hang over the water, that their graves are quite shrouded from the vulgar eye. Pretty idea! The river laps lazily against the grassy slope which covers the princely ones, and the wind rushing through the trees, sings their dirge.

From Gotha we went to Erfurt, where we only spent one night, in order to see the Cathedral. Erfurt is an Undine of a place, full of running streams and bridges and mills roaring all about you. I saw one street with a brook rippling down the very middle of it at a most rattling pace, and at every little distance two or three stepping stones by which to cross it. Just think how fascinating for children! I longed to stay and have a good play there myself. The Erfurt Cathedral is much smaller than those of Spire and Cologne, but the exterior is wonderfully beautiful. The transept is a masterpiece, and has fifteen enormous windows of rich old stained glass going round it. Thenave did not please me so well, because in addition to its not being very rich, the side aisles were of equal height with the main body of the Cathedral, and were not sufficiently marked off from it to prevent the roof's looking like a ceiling. I believe the side aisles were of equal height with the main aisle in the Cologne Cathedral, but the archways and pillars cut them off more, so that it had a different effect.—I am more interested in cathedrals than anything else, and should like to travel all over Europe and see all the different ones. There is a lovely old church at Andernach, Roman Catholic, as most of the churches on the Rhine are. I went there to church one Sunday morning, and stayed through the service. They had the most powerful church music I've ever heard. There was an excellent boy choir which sang in unison and led the congregation,every personof which joined in. The organ was fine, as was also the organist, and the singing was so universal that the old church walls rang again. The priest preached an excellent sermon, too—the best I have heard in Germany.

———

BERLIN,August 31, 1871.

Germany is a most lovely country, and perfectly delicious to travel through. I believe I have described all the places we went to excepting Weimar. Weimar is delightful, and so interesting, because Goethe and Schiller, Wieland and Herder lived there, and everything is connected with them, and especially with the first two. There are many fine statues in the littlecity, and a delicious great park along the river which was laid out under Goethe's superintendence.—One group of Goethe and Schiller standing together in front of the theatre is magnificent. One hardly knows which to admire the most, Goethe, with his courtly mein and commanding features, or Schiller, with his extreme ideality and his head a little thrown back as if to take in inspiration direct from the sky. It is a most striking conception.

The palace of the Grand Duke of Weimar is the principal "show" of the place. It is filled with the richest works of art, and is beautifully frescoed in rooms devoted each to a particular author, and representing his most celebrated works. There is the Goethe room, and the Wieland room, etc. The Wieland room is the most charming thing. The frescoes on the walls are all illustrative of his "Oberon," which is his most celebrated work, and one picture represents what happened when Oberon blew his horn. You must know that when Oberon blows his horn everybody is obliged to dance. So in this picture he is represented blowing it in a convent, and all the fat friars and nuns are dancing away like mad. They look so serious, and as if they didn't want to do it at all, but their feetwillfly up in the air in spite of them. The nuns' slippers scarcely stick on, and it looks so absurd! I was as highly amused at it as the mischievous Oberon himself must have been, so delicately has the artist touched it off. There was another design representing a band of nymphs dancing in the sky, hand in hand in the twilight, and it was the mostgraceful thing!—Their delicate little bare feet with every pretty turn a foot could have, their clothes and hair streaming in the breeze, and every attitude so airy. It waslovely! The Goethe frescoes were by another painter, and not so fine, but I prefer pictures to frescoes. Only one suite of the ducal rooms was frescoed. The others had superb pictures by the old masters, many of them originals.

The Duke is an artist himself, and designs a great many pretty things. For instance, he designed the large candelabra which stood on each side of one of the doorways,—Cupid peeping through a wreath of thistles and nettles. He was kneeling on one knee, and pushing them aside with each hand. It was all done in gilt metal and made a very dainty conceit, beside being a good illustration of the pains of love! I think the Duke probably designed some of the picture frames, for they were peculiarly rich and artistic; for instance, the frames of the original cartoons of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper were entirely composed of the leaves and flowers of the calla lily. The leaves lapped one over the other, and here and there a lily was laid between. The flowers were done in a different coloured gilding from the leaves. They wereverybeautiful. The pictures were not all hung together, so as to confuse your eye, but here a gem and there a gem—and O, I saw the most bewitching little statue there that ever I saw in my life! The subject was "Little Red Riding Hood," and it stood in the corner of one of the great salons. It was about two feet high, and represented the most fascinatinglittle girl you can imagine, clothed in the wolf's skin, which hung down behind and had formed the little hood. The child herself was quite indescribable—the daintiest little creature, with the most captivating expression of innocence and roguishness. If she looked like that I should have followed the wolf's example and eaten her up! It was really a perfect littlepearlof a statue. I would give anything to possess it. In short, I wish the Duke of Weimar were my intimate friend, for he must be a man worth knowing. Now, if I could only play like Liszt!—I don't wonder Liszt spends so much of his time in Weimar. I am getting perfectly crazy to hear him, by the way, for everybody says there is nobody in the world like him, and that he is the only artist who combineseverything. He does not play in public any more, but Weitzmann says that he is amiability itself, and that it would probably not be difficult for me to get an opportunity to hear him in private.

In the palace I also saw the little boudoir of the Duchess. It was all panelled in white satin, and the furniture was of the richest white brocaded silk. The window frames were of malachite, and one looked out through the single great plate of glass on to the beautiful park, and the winding river spanned by a bridge which suggests immediately to your mind, "Walk over me into the Garden of Paradise, for I was made for your express benefit!" The park lies on each side of this little river Ilm, and Goethe's exquisite taste has given it more a look of nature than of art. It seems as if you were walking in a delicious meadow, thetrees being sometimes grouped together, sometimes growing thickly along the water's edge. You go in and out of sunshine and shadow, and here and there are dusky little retreats, and, to borrow Goldsmith's elegant style,—"the winding walks assume a natural sylvage." Some distance up the river, on the side of a gentle hill, was a small house in the woods where Goethe used to live in summer. Here he slept sometimes, and farther up the hill was a summer house where he took his coffee after dinner. To the left of this summer house he had had made a long alley-way or vista of trees whose tops met overhead and formed a leafy ceiling. It was like a cloister, and here he could pace up and down and muse. It was a delightful idea. To the right of the summer house was a small garden, and beyond that was a path which wound through the wood down to the path below. In one of the rocks there Goethe had had a little poem cut. I was sorry afterward that I hadn't copied it, it was so pretty.—But it was such a charming place to read and study, and it seemed to give me a better impression of him than anything else.

I saw a piano in the Duke's palace upon which Beethoven had played. It was a funny little instrument of about five octaves, but it was so wheezy with age that there wasn't much tone to be got out of it. After we had finished looking at the palace, we went over to see the ducal library. Here I saw a superb bust of Goethe as a young man. It was so handsome that it spurns description. He must have been a perfect Apollo. I also saw a likeness of him paintedupon a cup by some great artist, for which he sat thirty-four times! The old librarian, who had known Goethe, said that it wasexactlylike him, and the miniature painting was so wonderful that when you looked at it with a magnifying glass it was only finer andmoreaccurate instead of less so! There was also a most noble bust of the composer Glück. The face was all scarred with small-pox, so that the cast must have been moulded from his features after death, but I never saw such a living, animated, likeness in marble. It looked as if it were going to speak to you. There was a funny toy there, nearly three hundred years old. It was a drummer boy, with a little baby strapped on his back. The librarian wound him up, and then he beat his drum lustily, rolled his eyes from side to side, and wagged his head, while the baby on his back hopped up and down. Whenever little children see it, it scares them, and they begin to cry. It had on a red flannel coat, and hasn't had a new one since it was made.—"Nearly three hundred years old, and never had a new coat," is worse than when C. P. bought himself a trunk, and went round the house saying, "Twenty-seven years old, and been in twenty-three states of the Union, andneverhad a new trunk before!"

Goethe's house is not exhibited, which I think highly inexcusable in the Goethe family, but Schiller's is. So we saw that, and what a contrast it was to the ducal palace!—You go to a small yellow house on one of the principal streets, enter a little hall by a little door, go up two flights of a little stair-case, and in thevery low-ceilinged third story was Schiller's home—"home" I say, and thewholeof it, so please take it in! The first room you enter is a sort of ante-room where photographs are now sold. The next room was the parlour, and of late years it has been comfortably furnished by the ladies of Weimar in the usual cheap German taste. The third room was Schiller's study, with an infinitesimal fourth room, or large closet, opening from it, which was his sleeping apartment. The study is precisely as he left it, and nothing could be more bald and bare. No carpet on the floor, the three windows slightly festooned at the top with a single breadth of Turkey red, his own portrait and a few wretched prints on the walls—in short, such a sordid habitation for such a soaring nature as seemed almost incredible! His writing table, with a globe, inkstand, and pens upon it, stands at one window, and his wife's tiny little piano with her guitar on top, is against the wall. There are two or three chairs, and a wash-stand with a minute washing apparatus. In one corner is the tiny unpainted wooden bedstead on which he died; a bed not meant to stretch out in, but to lie, as Germans do, half reclining, and so low, narrow, plain and mean that I never saw anything like it. In it and hanging on the wall over it are wreaths which leading German actresses have brought there as votive offerings to their great national dramatist, their white satin ribbons yellowing by time. At the foot of the stair-case as you go out, you see the little walled-up garden at the back of the house where the poet loved to sit.

After getting through with the abodes of the living, we visited the ducal vault where Goethe and Schiller are buried. It is the crypt of a sort of temple built in the old secluded cemetery in Weimar, and in it all the coffins are laid in rows on supporters. Goethe and Schiller lie apart from the others, side by side, near the foot of the stair-case leading down into the crypt. Their coffins, especially Schiller's, are covered with wreaths and bouquets brought by strangers and laid there. Schiller's had on it a garland of silver leaves presented by the women of Hamburg, and another of leaves of green gauze or crape, on every one of which was worked in gold thread the name of one of his plays. A great actress had made it herself as her tribute to his genius. From all I observe, I should judge that the German people love Schiller much more than they do Goethe. The dukes and duchesses lie farther back in the vault in their red velvet coffins, quite unnoticed. So much better is genius than rank! Hummel is buried also in the cemetery, which is the most beautiful I ever saw—not stiff and "arranged" like ours, but so natural! with over-grown foot-paths, and with much fewer and simpler grave-stones and monuments, and many more vines and flowers and roses creeping over the graves. We went to Hummel's grave, and had I been Goethe and Schiller I should much rather have been buried out of doors like him, amid this sweet half-wild, half-gentle nature, than in that dismal vault.

Speaking of Hummel reminds me of Tausig's death. Was it not terrible that he should have died so young!Such an enormous artist as he was! I cannot get reconciled to it at all, and he played only twice in Berlin last winter.

He was a strange little soul—a perfect misanthrope. Nobody knew him intimately. He lived all the last part of his life in the strictest retirement, a prey to deep melancholy. He was taken ill at Leipsic, whither he had gone to meet Liszt. Until the ninth day they had hopes of his recovery, but in the night he had a relapse, and died the tenth day, very easily at the last. His remains were brought to Berlin and he was buried here. Everything was done to save him, and he had the most celebrated physicians, but it was useless. So my last hope of lessons from him again is at an end, you see! I never expect to hear such piano-playing again. It was as impossible for him to strike one false note as it is for other people to strike right ones. He was absolutely infallible. The papers all tell a story about his playing a piece one time before his friends, from the notes. The music fell upon the keys, but Tausig didn't allow himself to be at all disturbed, and went on playing through the paper, his fingers piercing it and grasping the proper chords, until some one rushed to his aid and set the notes up again. Oh, he was a wonder, and it is a tragic loss to Art that he is dead. He was such atrueartist, his standard was so immeasurably high, and he had such a proud contempt for anything approaching clap-trap, or what he calledSpectakel. I have seen him execute the most gigantic difficulties without permitting himself a sign of effort beyond an almost imperceptible compression of onecorner of his mouth.—And then his touch! Never shall I forget it!—thatrushof silver over the keys. However, he entirely overstrained himself, and his whole nervous system was completely shattered long before his illness. He said last winter that the very idea of playing in public was unbearable to him, and after he had announced in the papers that he would give four concerts, he recalled the announcement on the plea of ill health. Then he thought he would go to Italy and spend the winter. But when he got as far as Naples, he said to himself, "Nein, hier bleibst du nicht(No, you won't stay here);" and back he came to Berlin. He doesn't seem to have known what he wanted, himself; his was an uneasy, tormented, capricious spirit, at enmity with the world. Perhaps his marriage had something to do with it. His wife was a beautiful artist, too, and they thought the world of each other, yet they couldn't live together. But Tausig's whole life was a mystery, and his reserve was so complete that nobody could pierce it. If I had only been at the point in music two years ago that I am now, I could have gone at once into his class. His scholars were most of them artists already, or had got to that point where they had pretty well mastered the technique. A number of them came out last winter, and the little Timanoff played duets with Rubinstein for two pianos, at St. Petersburg.

Since my return I have gone into the first class in Kullak's conservatory, instead of taking private lessons of him. I think it will be of use to me to hear his best pupils play.

Dinner-Party and Reception at Mr. Bancroft's. Auction atTausig's House. A German Christmas.The Joachims.

BERLIN,October 2, 1871.

This week I have been to a dinner-party at the Bancroft's. There were several eminent Germans there, and I was taken out by Bötticher, the Herr who has arranged all the casts in the Museum, and who knows everything about Art. He couldn't speak a word of English, so weGermanedit. We talked about Sappho all through dinner, and he gave me several details about that young woman which I did not know before. As C. used to say, we had one of those dinners "such as you read about in the Arabian Nights," topping off with a glass of my favourite Tokay, which, I regret to say, I so prolonged the pleasure of drinking, that finally the signal was given to adjourn to the drawing-room, and I was obliged to leave my glass standing half full, to be swallowed by the waiter as soon as my back was turned. Sad, but true!

On another evening, at a Bancroft reception, I talked with a Miss R., who was charming. She is twenty-two or three, I should think, very pretty and extremely elegant, and with the most delicious way of speaking you can imagine. Such softness of manner and such a delightfully pitched voice,and then along with this perfect repose, such a vivid way of describing things! I was immensely taken with her, and was delighted to have her for a countrywoman. She gave me a wonderful account of the Island of Java. I had a lot of questions to ask her, for you remember how persistently I read that book by a naturalist (Wallace) who went to Java in search of the Bird of Paradise. Miss R. is so extremely intelligent, and yet so unassuming; and then this high-bred manner.—I did not have time to hear her talk half enough, and, unfortunately, her party went away the next day.

The other day was an auction in poor little Tausig's house, and all his furniture was sold. It was very handsome, all of solid oak, beautifully carved. He had spent five thousand thalers on it. His wardrobe was sold, too, and I don't know how many pairs of his little boots and shoes were there, his patent leather concert boots among others. His little velvet coat that he used to wear went with the rest. I saw it lying on a chair. I came home quite ill, and was laid up two days. It was the fatigue, I suppose, and miserable reflections. I wanted to buy a picture, but they were all sold in a lot. He had excellent ones of all the great composers, down to Liszt and Wagner, hanging over his piano in the room where he always played. Kullak deplores Tausig's death very deeply. He had visited him in Leipsic two days before he was taken ill, and said no one would have dreamed that Tausig was going to die, he looked so well. Kullak said Tausig was one of the three or four greatspecialpianists. "Who will interpret to us so again?" said he; and I echoed, sadly enough, "Who, indeed?"

Kullak, by the way, is a wonderfullyfinishedteacher. He is a great friend of Liszt's, and Liszt has taught him a good many things. I doubt, however, how M. will fare with him, if she is only going to be here a year. My experience is that it takes fully a year to get started under a first class master. These great teachers won't take a pupil raw from America, still less trouble themselves with a scholar who cannot immediately comprehend. I have written her to-day a three-sheet letter in which I have set forth the disadvantages of Germany in a sufficiently forcible manner to prevent her feeling disappointed if she still insists upon the journey. I have come to the conclusion that I am no criterion as to other people's impressions. Unless people have an enthusiasm for art I don't see the least use in their coming abroad. If they cannot appreciate thecultureof Europe, they are much better off in America. There is no doubt whatever that as to thecomfortof every-day life, we are a long way ahead of every nation, unless perhaps the English, whom, however, I have not seen.

———

BERLIN,December 25, 1871.

To-day is Christmas-day, and I have thought much of you all at home, and have wondered if you've been having an apathetic time as usual. I think we often spend Christmas in a most shocking fashion in America, and I mean to revolutionize all that when I getback. So long a time in Germany has taught me better. Here it is a season of universal joy, andeverybodyenters into it. Last night we had a Christmas tree at the S.'s, as we always do. We went there at half past six, and it was the prettiest thing to see in every house, nearly, a tree just lighted, or in process of being so. As a separate family lives on each floor, often in one house would be three trees, one above the other, in the front rooms. The curtains are always drawn up, to give the passers-by the benefit of it. They don't make a fearful undertaking of having a Christmas tree here, as we do in America, and so they are attainable by everybody. The tree is small, to begin with, and nothing is put on it except the tapers and bonbons. It is fixed on a small stand in the centre of a large square table covered with a white cloth, and each person's presents are arranged in a separate pile around it. The tree is only lighted for the sake of beauty, and for the air of festivity it throws over the thing.—After a crisp walk in the moonlight (which I performed in the style of "Johnny-look-up-in-the-air," for I was engaged in staring into house-windows, so far as it was practicable), we sat down to enjoy a cup of tea and a piece of cake. I had just begun my second cup, when, Presto! the parlour doors flew open, and there stood the little green tree, blossoming out into lights, and throwing its gleams over the well-laden table. There was a general scramble and a search for one's own pile, succeeded by deep silence and suspense while we opened the papers. Such a hand shaking and embracing and thanking as followed! concludingwith the satisfactory conviction that we each had "just what we wanted." Germans do not despise the utilitarian in their Christmas gifts, as we do, but, between these and their birthday offerings, expect to be set up for the rest of the year in the necessaries of life as well as in its superfluities. Presents of stockings, under-clothes, dresses, handkerchiefs, soaps—nothing comes amiss. And every onemustgive to every one else. That is LAW.

I have just heard a young artist from Vienna who made a great impression on me. His name is Ignaz Brühl. He is quite exceptional, and has not only a brilliant technique, but also a peculiar and beautiful conception.—But the best concert I have heard this season was one given by Clara Schumann a week ago last Monday. She was assisted by Joachim and his wife, andthatgalaxy is indeed unequalled. Frau Joachim sings deliciously. Not that her voice is so remarkable. You hear such voices all the time. But she manages it consummately, and sings German songs as no one but a Germancouldsing them. Indeed I never heard any woman approach her in unobtrusive yet perfect art. She does not take you by storm, and when I first came here I did not think much of her, but every time I hear her I am struck with how exquisite it is. Every word takes on a meaning, and on this account I think you have to understand the language before you can realize the beauty of it. One of her songs was Schumann's "Spring Song," with that rapidagitatoaccompaniment, you know.—She came out and started off in it with a half breath and a tremor justlike a bird fluttering up out of its nest, and then went up on a portamento withsuchabandon!—like the bird soaring off in its flight. I nevershallforget that effect! Of course it carried you completely away.

Beside singing so admirably she is a beauty—a sort of baby beauty—and when she comes out in a pale pink silk, contrasting with her dark hair and revealing her imperial neck and arms, she is ravishing. I've been told she wasn't anything remarkable when Joachim married her. No doubt dwelling with such a genius has developed her. They say that Joachim has had such a happy life that he wants to live forever! He certainly does overtop everything. On this occasion he played Beethoven's great Kreutzer Sonata for violin and piano, with Clara Schumann, and I thought it themost magnificent performance I ever heard! I perfectly adore Joachim, and consider him the wonder of the age. It is simple ecstasy to listen to him.

Visit to Dresden. The Wiecks. Von Bülow. A Child Prodigy.Grantzow, the Dancer.

BERLIN,February 10, 1872.

A week ago last Monday I went to Dresden with J. L. to visit B. H. We got there at about five in the afternoon, and were met at the station by B.'s maid, who conducted us straightway to their house in Christian Strasse. B. and Mrs. H. received us with the greatest cordiality, and we had a splendid time. I came home only the day before yesterday, and J. is still there. The H.'s have a charming lodging, and Mrs. H. is a capital housekeeper. Thecuisinewas excellent, and you can imagine how I enjoyed an American breakfast once more, after nothing but "rolls and coffee" for two years. B. did everything in her power to amuse us, and she is the soul of amiability. She kept inviting people to meet us, and had several tea-parties, and when we had no company she took us to the theatre or the opera. She invited Marie Wieck (the sister of Clara Schumann) to tea one night. I was very glad to meet her, for she is an exquisite artist herself, and plays in Clara Schumann's style, though her conception is not so remarkable. Her touch is perfect. At B.'s request she tried to play for us, but the action of B.'s piano did not suit her, and she presently got up, saying thatshe could do nothing on that instrument, but that if we would come toher, she would play for us with pleasure.

I was in high glee at that proposal, for I was very anxious to see the famous Wieck, the trainer of so many generations of musicians. Fräulein Wieck appointed Saturday evening, and we accordingly went. B. had instructed us how to act, for the old man is quite a character, and has to be dealt with after his own fashion. She said we must walk in (having first laid off our things) as if we had been members of the family all our lives, and say, "Good-evening, Papa Wieck,"—(everybody calls him Papa). Then we were to seat ourselves, and if we had some knitting or sewing with us it would be well. At any rate we must have the apparent intention of spending several hours, for nothing provokes him so as to have people come in simply to call. "What!" he will say, "do you expect to know a celebrated man like me in half an hour?" then (very sarcastically), "perhaps you want my autograph!" He hates to give his autograph.

Well, we went through the prescribed programme. We were ushered into a large room, much longer than it was broad. At either end stood a grand piano. Otherwise the room was furnished with the greatest simplicity. My impression is that the floor was a plain yellow painted one, with a rug or two here and there. A few portraits and bas-reliefs hung upon the walls. The pianos were of course fine. Frau Wieck and "Papa" received us graciously. We began by taking tea, but soon the old man became impatient, andsaid, "Come! the ladies wish to perform (vortragen) something before me, and if we don't begin we shan't accomplish anything." Helivesentirely in music, and has a class of girls whom he instructs every evening for nothing. Five of these young girls were there. He is very deaf, but strange to say, he is as sensitive as ever to every musical sound, and the same is the case with Clara Schumann. Fräulein Wieck then opened the ball. She is about forty, I should think, and a stout, phlegmatic-looking woman. However, she played superbly, and her touch is one of the most delicious possible. After hearing her, one is not surprised that the Wiecks think nobody can teach touch but themselves. She began with a nocturne by Chopin, in F major. I forgot to say that the old Herr sits in his chair with the air of being on a throne, and announces beforehand each piece that is to be played, following it with some comment:e. g., "This nocturne I allowed my daughter Clara to play in Berlin forty years ago, and afterward the principal newspaper in criticising her performance, remarked: 'This young girl seems to have much talent; it is only a pity that she is in the hands of a father whose head seems stuck full of queer new-fangled notions,'—so new was Chopin to the public at that time." That is the way he goes on.

After Fräulein Wieck had finished the nocturne, I asked for something by Bach, which I'm told she plays remarkably. She said that at the moment she had nothing in practice by Bach, but she would play me agigueby a composer of Bach's time,—Haesler, I thinkshe said, but cannot remember, as it was a name entirely unknown to me. It was very brilliant, and she executed it beautifully. Afterward she played the last movement of Beethoven's Sonata in E flat major, but I wasn't particularly struck with her conception of that. Then we had a pause, and she urged me to play. I refused, for as I had been in Dresden a week and had not practiced, I did not wish to sit down and not do myself justice. My hand is so stiff, that as Tausig said of himself (though of him I can hardly believe it), "When I haven't practiced for fourteen days I can't do anything." The old Herr then said, "Now we'll have something else;" and got up and went to the piano, and called the young girls. He made three of them sing, one after the other, and they sang very charmingly indeed. One of them he made improvise acadenza, and a second sang the alto to it without accompaniment. He was very proud of that. He exercises his pupils in all sorts of ways, trains them to sing any given tone, and "to skip up and down the ladder," as they call the scale.

After the master had finished with the singing, Fräulein Wieck played three more pieces, one of which was an exquisite arrangement by Liszt of that song by Schumann, "Du meine Seele." She ended with agavotteby Glück, or as Papa Wieck would say, "This is a gavotte from one of Glück's operas, arranged by Brahms for the piano. To the superficial observer the second movement will appear very easy, but inmyopinion it is a very hard task to hit it exactly." I happened to know just how the thing ought to be played,for I had heard it three times from Clara Schumann herself. Fräulein Wieck didn't please me at all in it, for she took the second movement twice as quickly as the first. "Your sister plays the second movement much slower," said I. "So?" said she, "I've never heard it from her." She then asked, "So slow?" playing it slower. "Still slower?" said she, beginning a third time, at my continual disapproval. "Streng im Tempo(in strict time)", said I, nodding my head oracularly. "Väterchen." called she to the old Herr, "Miss Fay says that Clara plays the second movementsoslow," showing him. I don't know whether this correction made an impression, but he was thendeterminedthat I should play, and on my continued refusal he finally said that he found it very strange that a young lady who had studied more than two years in Tausig's and Kullak's conservatories shouldn't haveonepiece that she could play before people. This little fling provoked me, so up I jumped, and saying to myself, "Kopf in die Höhe, Brust heraus,—vorwärts!" (one of the military orders here), I marched to the piano and played the fugue at the end of Beethoven's A flat Sonata, Op. 110. They all sat round the room as still as so many statues while I played, and you cannot imagine how dreadfully nervous I was. I thought fifty times I would have to stop, for, like all fugues, it is such a piece that if you once get out you never can get in again, and Bülow himself got mixed up on the last part of it the other night in his concert. But I got well through, notwithstanding, and the old master was good enough to commend me warmly.He told me I must have studied a great deal, and asked me if I hadn't played a great manyEtuden. I informed him in polite German "He'd better believe I had!"

I should like to study with the Wiecks in my vacation next summer if they would take me. Perhaps I may. They are considered somewhat old-fashioned in their style, and I shouldn't wish to exchange Kullak for them, but they aresuchveterans that one could not help getting many valuable ideas from them. Papa Wieck used to be Bülow's master before he went to Liszt.

Did I tell you how carried away with Bülow I was? He is magnificent, and just between Rubinstein and Tausig. I am going to hear him again on Saturday, and then I'll write you my full opinion about him. He is famous for his playing of Beethoven, and I wish you could have heard the Moonlight Sonata from him. One thing he does which is entirely peculiar to himself. He runs all the movements of a sonata together, instead of pausing between. It pleased me very much, as it gives aunityof effect, and seems to make each movement beget the succeeding one.

———

BERLIN,May 30, 1872.

I wish L. were here studying piano with Kullak's son. He has one little fairy of a scholar ten years old. Her name is Adele aus der Ohe—(isn't that an old knightly name?)—and it is the most astonishing thing to hear that child play! I heard her play a concertoof Beethoven's the other day with orchestral accompaniment and a great cadenza by Moscheles, absolutelyperfectly. She never missed a note the whole way through. I suppose she will become, like Mehlig, a great artist. But perhaps, like her, she won't have a great conception, but will do everything mechanically. One never can tell how these child-prodigies will turn out.—Please don't form any exalted ideas ofmyplaying! I'm a pretty stupid girl, and go forward slowly. I never expect to play as Miss Mehlig does. If I can ever get up to Topp, I shall be satisfied. You wouldn't believe how long it takes to get to be a virtuoso unless you tried it. Mehlig, you know, studied steadily for ten years, under thebestof teaching all the time, and she had probably more talent to start with than I have. Miss V. and Mr. G. have been herefiveyears studying steadily, and they are no farther than I am now. Not so far. It makes all the difference in the world what kind of hand and wrist a person has. Mine, you know, were pretty stiff, and then it is a great disadvantage to begin studying after one is grown up. One ought to be learning while the hand is forming.

I am just now learning that A minor concerto of Schumann's that Topp played at the Handel and Haydn Festival in Boston. The cadenza is tough, I can tell you. That is the worst of these concertos. There is always a grand cadenza where you must play all alone and "make a splurge." I don't know how it feels to be left all at once without any support from the orchestra. It is bad enough when Kullaklies back in his chair and ceases accompanying me. He plays with me on two pianos, and I get so excited that my wrists tremble. He is a magnificent pianist, and his technique is perfect. There's nothing he can't do. Like all artists, he is as capricious and exasperating as he can be, and, as the Germans say, he is "ein Mal im Himmel und das nächste Mal im Keller(one time in heaven and the next time in the cellar)!" He has a deep rooted prejudice against Americans, and never loses an opportunity to make a mean remark about them, and though he has some remarkably gifted ones among his scholars, he always insists upon it that the Americans have no real talent. As far as I know anything about his conservatorium just now, hismosttalented scholars are Americans. There is a young fellow named Sherwood, who is only seventeen years old, and he not only plays splendidly but composes beautifully, also. In my own class Miss B. and I are far ahead of all the others. Kullak will praise us very enthusiastically, and then when some one plays particularly badly in the class he will say to them, "Why, Fräulein, you play exactly as if you came from America." It makes Miss B. and me so indignant that we don't know what to do. Of course we can't say anything, for he addresses this remark in a lofty way to the whole class. Miss V. couldn't bear Kullak, and the other day, when she and Mr. G. were taking leave of him to go to America, she let him see it. He said to her, "And when shall I see you again?" "Never," exclaimed she! We have only one way of revenging ourselves, and that is when he givesus the choice of taking one of his compositions or a piece by some one else, always to take the other person's. For instance, he said to me, "Fräulein, you can take Schumann's concerto ormyconcerto." I immediately got Schumann's.

The other night I went to see a great ballet-dancer. Her name is Fräulein Grantzow, and she is the court dancer at St. Petersburg, where I've heard that the ballet surpasses everything of the kind in the world. This danseuse is a wonder, and they say there has never been such dancing since the days of Fanny Ellsler. She has the figure of a Venus, and the most expressive face imaginable. When she dances, it is not only dancing, but a complete representation of character, for she plays a rôle by her motions just the same as if she were an actress. I have seen many a ballet, but I never conceived what an art dancing is before. I saw her in "Esmeralda," a ballet which is arranged from Victor Hugo's romance and modified for the stage. Fräulein Grantzow took the part of Esmeralda. In the first act a man is condemned to death, but is pardoned on condition that one of the women present will promise to marry him. The women, represented by about fifty ballet dancers, come up one after the other, contemplate the poor victim, pirouette round him, and reject him in turn with a gesture of contempt. At last Esmeralda (a gypsy) comes dancing along, asks what is the matter, and on being told, has compassion on the poor wretch, and promises to marry him in order to save him from his fate.

When the time came for Grantzow to appear, thecrowd of dancers suddenly divided, and she bounded out from the back of the stage.Suchan apparition as she was! In the first place her toilettes surpassed everything, and she appeared in a fresh dress in every act. In this first one she had on a most dazzling shade of green gauze for her skirt. From her waist fell a golden net-work, like a cestus, with little golden tassels all round. She wore a little scarlet satin jacket all fringed with gold coins, and a broad golden belt, pointed in front, clasped her waist. On her head was a tiny scarlet cap, also fringed with coins, and she had some golden bangles round her neck. In her hand was a tambourine from which depended four knots of coloured ribbons with long ends. Shaking her tambourine high in the air, out she sprang like a panther, made one magnificent circuit all round the stage, and after executing an immensely difficultpaswith perfect ease, she suddenly posed to the audience in the most ravishing and impossible attitude and with the most captivating grace conceivable. Anything like herélan, heraplomb, I never saw. Such a daring creature! Well, I cannot tell you all the things she did. She is a perfect Terpsichorean genius. All through the first act she danced very slowly, merely to show her wonderful grace, and the beauty and originality of her positions. She had a way of folding her arms over her breast and dancing with a dreamy step that was quite different from anybody else, and it produced an entrancing effect. Through the second and third acts she made a regular crescendo, just to display her technique and show what she could do. All the otherdancers seemed like blocks of wood in comparison with her.—Fräulein Grantzow is said to be between thirty-five and thirty-eight years old. As the papers said, her art shows the perfection that only maturity can give. The men are all crazy over her, as you may imagine, and she was showered with bouquets as large as the top of a barrel. The play of her features was as extraordinary as the play of her muscles. Her whole being seemed to be the soul of motion.

A Rising Organist. Kullak. Von Bülow's Playing.A Princely Funeral. Wilhelmj's Concert.A Court Beauty.

BERLIN,July 1, 1872.

Since I have been here X. has gradually developed into a great organ player, and I fancy he is now one of the first organ virtuosi in the world. His musical activity is immense, and I don't doubt he will be one of the great musical authorities here by the time he is a few years older. He is a good-hearted little demon, the incarnation of German dirt and good humour, and he pretends to be desperately devoted to me. Last Sunday he was at M.'s and went home with us afterward. Generally I go in front with A. or Herr J. and let X. give his arm to M., but this time I accorded him the honour of taking it myself. He is about a foot shorter than I am, but he trotted along by my side in a state of high satisfaction, and asked me what he should play at this concert. I told him he might play the G Minor Prelude and Fugue, as I had just taken it, "but," said I, "mind you play it well, for I shall study it very hard during the next fortnight, and I shall know if you strike one false note. I'll allow you six faults, but if you make one more I'll beat you." This amused him highly, but he said, "It is a very complicatedfugue, and it isn't so easy to play it perfectly, with all the pedal passages. What will you do for me if I come off without makingonefault?" I told him there was plenty of time to think about that, and I didn't believe he could. I have no doubt that hewillplay it magnificently, but I love to plague him. I wish that his department were secular rather than church music, for if he were only a conductor of an orchestra, or something of that sort, he could give me many a lift. He doesn't dare play the piano any more since I played to him a few times. He used nearly to kill me with his extemporizations, for he has no memory, and so he always had to extemporize. I generally went off into a secret convulsion of laughter when he went bang! bang! Donner and Blitz!—splaying all over the key-board. It was the funniest thing I ever heard, and when I heard him burst forth in such grand style on the organ, I was perfectly amazed, and couldn't reconcile it with his piano playing at all. He is a great reader, of course, and can transpose at sight, and all that sort of thing. I've known him to play accompaniments at sight in a great concert in the Dom and transpose them at the same time!

July 6.—You ask me why I gave up going to the Wiecks in Dresden this summer.—Because they make everybody begin at the very beginning of their system and go through it before they give them a piece, and at my stage of progress that would be losing time. They think nobody can teach touch but themselves, but Kullak is a much greater musician, and I should not be willing to exchange him for Fräulein Wieck,who does not begin to equal him in reputation. Much as Kullak enrages me, I have to admit that he is a great master, and that he is thoroughly capable of developing artistic talent to the utmost. He makes Miss B. so provoked that she had very strong thoughts of going to Stuttgardt. The Stuttgardt conservatorium is so crowded that it is very difficult to get admission. Lebert (Mehlig's master,) sent word on her writing to enquire, that he would only take her on condition that she brought him a letter from Kullak authorizing her leaving him, as Kullak was a personal friend of his own, and so great an artist, that only the most important reasons could justify her giving up his instructions! Of course that put the stopper on any such movement.

I've always forgotten to describe Bülow's playing to you, and it is now so long since I heard him that my impressions of it are not so vivid. He has the most forcible style I ever heard, and phrases wonderfully. It is like looking through a stereoscope to hear him. All the points of a piece seem to start out vividly before you. He makes me think of Gottschalk a little, for he is full of his airs. His expression is proud and supercilious to the last degree, and he looks all round at his audience when he is playing. He always has two grand pianos on the stage, one facing one way, and one the other, and he plays alternately on both. His face seems to say to his audience, "You're all cats and dogs, and I don't care what you think of my playing." Sometimes a look of infinite humour comes over it, when he is playing a rondo or anything gay. It isvery funny. He has remarkable magnetic power, and you feel that you are under the sway of a tremendous will. Many persons find fault with his playing, because they say it is pure intellect (der reine Verstand) but I think he has too much passion to be called purely intellectual. Still, it is always passion controlled. Beethoven has been the grand study of his life, and he plays his sonatas as no one else does.

If he goes to America next winter, youmusthear him thoroughly,coûte que coûte. So I advise you to be saving up your pennies, and be sure to get a place near the piano so that you can see his face, for it is a study. I always sit in the second or third row here.

———

BERLIN,October 27, 1872.

This week has been quite an eventful one. It began on Monday with the funeral of Prince Albrecht, the youngest brother of the Emperor, and it was a very imposing spectacle. I was in hopes that Mr. B. would send me a card of admission to the Dom, where the services were to be held, but as he didn't, I was obliged to content myself with a sight of the procession and general arrangement outside. I took my stand on a wagon with H., and we got an excellent view. There was a roadway built of wood from the royal Castle to the Dom, carpeted with black, over which the procession was to pass. We waited about an hour before it came along, but we were pretty well amused by the gorgeous equipages and liveries of the different diplomatic corps which dashed past.

We were on the opposite side of the canal which separated us from the square in front of the Dom. On the right of the Dom is the Castle, and the Museum is on the left. All this square was surrounded by military, for as Prince Albrecht was a Field-Marshal, the funeral had a military character. They were beautifully arranged, the cavalry on one side and the infantry on the other, and the different uniforms were contrasted with each other so as to make the best effects in colour. Both horses and men stood as if they were carved out of marble, with the greatest precision of position. A little before eleven the royal carriages rolled past from the palace to the Castle, with their occupants. Presently the bells began to toll, and exactly at eleven the procession started. The Gardes du Corps, which is the Crown Prince's regiment, preceded the coffin, dressed in white and silver uniforms, with glittering brass helmets surmounted by silver eagles. The coffin itself was borne on a catafalque, and drawn by eight horses covered with black velvet trappings. It was yellow, and was surmounted by a crown of gold. On it was laid the Prince's sword, helmet, etc., and some flowers. I was too far away to distinguish the personages that followed. Of course the Emperor was nearest, and all were on foot. Behind the coffin the Prince's favorite horse was led, saddled and bridled. All the servants of his household walked together in silver liveries and with large triangular hats with long bands of crape hanging down behind. The band played a chorale, "Jesus, my Refuge," and the bells kept tolling all the while. At thedoor of the Dom, the procession was received by the clergy officiating. The coffin was so heavy that it was rolled down a platform of boards put up for the purpose. Then it was lifted by sixteen bearers, the glittering cortége closed round it, and they all swept it at the open portal.

We waited until the end of the service, as it was a short one, in order to hear the eight rounds of firing by the artillery. It was interesting to see how exactly they all fired the instant the signal was given. First the musketry on one side, and then the musketry on the other, in answer to it. The officers galloped and curveted about on their fiery steeds, and finally, the cannon went boom—boom. The sharp crack of the rifles made you start, but the sullen roar of the cannon made you shudder. It gave you some idea of a battle.

Tuesday night I went to a concert given by a new star in the musical world, a young violinist named Wilhelmj. He is only twenty-six years old, and is already said to be one of the greatest virtuosi living, perhapsthegreatest of the romantic school, for Joachim belongs to the severe classic. All the artists and critics and many of the aristocracy turned out to hear him. It was his first appearance in Berlin, and as I looked round the audience and picked out one great musician after another, I fairly trembled for him. Joachim and de Ahna were both present, among others, and my adorable Baroness von S. swept in late, looking more exquisite than ever in black lace over black silk, with jet ornaments, and her lovely hair curled and done up high on her aristocratic little head.She was all in mourning for the Prince, even to a black lace fan with which she occasionally shaded her eyes, so that her peach-bloomy cheek was just to be discerned through it. She is a charming pianist herself, I've heard, and is a great patroness of music and musicians, especially of the "music of the future," and its creators. I see her at all the concerts. When her face is in perfect repose she has the most charming expression and a sort of celestial look in her deep-set blue eyes. She is what the French callspirituelle, and the Germansgeistreich, but we've no word in our language that just describes her.

Well, as I was saying, my head got quite dizzy with thinking what a trial it was to play before such an audience, but Wilhelmj seemed to differ from me, for he came confidently down the steps with the dignified self-poise of an artist who is master of his instrument, and who knows what he can do. He is extremely handsome, with regular features, massive overhanging forehead, and with an expression of power and self-containment. He looked a perfect picture as he stood there so quietly and played. He hadn't gone far before he made a brilliant cadenza that took down the house, and there was a general burst of applause. Histone(which is the grand thing in violin-playing) was magnificent, and his technique masterly. He didn't play with that tenderness of feeling and wonderful variety of expression that Joachim does, but it was as if he didn't care to affect people in that way. It made me think of Tausig on the piano. He played with the greatest intensity andaplomb, and the strings seemed actually toseethe. People were taken by storm. The second piece was a concerto by Raff. Wilhelmj was in the midst of the Andante, and was sawing our hearts with every saw of his bow, when suddenly a string snapped under the strain of his passionate fingers. He instantly ceased playing, and retired up the steps to the back of the stage to put on another string. Unfortunately he had not brought along an extra one in his pocket, and had to borrow one from one of the orchestra. Weitzmann, who in his youth was himself an eminent concert violinist, was amazed at Wilhelmj's temerity. "Whatrashness," exclaimed he, "and the G string, too!" (one of the most important). After a pause Wilhelmj came down and began again, but the string was so out of tune that he retired a second time. He must have been furious inwardly, one would think, and at hisBerlindébut, too! but he came down the third time with the utmost imperturbability, and got through the concerto. The whole effect of the concert was spoiled, though, and he had also to change the solos he had intended playing, so as to avoid the G string as much as possible. Instead of the lovely Chopin Nocturne in D flat (his own arrangement), he played an Aria by Bach. He did it so wonderfully that I was really startled.—I never shall forget thenuanceshe put into his trill. But at his second concert, where hedidgive the Nocturne, it was evident that the romantic is his great forte, and on a first appearance, and before his large and critical audience, he should have been heard in thatgenre.[D]

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