Chord-Playing. Deppe no "Mere Pedagogue." Sherwood.Mozart's Concertos. Practicing Slowly.The Opera Ball.
Chord-Playing. Deppe no "Mere Pedagogue." Sherwood.Mozart's Concertos. Practicing Slowly.The Opera Ball.
BERLIN,January 2, 1874.
When I had got the principle of the scale pretty well into my head, what should Deppe rummage out but Czerny's "Schule der Geläufigkeit(School of Velocity)," which I hadn't looked at since the days of my childhood and fondly flattered myself I had done with forever. (We none of us know what stands before us!) After having studied Cramer, Gradus and Chopin, you may imagine it was rather a come down to have to take to the School of Velocity again! And to study itveryslowly and with one hand only!! That was adding insult to injury. Deppe knows what he is about, though. He began picking out passages here and there all through the book, and making me play them, stretching from the thumb and turning on the fingers as often as possible. After I have mastered the passages I am to learn a whole study, first with each hand alone, and then with both together!
Deppe next proceeded to teach me how to strike chords. I had to learn to raise my hands high over the key-board, and let them fall without any resistance on the chord, andthen sink with the wrist, and take up the hand exactly over the notes, keeping the handextended. There is quite a little knack in letting the hand fall so, but when you have once got it, the chord sounds much richer and fuller.—And so on,ad infinitum. Deppe had thought out the best way of doingeverythingon the piano—the scale, the chord, the trill, octaves, broken octaves, broken thirds, broken sixths, arpeggios, chromatics, accent, rhythm—all! He says that the principle of the scale and of the chord are directly opposite. "In playing the scale you must gather your hand into a nut-shell, as it were, and play on the finger tips. In taking the chord, on the contrary, you must spread the hands as if you were going to ask a blessing." This is particularly the case with a wide interval. He told me if I ever heard Rubinstein play again to observe how he strikes his chords. "Nothing cramped abouthim! He spreads his hands as if he were going to take in the universe, and takes them up with the greatest freedom andabandon!" Deppe has the greatest admiration for Rubinstein'stone, which he says is unequaled, but he places Tausig above him as an artist. He said Tausig used to come to his room and play to him, and he took off Tausig's little half bow and way of seating himself at the piano and beginning at once, without prelude or wasting of words, very funnily! He would scarcely take time to say "Guten Abend(Good Evening)." Deppe thinks Tausig played some things matchlessly, but that in others he was dry and soulless. Clara Schumann, he says, is the most "musical" of all the great artists—and you remember how immensely struck I was with Natalie Janotha, who is her pupil, and plays just like her.
From my telling you so much about technicalities, you must not think Deppe only a pedagogue. He is in reality the soul of music, and all these things are only "means to an end." As he says himself, "I always hear the music the peopledon'tplay." No pianist ever entirely suited him, and this it was that set him to examining the instrument in order to see what was the matter with it. He made friends with the great virtuosi, and studied their ways of playing, and the result of all his observation is that "Piano playing is the only thing where there is something to be done." He declares that there is so much musical talent going to waste in the world that it is "lying all about the streets," and he has a most ingenious way of accounting for the fact that there are so many great pianists in spite of their not knowinghismethod:—"Gifted people," he says, "play by the grace of God; buteverybodycould master the technique onmysystem!!"
To show you that it is not alone my judgment of Deppe—four of Kullak's best pupils, including Sherwood! left him for Deppe, after I did. They got so uneasy from what I told them, that they went to see Deppe, and as soon as they heard Fräulein Steiniger play, they had to admit that she had got hold of some secrets of which they knew nothing. Sherwood, you know, is a positive genius, yet he is beginning all over again, too. In short, we are all unanimous, while Deppe, on his side, is much gratified at having some American pupils.—He flatters himself that we will introduce all his cherished ideas into our "new and progressive country."
Ah, if I had only studied with Deppe before I went to Weimar! When I was there I didn't play half as often to Liszt as I might have done, kind and encouraging as he always was to me, for I always felt I wasn'tworthyto behispupil! But if I had known Deppe four years ago, what might I not have been now? After I took my first lesson of Deppe this thought made me perfectly wretched. I felt so dreadfully that I cried and cried. When I woke up in the morning I began to cry again. I was so afflicted that at last my landlady, who is very kind and sympathetic, asked me what ailed me. I told her I felt so dreadfully to think I had met the person I ought to have met four years ago, at the last minute, so.—"On the contrary, you ought to rejoice that you have met himat all," said she. "Many persons go through life without ever meeting the person they wish to, or they don't know him when they do."—Sensible woman, Frau von H.!—After that I stopped fretting, and tried to believe that thereis"a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we may."
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BERLIN,February 12, 1874.
I am now taking three lessons a week from Fräulein Steiniger and one lesson of Deppe himself, and he says I am almost through the technical preparation, though I still practice only with one hand, andveryslowly all the time. Fräulein Steiniger says that she also practiced slowly all the time for six months, as I am now doing. In fact, she completely forgot how to playfast, and one day when Deppe finally said to her in the lesson, "Now play fast for once," she could not do it, and had to learn it all over again. Of course she very soon got her hand in again, and now she has the most beautiful execution, and can playanythingperfectly.
Deppe wants me to play a Mozart concerto for two pianos with Fräulein Steiniger, the first thing I play in public. Did you know that Mozart wrotetwentyconcertos for the piano, and that nine of them are masterpieces? Yet nobody plays them. Why? Because they are too hard, Deppe says, and Lebert, the head of the Stuttgardt conservatory, told me the same thing at Weimar. I remember that the musical critic of theAtlantic Monthlyremarked that "we should regard Mozart's passages and cadenzas as child's play now-a-days."Child's play, indeed! That critic, whoever it is, "had better go to school again," as C. always says!
Deppe is remarkable in Mozart, and has studied him more than anybody else, I fancy. Indeed, to turn over his concertos, and see how he hasfingeredthem alone, is enough to make you dizzy. He is always saying, "You must hear Fannie Warburg play a Mozart concerto.Shecan do it!" and, indeed, I am most anxious to hear her.
It is ludicrous to hear Deppe talk about the artists that everybody else thinks so great. Having been a director of an orchestra for years, he has constantly directed their concerts, and he weighs them in a relentless balance! The other day he gave me Mendelssohn's Concerto in G minor, and just at the end of the first movement is a fearful break-neck passage for both hands. "There!" cried Deppe, "that's a good healthy place.Nehmen SieDASfür Ihr tägliches Gebet(Takethatfor your daily prayer). When you can play it eight times in succession without missing a note, I'll be satisfied. That is one of the places that when the pianists come to, they get their foot hard on to the pedal and hold on to it—Herr Gott!how they hold on to it—and soliethemselves through." He said he never heard anyone do it right except those to whom he had taught it. Steiniger played it for me the other day and it so astonished my ears that I felt like saying, "Herr Gott!" too. It was as if some one had snatched up a handful of hail and dashed it all over me. Br-r-r-zip! how it did go!—Like a bundle of rockets touched off one after the other. And yet this concerto is one of those things that everybody thrums, and is one of the regular pieces you must have in your repertoire. Deppe was quite shocked to find I had never learned it.
My lesson usually lasts three hours! Nothing Deppe hates like being hurried over a lesson. He likes to have plenty of time to express all his ideas and tell you a good many anecdotes in between! I usually take my lessons from seven till ten in the evening. Then he puts on his coat and saunters along with me on his way to his "Kneipe," or beer-garden, for he is far too sociable to go to bed without having taken a friendly glass of beer with some one. Every block or so he will stand stock still and impress some musicalpoint upon my mind, and will often harangue me for five or ten minutes before moving on. It seems to be impossible to him to walk andtalkat the same time! In this way you may imagine it takes me a good while to get home.
On Tuesday there is to be a grand ball at the opera house which the Emperor and the whole court grace with their presence, and lead off the first Polonaise. There are two of these grand public balls every winter. The tickets are sold, and it is the sole occasion where the public can have the felicity of gazing upon royalty in close proximity. I have never been, though all my German friends have been dinning it into my ears for the last four years that I ought to go and see it, for the decorations are magnificent. This year there is to be but one, as the Emperor is not very well, and I expect it will be as much as one's life is worth to get in and get out again, such is the rush!
The German officers waltz perfectly, and with great spirit and elegance. Dancing is a part of their military training and they are obliged to learn it. But they are not very comfortable partners, for one rubs one's face against their epaulets unless they are just the right height, and you've no rest for your left hand. They take only two turns round the room and then stop a moment or two to fan you and rest—then they take two more. The consequence is, one never gets fairly going before one has to stop. At first I used to think the effect of so many people whirling round in the same direction dizzying and monotonous. But when I became accustomed to it, the continual reversingof the Americans who come to Berlin struck me as angular, in contrast to the graceful German circling. It is not "the thing" here for the girls to look flushed and disordered—skirts torn, and hair out of crimp—as our belles do at the end of an evening. They retire from the ball-room with their dresses in faultless condition, so that going to parties in Germany must cost thepater familiasconsiderably less than with us! The floor is never so crowded with dancers at one time, and as they are going in the same direction, they don't run into each other as our couples do. On the other hand, they don't have such a "good time" out of it as do our girls, with their long five and ten minute turns to those delicious waltzes! Strange, that though Germany is the native home of the waltz, and the Vienna waltzes surpass all others, the Schottisch or Rhinelaender should be their favourite dance. They dance it very gracefully and rythmically.
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BERLIN,March 1, 1874.
I went the other evening to the Opera ball I wrote you of in my last. The whole opera house, stage and all, was floored over, and magnificently decorated with evergreens, mirrors, fountains, and flowers. The tickets are sold for some charitable purpose. Only nice people can get in, because the whole thing is systematically arranged, and nobody can give their tickets to anybody else. I got mine through Mr. Bancroft, and I went with two other ladies and a gentleman.
We went very early, so as to get a box to sit in, andnevershall I forget the first effect of the ball-room! That immense polished floor stretching out like one vast mirror or sheet of ice, the fountains flashing at the sides, the walls wreathed with green, a big orchestra sitting in the balcony at each end, and about a hundred pairs of magnificently dressed ladies and gentlemen descending the stairs into the rooms and promenading about. Light, diamonds, colour, everywhere. Oh, it was perfectly fairy-like! The floor was built over the tops of the chairs in the parquette, and the entrance was through the royal box, which is just in the centre of the opera house, facing the stage. This box is like a large recess, of course, and not like the ordinary boxes. There was an entrance on each side, coming in from the corridor, and a flight of broad steps, carpeted, had been improvised, which led from it down to the floor. It looked perfectly dazzling to see the pairs come in from both sides at once and descend the steps, and the ladies' dresses were displayed to perfection. Such toilets I never saw. The women were covered with lace, feathers, and diamonds. The simpler dresses were of tarletane (mine included!) but as they were quite fresh they gave a very dressy air. We had a splendid box, first rank, and the second from the proscenium boxes on the left, in which sat the royal family. In the box between us and the latter sat the wife of the French ambassador with the Countess von Seidlewitz and her sister, and behind them was a formidable array of magnificent-looking officers in full uniform, their breasts flashing with stars and orders and silver chains.
The Countess von Seidlewitz is a famous court beauty and is lady of honour to the Princess Carl (sister of the Empress). She sat just next to me, as only the partition of the box was between us, and she was the most beautiful woman I saw—perfectly imperial, in fact—white and magnificent as a lily. Her features were perfectly regular, and she had a proudly-cut mouth, and such dazzling little teeth! Then, her arms, neck, and shape were exquisite. She wore the severest kind of dress, and one that only such beauty could have borne. It was a white silk, with an immense train, of course, and without overskirt—simply caught up in a great puff behind. The waist was made with a small basque, but very low, and with very short sleeves. Round the neck was a white bugle fringe, and there were two or three rows of this fringe in front, graduating to the waist, smaller and smaller, and going round the basque. All the front breadth of the skirt was laid in folds of satin, in groups of three, and on the edge of every third row was the fringe again, graduating wider and wider toward the bottom. In her hair she wore a wreath of white verbenas or (snow-balls) and green leaves. Her sole ornament was a magnificent diamond locket and ear-rings of some curious design, the locket depending from a very fine gold chain, which challenged all observers to notice the faultlessness of her neck. One sly bit of coquetry was visible in two natural flowers, lilies-of-the-valley, with their leaves, which she had stuck in her corsage so that they should rest against her neck and show that they were not whiter than her skin.—Yousee there were no folds anywhere, as there was no overskirt, but the whole dress hung in long lines and showed the contour of the figure. Nothing but these fringes (which gleamed and waved with every motion) relieved it—not even a bit of black velvet anywhere, for the lace round the neck was drawn through with a white silk thread. There was another lady in the same box whose dress was very beautiful, too, though she herself was not. It was a green silk with green tulle overdress puffed, and with ears of silver wheat scattered over it. The tunic was of silver crape, the bottom cut in scallops and trimmed with silver wheat. A wisp of wheat was knotted round her neck for a necklace, and a perfect sheaf of it in her hair. It was an exquisite dress.
At ten o'clock everybody had arrived—about two thousand people. The orchestra struck up the Polonaise, and the court descended from the box to make the tour of the floor (i. e., only the members of the royal family with their ladies of honour). The Emperor was not very well, so he remained in his box, but the Empress led off with the Duke of Edinburgh, who happened to be here. She was dressed in lavender satin, covered with the most superb white lace. Her hair was done in braids on the top of her head, very high, and upon it was fastened a double coronet of diamonds, stuck on in stars, etc., which flashed like so many small suns. Round her neck depended from a black velvet band, strings of diamonds of great size and magnificence. It really almost made you start when your eye caught them unexpectedly! The Empressis a very elegant-looking woman, and is every inch a queen. She moved with stately step, bowing and bowing graciously from side to side to the crowd which parted and bent before her, and was followed by the Crown Prince and Princess, the Princess Carl, the Princess Friedrich Carl (a beauty) and her daughters, and I don't know who all, with their ladies of honour. When the Countess von Seidlewitz came along, with her fringes waving and gleaming in front of her, she shone out from all the rest, and, in fact, from the whole two thousand guests, like the planet Venus among the other stars.—Stunning!
The orchestra banged away its loudest, and it was quite exciting. The three balconies were crowded with people, and all the boxes. The box of the diplomatic corps was just opposite us, and our gay little Mrs. F. sat in it dressed in white satin. Some of my friends came and stood under my box and tried to get me to come down, but I would not, for I knew I should lose my place if I did, and, indeed, I would not want to dance there unless my dress were something superlative. You see, all the swells sat in their boxes and gazed right down on the dancers, who had a circular place roped off for them. De Rilvas, the Spanish minister, looked so fine, however, with his broad blue ribbon across his breast and his gold cross depending from his neck, that I should have liked very well to have made the tour of the room with him.
A Set of Beethoven Variations. Fannie Warburg. Deppe'sInventions. His Room. His AfternoonCoffee. Pyrmont.
A Set of Beethoven Variations. Fannie Warburg. Deppe'sInventions. His Room. His AfternoonCoffee. Pyrmont.
BERLIN,April 30, 1874.
I wish you were here now so that I could play you a set of little variations by Beethoven called, "I've only got a little hut." They arebewitching, and I think I can now play them so as to express (as Deppe says) "that he had indeed nothing but his little hut, but was quite happy in it." In the last variation he dances a waltz in his little hut! I have learned a great deal from these tiny variations, taught in Deppe's inimitable fashion. When I first took them to him I began playing the second of the variations—which is rather plaintive and seems to indicate that the proprietor of the little hut had a misgiving that theremightbe a better abode somewhere on the earth—with a great deal of "expression," as I thought. I soon found out I was overdoing it, however, and that it is not always so easy to define where good expression stops and bad style begins. "Why do you make those notes stick out so?" asked Deppe, as I was giving vent to my "soul-longings," (as P. says). "Learn to paint ingrossen Flaechen(great surfaces)." He made me play it again perfectly legato, and with no one note "sticking out" more than another. I saw at once that he wasright about it, and that the effect was much better, while it took nothing from the real sentiment of the piece. It was one of those cases where a simple statement was all that was necessary. Anything more detracted from rather than added to it.
I have at last heard Fannie Warburg in a Mozart concerto, for she has got back from England. How she did play it! To say that the passages "pearled," would be saying nothing at all. Why, the piano justwarbledthem out like a nightingale! The last movement had the infectious gayety that Mozart's things often have, with a magnificent cadenza by himself. She rendered it so perfectly, and with such naïve light-heartedness, that none of us could resist it, and we all finally burst into a laugh! There was a little orchestra accompanying, which Deppe had got together and was directing. When she got to the cadenza, he laid down his bâton, and retired to lean against the door and enjoy it. She did it in the most masterly manner, and O, it wassodifficult! I thought of the Boston critic, who considered Mozart's compositions "child's play." Theyarechild's play—that is, they arenothing at allif they are not faultlessly played, and every faultshows, which is the reason so few attempt them. Your hand must be "in order," as Deppe says, to do it.
Fannie Warburg is a sweet little eighteen-year-old maiden. A shy little bud of a girl without any vanity or self-consciousness. She has a lovely hand for the piano, and the way she uses it is perfectly exquisite. It is small and plump, but strong, with firm little fingers.Every muscle is developed, and indeed it could not be otherwise, after such a six years' training. One of Deppe's rules is that when you raise the finger the knuckle must not stick out. The finger must "sit firm (fest-sitzen) in the joint." Fannie Warburg's fingers "sitzen" so "fest" that when she plays she positively has a little row of dimples where her knuckles ought to be. It looks too pretty for anything—just like a baby's hand. She does not seem to have the slightest ambition, however, and I doubt whether she will ever do anything with her music after she leaves Deppe. Her mother was from Hamburg, and had taken lessons of Deppe there when they were both quite young. She thought him such a remarkable teacher that she declared her daughter should have no other master. So when Fannie was twelve years old she brought her to him, and he has been giving her lessons ever since—something like Samuel's mother bringing him to the Temple, wasn't it?—and indeed when I go into Deppe's shabby little room I always feel as if I were in a little Temple of Music! I like to see the furniture all bestrewn with it, and Deppe himself seated at his table surrounded with piles of manuscript, pen in hand, going over and arranging them, bringing order out of chaos. Other orchestra leaders are always writing and begging him to lend them his copies of Oratorios, etc.
Deppe has all sorts of practical little ideas peculiar to himself. For instance, he has invented a candlestick to stand on a grand piano. In shape it is curved, like those things for candles attached to upright pianos, butwith a weighted foot to hold it firm. It is a capital invention, for you put one each side of the music-rack, and then you can turn it so as to throw the light on your music, just as you can turn those on the upright pianos. It is on the same principle, only with the addition of the foot. It is much more convenient than a lamp, because it doesn't rattle, and you can throw the light on the page so much better.—Then he always insists on our having our pieces bound separately, in a cover of stout blue paper, such as copy books are bound in. He entirely disapproves of binding music in books. "Who will lug a great heavy book along?" he will ask, "and besides, they don't lie open well."
The other day Deppe told me he wanted me to come and hear Fräulein Steiniger take her lesson, as she had some interesting pieces to play. I found her already there when I arrived. Deppe was in an uncommonly good humour, and kept making little jokes. She played a string of things, and finally ended off with Liszt's arrangement of the Spinning Song from Wagner's Flying Dutchman. Deppe is dreadfully fussy about this piece, and made some such subtle and telling points regarding theconceptionof the composition, that they were worthy of Liszt himself. I mean to learn it, and when I come home I will play it to you as Deppe taught it to Steiniger, and you will see how fascinating it is. I know you'll be carried away with it.
Toward the end of the lesson it was growing rather late, and time also for Deppe's coffee, which beverage you know the Germans always drink late in the afternoon, accompanied with cakes. He had just laid down his violin, ashe and Fräulein Steiniger had played a sonata together, and had seated himself at the piano to show her about some passage or other. Deeply absorbed, he was haranguing her as hard as he could, when the maid of all work suddenly entered with the coffee on a tray, and was apparently about to set it down on the piano in close proximity to the violin. "Herr Gott, nicht auf die Violin!(Good gracious, not on the violin!)" exclaimed Deppe, springing frantically up and rescuing the beloved instrument. "Where then?" said the girl. "Oh, anywhere, only not on the violin." She set it down on a chair and vanished. There were only three chairs in the room, and the sofa was covered with music. Fräulein Steiniger occupied one chair, I the second, and the coffee the third. Deppe glanced around in momentary bewilderment, and then sat himself plump down on the floor, took his coffee, stretched out his legs, and began stirring it imperturbably. "But Herr Deppe!" remonstrated Steiniger. "Well," said he, with his light-hearted laugh, "what else can I do when I have no chair?" There was no carpet on the floor, which was an ordinary painted one, and he looked funny enough, sitting there, but he enjoyed his coffee just as well!—After he had finished drinking it, the shades of night were falling, and it occurred to him it would be well to illuminate his apartment. He is the happy possessor of five minute lamps and candlesticks, no two of which are the same height. The lamps are two in number, and are about as big as the smallest sized fluid lamp that we used in old times to go to bed by. The three candlesticks are of china, and adorned with designs in decalcomania—probably the handiwork of grateful pupils, for in Germany there is no present like a "Hand-Arbeit(something done by the hand of the giver)." It is the correct thing to give a gentleman. When Fräulein Steiniger and I only are present, Deppe usually considers the two lamps sufficient. But if others are there and he is going to have some music in the evening, he will produce the three minute candlesticks, with an end of candle in each, light them, and dispose them in various parts of the room. When, however, as on great occasions, the five lamps and candlesticks are supplemented by twomorecandles on the piano in the curved candlesticks of Deppe's own invention, the blaze of light is something tremendous to our unaccustomed eyes! Nothing short of the Tuileries or the "Weisser Saal" at the palace here could equal it!
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BERLIN,May 31, 1874.
This season with Deppe has been of such immense importance to me, that I don't knowwhatsum of money I would take in exchange for it. By practicing in his method the tone has an entirely different sound, being round, soft and yet penetrating, while the execution of passages is infinitely facilitated and perfected. In fact, it seems to me that in time one could attain anything by it, but time itwillhave. One has to study for months very slowly and with very simple things, to get into the way of playing so, and to be able to think about each finger as you use it—to "feelthe note and make it conscious." Deppe won't let me finish anything at present,so I can't tell how far along I am myself. His principle is, never to learn a piece completely the first time you attack it, but to master it three-quarters, and then let it lie as you would fruit that you have put on a shelf to ripen;—afterward, take it up again and finish it. The principlemaybe a good one, but it prevents my ever having anything to play for people, and consequently I have ceased playing in company entirely. In fact, I find it impossible, and I don't see how Sherwood manages it.Hehas a whole repertoire, and sits down and plays piece after piece deliciously. But then he is a perfect genius, and will make a sensation when he comes out. He has that natural repose and imperturbability that are everything to an artist, but which, unfortunately, so few of us possess. His compositions, too, are exquisite, and so poetical! Mrs. Wrisley,[I]of Boston, and Fräulein Estleben, of Sweden, who left Kullak when I did, are also gifted creatures, whereas I think I am only a steady old poke-along, whowon'tgive up! Sherwood, however, is head and shoulders above all of us.
[The following extract, taken from the report in theMusical Reviewof Mr. Sherwood's address before the Music Teachers' National Association in Buffalo, in June, 1880, would seem to show that whether this distinguished young virtuoso, now by far the leading American concert-pianist, gained his ideas on the study of touch and tone from Herr Deppe or not, he certainly endorses them in both his playing and his teaching:—"It makes a great deal of difference whether a piano be struck with a stick, with mechanical fingers, or with fingers that are full of life and magnetism. I have examined Rubinstein'shand and arm, and found that they are not only full of life and magnetism, but that they are extremely elastic, and the fingers are so soft that the bones are scarcely felt. Can practice produce these qualities? I believe so, and I make it a point both with my pupils and myself to practice slow motions. It is much easier to strike quickly than slowly, but practice in the slow movement will develop both muscular and nervous power. And the tone obtained by this motion is much better than that obtained by striking. The mechanical practice in vogue at Leipsic and other European conservatories often fails because the subject of æsthetics and tone beauties are neglected." See pp. 288, 302-3, 334.]—ED.
My lessons with Deppe are a genuine musical excitement to me, always. In every one is something so new and unexpected—something that I never dreamed of before—that I am lost in astonishment and admiration. The weeks fly by like days before I know it. Deppe gives me the most beautiful music, and never wastes time over things which will be of no use to me afterward. Every piece has anaim, and is lovely, also, to play to people. Now, in Tausig's and Kullak's conservatories I wasted quantities of time over things which are beautiful enough, and do to play to one's self, but which are not in the least effective to play to other people either in the parlour or in the concert-room—as Bach's Toccata in C, for example. Such things take a good while to learn, and are of no practical advantage afterward. But Deppe has an organizedplanin everything he does.
In my study with Kullak when I had any specialdifficulties, he only said, "Practice always, Fräulein.Timewill do it for you some day. Hold your hand any way that is easiest for you. You can do it inthisway—or inthisway"—showing me different positions of the hand in playing the troublesome passage—"or you can play it with thebackof the hand if that will help you any!" But Deppe, instead of saying, "Oh, you'll get this after years of practice," shows me how to conquer the difficultynow. He takes a piece, and while he plays it with the most wonderfulfinenessof conception, he cold-bloodedly dissects the mechanical elements of it, separates them, and tells you how to use your hand so as to grasp them one after the other. In short, he makes the technique and the conceptionidentical, as of course they ought to be, but I never had any other master who trained his pupils to attempt it.
Deppe also hears me play, I think, in the true way, and as Liszt used to do: that is, he never interrupts me in a piece, but lets me go through it from beginning to end, andthenhe picks out the places he has noted, and corrects or suggests. These suggestions are always something which are not simply for that piece alone, but which add to your whole artistic experience—aprinciple, so to speak. So, without meaning any disparagement to the splendid masters to whom I owe all my previous musical culture, I cannot help feeling that I have at last got into the hands not of a mere piano virtuoso, however great, but, rather, of a profound musicalsavant—a man who has been a violinist, as well as a director, and who, without being a player himself, has made such a study of the piano, thatprobably all pianists except Liszt might learn something from him. You may all think me "enthusiastic," or evenwild, as much as you like; but whether or not I ever conquer my own block of a hand—which has every defect a handcanhave!—when I come home and begin teaching you all on Deppe's method, you'll succumb to the genius and beauty of it just as completely as I have. You willthenall admit I was RIGHT!
July 22.—I have finally made up my mind to go to Pyrmont when Deppe does, and spend several weeks, keeping right on with my lessons, and perhaps, giving a little concert there. I have always had a curiosity to visit one of the German watering places, as I'm told they are extremely pleasant.
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PYRMONT,August 1, 1874.
Here I am in Pyrmont, and there's no knowing where I shall turn up next! Fräulein Steiniger got here before me, but Deppe has not yet arrived from Brussels, whither he has gone to be present at the yearly exhibition of the Conservatoire there. He has been appointed one of the judges on piano-playing. Pyrmont is a lovely little place. It is in a valley surrounded by hills, heavily wooded, and has a beautiful park, as all German towns have, no matter how small. The avenues of trees surpass anything I ever saw. The soil has something peculiar about it, and is particularly adapted to trees. They grow to an immense height, and their stems look so strong, and their foliage is so tremendously luxuriant, that it seems as if they were ready to burst for very life!
Fräulein Steiniger went with me to look up some rooms. Every family in Pyrmont takes lodgers, so that it is not difficult to find good accommodations. The women are renowned for being good housekeepers and their rooms are charmingly fitted up, but the prices are very high, as they live the whole year on what they make in summer. People come here to drink the waters of the springs, and to take the baths, which are said to be very invigorating. My rooms are near the principal "Allée" or Avenue, leading from the Springs. About half way down is a platform where the orchestra sit and play three times a day—at seven in the morning (which is the hour before breakfast, when it is the thing to take a glass or two of the water, and promenade a little), at four in the afternoon, when everybody takes their coffee in the open air, and at seven in the evening. As I don't drink the waters I do not rise early, and am usually awakened by the strains of the orchestra. There is a little piazza outside my window where I take my breakfast and supper. For dinner I go to "table-d'hôte" at a hotel near.—It is a great relief to get out of Berlin and see something green once more. I find the weather very cool, however, and one needs warm clothing here.
There are the loveliest walks all about Pyrmont that you can imagine, and beautiful wood-paths are cut along the sides of the hills. My favourite one is round the cone of a small hill to the right of the town. The path completely girdles it, and you can start and walk round the hill, returning to the point you set out from. It is likea leafy gallery, and before and behind you is always this curving vista. Whenever I take the walk it reminds me of—
It is the first time I ever succeeded in combining the carved and the straight line at the same time—because, of course, it is mydutyto take exercise!
The Brussels Conservatoire. Steiniger. Excursion to Kleinberg.Giving a Concert. Fräulein Timm.
The Brussels Conservatoire. Steiniger. Excursion to Kleinberg.Giving a Concert. Fräulein Timm.
PYRMONT,August 15, 1874.
Deppe has got back from Brussels, and, as you may imagine, he had much to tell about his flight into the world, particularly as he had also been to London. He had a delightful time with the professors of the Brussels Conservatoire, who were all extremely polite to him, and he heard some talented young pupils. There was one girl about seventeen, whom he said he would give a good deal to have ashispupil, so gifted is she, though her playing did not suit him in many respects. He said he could have made some severe criticisms, but he refrained—partly because he felt the uselessness of it, partly because he says "itisextraordinary how amiable one gets whenyoung ladiesare in question!" He was very enthusiastic over the violin classes. "What a bow the youngsters do draw!" he exclaimed. Dupont, the great piano teacher in Brussels, must be a man of considerable "esprit," judging from the two of his compositions that I am familiar with—the "Toccata" and the "Staccato." I used to hear a good deal about him from his pupil Gurickx, whom I met in Weimar. Certainly Gurickx played magnificently, and with abrioI have rarely heard equalled. He is like an electric battery. Quite another school,however, from Deppe's—the severe, the chaste and the classic! Extremepurity of styleis Deppe's characteristic, and not the passionate or the emotional. For instance, he has scarcely given me any Chopin, but keeps me among the classics, as he says on that side my musical culture has been deficient. He says that Chopin has been "so played to death that he ought to be put aside for twenty years!"—But if Chopin were really sympathetic to him he could never saythat! The truth is, the modern "problematische Natur" has no charms for a transparent and simple temperament like his.
Steiniger has been playing most beautifully lately. She has given two concerts of her own here, and has played at another. Then she rehearsed with orchestra Mozart's B flat major concerto—the most difficult concerto in the world, and oh,soexquisite! Though I had long wished to do so, I never had heard it before, and as I listened I felt as if I never could leave Deppe until I could playthat! I wish you could have heard it. It is sown with difficulties—enough to make your hair stand on end! Steiniger played it with an ease and perfection truly astonishing. The notes seemed fairly to run out of her fingers for fun. The last movement was Mozart all over, just as merry as a cricket!—I doubt whether anybody can play this concerto adequately who has not studied with Deppe. The beauty of his method is that the greatest difficulties become play to you.
I love to see Deppe direct the orchestra when Steiniger plays a concerto of Mozart. His clear blue eyesdance in his head and look so sunny, and he stands so light on his feet that it seems as if he would dance off himself on the tips of his toes, with his bâton in his hand! He is the incarnation of Mozart, just as Liszt and Joachim are of Beethoven, and Tausig was of Chopin. He has a marvellously delicate musical organization, and an instinct how things ought to be played which amounts to second sight. Fräulein Steiniger said to him one day: "Herr Deppe, I don't know why it is, but I can't make the opening bars of this piece sound right. It doesn't produce the impression it ought." "I know why," said Deppe. "It is because you don't strike the chord of G minor before you begin,"—and so it was. When she struck the chord of G minor, it was the right preparation, and brought you immediately into the mood for what followed. Itfixedthe key.
Aside from music, Deppe, like all artists, has the most childlike nature, and I think Mozart is so peculiarly sympathetic to him because he has such a simple and sunny temperament himself. We made a beautiful excursion the other day in carriages, through the hills, to a little village far distant, where we drank coffee in the open air. Deppe, who knows every foot of the ground about Pyrmont, which he has frequented from his youth up, kept calling our attention to all the points of the scenery over and over again with the greatest delight, quite forgetting that he repeated the same thing fifty times. "That little village over there is called Kleinberg. It has a school and a church, and the pastor's name is Koehler," he would say to mefirst. Then he would repeat it to every one in our carriage. Then he would stand up and call it over to the carriage behind us. Then when he had got out he said it to the assembled crowd, and as I walked on in advance with Fräulein Estleben, the last thing I heard floating over the hill-top was, "The pastor's name is Koehler,"—so I knew he was still instructing some one in the fact. "I wonder how often Deppe has repeated that?" I said to Fräulein Estleben. "At least fifty times," said she, laughing. "I'm going back to him and ask him once more what the name of the pastor is." So I went back, and said, "By the way, Herr Deppe, what did you say the name of the pastor of that village is?" "Koehler," said dear old Deppe, with great distinctness and with such simple good faith that I felt reproached at having quizzed him, though the others could scarcely keep their countenances, as they knew what I was after.
I have been preparing for some time to give a concert of Chamber Music in the salon of the hotel here, and expect it to take place a week from to-day. My head feels quitelamefrom so much practicing, the consequence, I suppose, of so much listening. I am to play a Quintette, Op. 87, in E major, by Hummel, for piano and strings, and a Beethoven Sonata, Op. 12, in E flat, for violin and piano, and the other instruments will play a Quartette by Haydn in between. It is a beautiful little programme, I think—every piece perfect of its kind. If I succeed in this concert as I hope, I shall probably listen to Deppe's implorings and remain under his guidance another season. Deppe believes that onemustgo through successive steps of preparation before one is fitted to attack the great concert works. I've found out (what he took good care not to tell me in the beginning!) that his "course" is three years!! and you can't hurry either him or his method. Your fingers have got to grow into it.—I do not at all regret, with you, not having hitherto played in concert; on the contrary, I think it providential that I did not. You see, you and I started out with wholly impracticable and ridiculous ideas. We thought that things could be done quickly. Well, theycan'tbe done quickly and be worth anything. One must keep an end in view for years and gradually work up to it. The length of time spent in preparation has to be the same, whether you begin as a child (which is the best, and indeed the only proper way), or whether you begin after you have grown up. It is a ten years' labour, take it how you will.
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PYRMONT,August 15, 1874.
My concert came off yesterday evening, and Deppe says it was a complete success. I did not play any solos, after all, though I had prepared some beautiful ones, for Deppe said the programme would be too long, and he was not quite sure of my courage. "You'd be frightened, if you were aHerr Gott!" said he; but, contrary to my usual habit, I wasn't frightened in the least, and I think I did as well as such a shaky, trembly concern as I, could have expected, particularlyas my hands are two little fiends whowon'tplay if they don't feel like it, do what I will to make them!—My programme wasà laJoachim (!)—only three pieces of Chamber Music:—
Deppe arranged the whole thing most practically. We had a largesallein the Hotel Bremen which was admirably proportioned, and a new grand piano from Berlin. Deppe had only so many chairs placed as he had given out invitations, and the consequence was that every chair was filled, and there were no rows of empty seats. My "public" was very musical and critical, and there were so many good judges there that I wonder I wasn't nervous; but a sort of inspiration came to me at the moment.
The musicians who accompanied me were exceedingly good ones for such a place as Pyrmont, and my strictlyclassicselections were received with great favour by the audience! That quintette of Hummel's is a most charming composition—so flowing and elegant—and one can display a good deal of virtuosity in the last part of it. I played first and last, and the quartette in between was performed by the stringed instruments alone. After I had finished the quintette, Deppe, who was at the extreme end of the hall, sent me word that I was "doing famously, and that he was delighted," and this encouraged me so that mysonata went beautifully, too. When it was over, ever so many people came up and congratulated me, and Fräulein Timm, Deppe's head teacher in Hamburg, even complimented me on my "extraordinary facility of execution." I couldn't help laughing at that, with my stubborn hand which never will do anything, and which only the most intense study has schooled—but in truth I was quite surprised myself at the plausible way in which it went over all difficulties! Quite a number of Deppe's scholars were present, all of them critics and several of them beautiful pianists. Two nice American girls, sisters, from the West, came on from Berlin on purpose for my concert. They helped me dress, and presented me with an exquisite bouquet. One of them is taking lessons of Deppe, and the other has a great talent for drawing, and has been two years studying in Berlin. She says she has only made a "beginning" now, and that she wishes to study "indefinitely" yet.—So it is in Art! I think her heads are excellent already.
After the concert was over, Deppe gave me a little champagne supper, together with Fräuleins Timm, Steiniger, and these two young ladies. When he poured out the wine he said he was going to propose a toast to two ladies; one of them, of course, was myself, "and the other," said he, "is in America, namely, the friend of Fräulein Fay, whom I judge to be a woman of genius, so truly and rightly does she feel about art (I've translated H's letters to him), and so nobly has she sympathized with and stood by Fräulein Fay.—To Mrs. A., whose acquaintance I longto make!"—You may be sure I drank tothattoast with enthusiasm. Ah, it was a pleasant evening, after so many years of fruitless toil! The fat and jolly old landlord came himself to put me into the carriage and to say that everybody in the audience had expressed their pleasure and gratification at my performance. I rather regret now that I did not play my solos, but perhaps it is just as well to leave them until another time. I have "sprung over one little mound"—to use Deppe's simile—and got an idea of the impetus that will be necessary to "carry me over the mountain."
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PYRMONT,September 4, 1874.
After the unwonted exaltation of the success of my little concert, I have been suffering a corresponding reaction, partly because Fräulein Timm, Deppe's Hamburg assistant, with whom I am now studying, began her instructions, as teachers always do, by chucking me into a deeper slough of despond than usual. Consequently, I haven't been very bright, though I am gradually coming up to the surface again, for I'm pretty hard to drown!
Fräulein Timm belongs to the single sisterhood, but is one of the fresh and placid kind, and as neat as wax. She's got a great big brain and a remarkable gift for teaching, for which she has apassion. I quite adore her when she gets on her spectacles, for then she looks the personification of Sagacity! She hasbeen associated with Deppe for years in teaching, and "keeps all his sayings and ponders them in her heart." Indeed, she knows his ideas almost better than he does himself, and carries on the whole circle of pupils that he left in Hamburg when he came to Berlin. Every now and then he runs down to see how they are getting on, gives them all lessons, reviews what they have done, and brings Fräulein Timm all the new pieces he has discovered and fingered. She also comes occasionally to Berlin to see him, takes a lesson every day, fills herself with as many new ideas as possible, and then returns to her post. Together, they form a very strong pair, and I think it a capital illustration of your theory that men ought to associate women with them in their work, and that "men shouldcreate, and womenperfect."
Deppe makes Fräulein Timm and Fräulein Steiniger his partners and associates in his ideas, and the consequence is they add all their ingenuity to impart them to others. This spares him much of the tedious technical work, and leaves him free for the higher spheres of art, as they take the beginners and prepare them for him.Hehas madethemmagnificent teachers, and they employ their gifts to furtherhim. I don't doubt that through them his method will be perpetuated, and even if he should die it would not be lost to the world. On the other hand, he has given them something to live for.—Curious that thepracticalnessof this association with women doesn't strike the masculine mind oftener!
So I am going down to Hamburg to study for atime with this Fräulein Timm, as I think she will develop my hand quicker than Deppe, even. Deppe has always urged me to it, but I never would do it, as I did not know her personally, and did not wish to leave him. Now that I have tried her, however, I find he was right, as healwaysis! At present she is throwing her whole weight upon my wrist, which I hope will get limber under it! She has an obstinacy and a perseverance in sticking at you that drive you almost wild, but make you learn "lots" in the end. I think my grand trouble all these years has been a stiff wrist and a heavy arm. I have borne down too heavily on wrist and arm, whereas the whole weight and power must be just in the tips of the fingers, and the wrist and arm must be quite light and free, the hand turning upon the wrist as if it were a pivot.
Pyrmont is an exquisite little place, and I regret to leave it. At first I almost perished with loneliness, but now that I have a few acquaintances here I am enjoying it. It is a fashionable watering place, but chiefly visited by ladies. There are about a hundred women to one man! The first week I was here I lived at a Herr S.'s, but finding it too expensive I looked up another lodging and am now living with a jolly old maid. I like living with old maids. I think they are much neater than married women, and they make you more comfortable. As the season is now over, this one's house is quite empty, and it is exquisitely kept. I took two rooms in the third story, small but very cozy, and with a lovely view of the hills.
We have just had the loveliest illumination I ever saw. It was one Sunday evening—"Golden Sunday" they call it here, though why theyshouldcall it so, I know not. I accepted the information, however, without inquiry into first causes, and went out in the evening to promenade in the Allée with the rest. The Allée is not all on a level, but descends gradually from the springs to a fountain which is at the opposite end. Rows and rows of Japanese lanterns were festooned across the trees. As you walked down the path, you saw the festoons one below the other. The fountain was illuminated with gas jets behind the water. You could not see the water till you got close up, and at a distance only the rows of gas jets were apparent. As you neared it, however, the watery veil seemed flung over them, like the foamy tulle over a bride. It was very fascinating to look at, and I kept receding a few paces and then returning. As I receded, the watery veil would disappear, and as I approached it would again take form. It reminded me of some people's characters, of which you see the bright points from the first, and think you know them so well, but when you draw closer, even in the moments of greatest intimacy, you always feel a veil between you and them—a thin, impalpable something which you cannot annihilate, even though you may seethroughit.
We walked up and down the Allée a long time listening to the orchestra, which was playing. The magnificent great trees looked more beautiful than ever, with their lower boughs lit up by the lanterns,and their upper ones disappearing mysteriously into shadow. At last the tapers in the lanterns burned out one after another, the avenue was wrapped in gloom, and we finished this poetic evening in the usual prosaic manner by returning home and going to bed!