He was sure that the desire to create, to be, to do, would
never come again these were all of the past. One day
on an idle stroll through the park he met Merelli. As
they walked along together, Merelli took from his
pocket a book, the story of " Nabucco," and handing it
to Verdi, asked him to look it over, and see if he thought
there was a chance to make an opera out of it. Verdi
responded that he was not in the business of writing
operas he had quit all such follies. He took the volume,
however, but neglected to look at it for several days.
At last he read the pages. He laid the book down and
began to pace the floor. Possibilities of creation were
looming large before him a rush of thought was upon
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GIUSEPPE VERDI
him. His soul was not dead it had only been lying
fallow 53 53
He secured the loan of a piano and set to work. In a
month the opera was completed. Merelli hesitated about
accepting it twice he had lost money on Verdi. Finally
he decided he would put the play on, if Verdi would
waive all royalties for the first three performances, if it
were a success, and then sell the- opera outright " at a
reasonable price," if Merelli should chance to want it.
The " reasonable price " was assumed to be about a
thousand francs two hundred dollars pretty good
pay for a month's work.
Verdi took no interest in the production of the piece. He
had come to the conclusion that the public was a fickle,
foolish thing, and no one could tell what it would hiss
or applaud. Then he remembered the blackness of the
night when only two years before his other opera was
produced 53 53
He made his way to his dingy little room and went to
bed 53 53
Very early the next morning there was a loud pound-
ing on his door. It was Merelli. "How much for your
opera?" asked the impresario, pushing his way into the
room 53 53
' Thirty thousand francs," came a voice, loud and clear
out of the bedclothes.
" Don't be a fool," returned Merelli " why do you ask
such a sum! "
288
GIUSEPPE VERDI
" Because you are here at five o'clock in the morning
the price will be fifty thousand this afternoon." <J Ten
minutes of parley followed, and then Merelli drew his
check for twenty thousand francs, and Verdi gave his
quitclaim, turned over in bed, and went to sleep again.
289
GIUSEPPE VERDI
HE success of "Nabucodonosor" was com-
plete. Its author had his twenty thousand
francs, but Merelli made more than that. From
Eighteen Hundred Forty- two to Eighteen Hun-
dred Fifty-one may be called the First Verdi Period. A
dozen successful operas were produced, and simultane-
ously at Rome, Naples.Venice, Milan, Genoa and Florence,
Verdi's compositions were being presented. The master
was a businessman, as well as an artist the combina-
tion is not so unusual as was long believed and knew
how to get the most for the mintage of his mind.
Money fairly flowed his way.
Verdi married again in Eighteen Hundred Fifty. His life
now turns into what may be called the Second Verdi
Period. After this we shall see no more such curious
exhibitions of bad taste as a ballet of forty witches in
" Macbeth," capering nimbly to a syncopated melody,
with " Lady Macbeth in a needlessly abbreviated
skirt singing a drinking-song to an absent lover. In
strenuous efforts to avoid coarseness Verdi may occasion-
ally give us soft sentimentality, but the change is for the
best 33 3S
His mate was a woman of mind as well as heart. She
was his intellectual companion, his friend, his wife. For
nearly fifty years they lived together. Her dust now lies
in the " House of Rest," at Milan, a home for aged
artists, founded by Verdi. This " House of Rest " was
a Love-Offering, dedicated to the woman who had
290
GIUSEPPE VERDI
given him, without stint, of the richness of her nature;
who had bestowed rest, and peace, and hope and gentle
love. She had no feverish ambitions and petty plans and
schemes for secretly corralling pleasure, power, place,
attention, or selfish admiration. By giving all, she won
all. She devoted herself to this man in whom she had
perfect faith, and he had perfect faith in her. She
ministered to him. They grew great together. When
each was over eighty years of age, Henry James met
them at Cremona, at a musical festival in honor of the
birthday of Stradivari. And thus wrote Henry James:
' Verdi and his wife were there, admired above all
others. And why not? Think of whom they are, and
what they stand for nearly a century of music, and a
century of life ! The master is tall, straight, proud, com-
manding. He has a courtly old-time grace of bearing;
and he kissed his wife's hand when he took leave of her
for an hour's stroll. And the Madame surely is not old
in spirit; she is as sprightly as our own Mrs. John
Sherwood, who translated 'Carcassonne' so well that
she improved on the original, because in her heart
spring fresh and fragrant every day the flowers of
tender, human, Godlike sympathy."
291
GIUSEPPE VERDI
IGOLETTO," produced in the year Eighteen
Hundred Fifty-one at Venice, is founded on
Victor Hugo's " Le Roi s' Amuse "; and the
music has all the dramatic fire that matches
the Hugo plot. Verdi's devotion to Victor Hugo is seen
again in the use of " Hernani " for operatic purposes.
"II Trovatore " and " La Traviata " followed " Rigo-
letto," and these three operas are usually put forward
as the Verdi masterpieces. The composer himself
regarded them with a favor that may well be pardoned,
since he used to say that he and his wife collaborated in
their production she writing the music and he looking
on. The proportion of truth and poetry in this statement
is not on record. But the simple fact remains that
"II Trovatore " was always a favorite with Verdi, and
even down to his death he would travel long distances
to hear it played. A correspondent of the " Musical
Courier," writing from Paris in Eighteen Hundred
Eighty-seven, says: " Verdi and his wife occupied a box
last evening at the Grand Opera House. The piece was
' II Trovatore,' and many smiles were caused by the
sight of the author and his spouse seemingly leading the
claque as if they would split their gloves."
The flaming forth of creative genius that produced the
" Rigoletto," " II Trovatore," and " La Traviata,"
subsided into a placid calm.
The serene happiness of Verdi's married life, the fortune
that had come to him, and the consciousness of having
292
GIUSEPPE VERDI
won in spite of great obstacles, led him to the thought of
quiet and well-earned rest. The master interested him-
self in politics, and was elected to represent the district
of Parma in the Italian Parliament. He proved himself
a man of power practical, self-centered and business-
like and as such served his country well.
The sentiment of the man is shown in his buying the
property at Busseto, his old home, which was owned by
Signore Barezzi. He removed the high picket fence,
replacing it with a low stone wall ; remodeled the house
and turned the conservatory into a small theater, where
free concerts were often given with the help of the
villagers. The adjoining grounds and splendid park were
free to the public.
The master's attention to music was now limited to
enjoying it. So passed the days.
Ten years of the life of a country gentleman went by,
and the Shah of Persia, who had been on a visit to Italy
and met Verdi, sent a command for an opera. The plot
must be laid in the East, the characters Moorish, and
the whole to be dedicated to the immortal Son of the
Sun the Shah.
It is a little doubtful whether the Shah knew that
operas are produced only in certain moods and can not
be done to order as a carpenter builds a fence. But it
was the way that Eastern Royalty had of showing its
high esteem.
Verdi smiled, and his wife smiled, and they had quite a
293
GIUSEPPE VERDI
merry little time over the matter, calling in the neigh-
bors and friends, and drinking to the health of a real live
Shah who knew a great musical genius when he found
one. But suddenly the matter began to take form in the
master's mind. He set to work, and the result was that
in a few weeks "Aida " was completed. The stories
often told of the long preparation for composing this
opera reveal the fine imagination of the men who write
for the newspapers. Verdi seized upon knowledge as a
devilfish absorbs its prey he learned in the mass 33
"Aida " was first produced at Cairo in Eighteen Hun-
dred Seventy-one, with a grand setting and the best
cast procurable. A new Verdi opera was an event, and
critics went from London, Paris, and other capitals to
see the performance.
The first thing the knowing ones said was that Verdi
was touched with Wagnerism, and that he had studied
" Lohengrin " with painstaking care. If Verdi was
influenced by Wagner it was for good ; but there was no
servile imitation in it. The "Aida" is rich in melody,
reveals a fine balance between singers and orchestra,
and the " local color " is correct even to the chorus of
Congo slaves that was introduced at the performance in
Cairo 33 33
All agreed that the rest had done the master good, and
the correspondents wrote, " We will look anxiously for
his next." They thought the stream had started and
there would be an overflow.
294
GIUSEPPE VERDI
But they were mistaken. Sixteen years of quiet farming
followed. Verdi was more interested in his flowers than
his music, and told Philip Hale, who made a pious
pilgrimage to Busseto in Eighteen Hundred Eighty-
three, that he loved his horses more than all the prima
donnas on earth.
But in Eighteen Hundred Eighty-seven, the artistic
and music-loving world was surprised and delighted
with " Otello." This grand performance made amends for
the mangling of "Macbeth." James Huneker says:
' The character-drawing in ' Otello ' is done with the
burin of a master ; the plot moves in processional splen-
dor; the musical psychology is subtle and inevitable.
At last the genius of Verdi has flowered. The work is
consummate and complete."
" Falstaff " came next, written by a gray beard of eighty
as if just to prove that the heart does not grow old.
It is the work of an octogenarian who loved life and had
seen the world of show and sense from every side. Old
men usually moralize and live in the past not so here.
The play flows with a laughing, joyous, rippling quality
that disarmed the critics and they apologized for what
they had said about Wagnerian motives. There were no
sad, solemn, recurring themes in the full-ripened fruit of
Verdi's genius. When he died, at the age of eighty-seven,
the curtain fell on the career of a great and potent per-
sonality the one unique singer of the Nineteenth
Century.
295
WOLFGANG MOZART
Mozart composed nine hundred twenty-two pieces
of which we know. He is considered the greatest com-
poser the world has ever seen, judged by the versatility
and power of his genius. In every kind of composition
he was equally excellent. Beside being a great composer
he was a great performer, being the most accomplished
pianist of his day. He was also an excellent player on
the violin.
-Dudley Buck,
i*pww^ nine hundred twenty- two pieces
ow. He is considered the greatest com-
: iiM ever seen, judged by the versatility
-js. In evf?ry kind of composition
T fl A Sfett &M^ &*^Q Weat composer
tormer, being the most accomplished
He was aUo an excellent player on
Dtu&ey Buck
WOLFGANG MOZART
POLOGY: The Mozart " Little
Journey " was written, and as over
a month had been taken to do the
task, the result was something of
which I was justly proud. It was
quite unlike anything ever before
written. The printers were ready to
take the work in hand, but I begged
them to allow me two more days for careful revision;
and as I was just starting away to give a lecture at
Janesville, Wisconsin, I took the manuscript with me,
intending to do the final work of revision on the train.
<I All went well on the journey, the lecture had been
given with no special tokens of disapproval on part of
the audience, and I was on board the early morning
train that leaves for Chicago. And as my mind is usually
fairly clear in the early hours, I began work retouch-
ing the good manuscript. We were nearing Beloit when
I bethought me to go into the Buffet-Car for a moment.
<I When I returned the manuscript was not to be seen.
I looked in various seats, and under the seats, asked my
neighbors, inquired of the brakeman, and then hunted
up the porter and asked him if he had seen my manu-
script. He did not at first understand what I meant by
the term " manuscript," but finally inquired if I re-
ferred to a pile of dirty, dog-eared sheets of paper, all
299
WOLFGANG MOZART
marked up and down and over and crisscross, ev'ry-
which-way.
I assured him that he understood the case.
He then informed me that he had " chucked the stuff,"
that is to say, he had tossed it out of the window, as he
was cleaning up his car, just as he always did before
reaching Chicago.
I made a frantic reach for the bell-cord, but was
restrained. A sympathetic passenger came forward and
explained that five miles back he had seen the sheets of
my precious manuscript sailing across the prairie. We
were going at the rate of a mile a minute and the wind
was blowing fiercely, so there was really no need of
backing up the train to regain the lost goods.
I hope dem scribbled papers was no 'count, boss! "
said the porter humbly, as I stood sort of dazed, gazing
into vacancy.
I shook myself into partial sanity. " Oh, they were of
no value I was looking for them so as to throw them
out of the window myself," I answered.
" Brush?" said he.
' Yes," said I.
I placed the expected quarter in his dusky palm, still
pondering on what I should do.
To reproduce the matter was impossible, for I have no
verbal memory something must be written, though.
I decided to leave Chicago in an hour by the Lake Shore
Railroad, and have the copy ready for the Roycrofe
300
WOLFGANG MOZART
boys when I reached home. <I This I did, and as I had
no reference-books, maps or memoranda to guide me,
the matter seems to lack synthesis. I say seems to lack
but it really does n't, for the facts will all be found to
be as stated. Still the form may be said to be slightly
colored by the environment, so some explanation is in
order hence this apology to the Gentle Reader. And
further, if the Reader should find in these pages that,
at rare intervals, I use the personal pronoun, he must
bear in mind that I live in the country, and that it is
the privilege and right, established by long precedent
and custom of country folk, to talk about themselves
and their own affairs if they are so minded.
301
WOLFGANG MOZART
HICAGO: Talent is usually purchased at
a high price, and if the gods give you a
generous supply of this, they probably will be
niggardly when it comes to that. But one
thing the artist is usually long on, and that is whim. Let
us all pray to be delivered from whim it is the poisoner
of our joys, the corrupter of our peace, and Dead-Sea
fruit for all those about us.
Heaven deliver us from whim!
I am told by a famous impresario, who gained some
valuable experience by marrying a prima donna, and
therefore should know, that whim is purely a feminine
attribute. This, though, is surely a mistake, for there
have lived men, as well as women, who had such an
exaggerated sense of their own worth, that they lost
sight, entirely, of the rights and feelings of everybody
else. All through life they kept the stage waiting without
punctilio. These men thought dogs were made to kick,
servants to rail at, the public to be first crawled to and
then damned, and all rivals to be pooh-poohed, cursed
or feared, as the mood might prompt. Further than this
they considered all landlords robbers, every railroad-
manager a rogue, and businessmen they bunched as
greedy, grasping Shylocks. They always used the word
" commercial " as an epithet.
Devotees of the histrionic art can lay just claim to
having more than their share of whim, but the musical
profession has no reason to be abashed, for it is a good
302
WOLFGANG MOZART
second. However, the actor's and the musician's art
are often not far separated. In speaking to James
McNeil Whistler of a certain versatile musician, a lady
once said, " I believe he also acts! "
" Madame, he does nothing else," replied Mr. Whistler.
^ Art is not a thing separate and apart art is only the
beautiful way of doing things. And is it not most absurd
to think, because a man has the faculty of doing a
thing well, that on this account he should assume airs
and declare himself exempt along the line of morals and
manners? The expression "artistic temperament" is
often an apologetic term, like " literary sensitiveness,"
which means that the man has stuck to one task so long
that he is unable to meet his brother men on a respectful
equality 3& S&
The artist is the voluptuary of labor, and his fantastic
tricks often seem to be only Nature's way of equalizing
matters, and showing the world that he is very common
clay, after all. To be modest and gentle and kind, as we
all can be, is just as much to God as to be learned and
talented, and yet be a cad.
Still, instances of great talent and becoming modesty
are sometimes found; and in no great musician was the
balance of virtues held more gracefully than with
Mozart. He had humor.
Ah ! that is it he knew values had a sense of propor-
tion, and realized that there is a time to laugh. And a
good time to laugh is when you see a mighty bundle of
303
WOLFGANG MOZART
pretense and affectation coming down the street.
Dignity is the mask behind which we hide our ignorance ;
and our forced dignity is what makes the imps of
comedy, who sit aloft in the sky, hold their sides in
merriment when they behold us demanding obeisance
because we have fallen heir to tuppence worth of talent.
304
WOLFGANG MOZART
APORTE: Mozart had a sense of humor. He
knew a big thing from a little one. When yet a
child the tendency to comedy was strong
upon him. When nine years of age he once
played at a private musicale where the Empress, Maria
Theresa, was present. The lad even then was a con-
summate violinist. He had just played a piece that con-
tained such a tender, mournful, minor strain that several
of the ladies were in tears. The boy seeing this, relent-
ingly dashed off into a " barnyard symphony," where
donkeys brayed, hens cackled, pigs squealed and cows
mooed, all ending with a terrific cat-fight on a wood-shed
roof. This done, the boy threw his violin down, ran
across the room, climbed into the lap of the Empress
and throwing his arms around the neck of the good
lady, kissed her a resounding smack first on one cheek,
then on the other. It was all very much like that per-
formance of Liszt, who one day, when he was playing the
piano, suddenly shouted, " Pitch everything out of the
windows! " and then proceeded to do it on the key-
board, of course.
On the same visit to the palace, when Mozart saluted
Maria Theresa in his playful way, he had the mis-
fortune to slip and fall on the waxed floor.
Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa, just
budding into womanhood, ran and picked him up and
rubbed his knee where it was hurt. " You are a dear,
good lady," said the boy in gratitude, " and when I
305
WOLFGANG MOZART
grow up I am going to marry you." Liszt never made
any such promise as that. Liszt never offered to marry
anybody. But it is too bad that Marie Antoinette did
not hold the lad to his promise. It would have probably
proved a valuable factor for her in the line of longevity ;
and her husband's circumstances would have saved her
from making that silly inquiry as to why poor people
don't eat cake when they run short of bread. These
moods of merriment continued with Mozart, as they
did with Liszt, all his life not always manifesting them-
selves, though, in the way just described.
As a companion I would choose Mozart generous,
unaffected, kind rather than any other musician who
ever played, danced, sang or composed excepting, well,
say Brahms.
306
WOLFGANG MOZART
OUTH BEND: We take an interest in the
lives of others because we always, when we
think of another, imagine our relationship to
him. " Had I met Shakespeare on the stairs I
would have fainted dead away," said Thackeray.
Another reason why we are interested in biography is
because, to a degree, it is a repetition of our own life SS
There are certain things that happen to every one, and
others we think might have happened to us, and may
yet. So as we read, we unconsciously slip into the life
of the other man and confuse our identity with his. To
put yourself in his place is the only way to understand
and appreciate him. It is imagination that gives us this
faculty of transmigration of souls; and to have imagi-
nation is to be universal ; not tohave it is to be provincial.
Let me see would n't you rather be a citizen of the
Universe than a citizen of Peoria, Illinois, which modest
town the actors always speak of as being one of the
provinces? 53 53
As I read biography I always keep thinking what I
would have done in certain described circumstances,
and so not only am 1 living the other man's life, but I
am comparing my nature with his. Everything is
comparative ; that is the only way we realize anything
by comparing it with something else. As you read of the
great man he seems very near to you. You reach out
across the years and touch hands with him, and with
him you hope, suffer, strive and enjoy: your existence is
307
WOLFGANG MOZART
all blurred and fused with his. *I And through this
oneness you come to know and comprehend a character
that has once existed, very much better than the people
did who lived in his day and were blind to his true worth
by being ensnared in cliques that were in competition
with him.
308
WOLFGANG MOZART
LKHART : I intimated a few pages back that
I would have liked to have Mozart for a
friend and companion. Mozart needed me no
less than I need him. " Genius needs a
keeper," once said I. Zangwill, probably with him-
self in mind. We all need friends and to be your
brother's keeper is very excellent if you do not cease
being his friend. And poor Mozart did so need a friend
who could stand between him and the rapacious wolf
that scratched and sniffed at his door as long as he
lived. I do not know why the wolf sniffed, for Mozart
really never had anything worth carrying away. He was
so generous that his purse was always open, and so full
of unmixed pity that the beggars passed his name along
and made cabalistic marks on his gateposts. Every
seedy, needy, thirsty and ill-appreciated musician in
Germany regarded him as lawful prey. They used to
say to Mozart, " I can not beg and to dig I am ashamed
so grant me a small loan, I pray thee."
Yes, Mozart needed me to plan his tours and market his
wares. I 'm no genius, and although they say I was an
infant terrible, I never was an infant prodigy. At the
tender age of six, Mozart was giving concerts and
astonishing Europe with his subtle skill. At a like age I
could catch a horse with a nubbin, climb his back, and
without a saddle or bridle drive him wherever I listed
by the judicious use of a tattered hat. Of course I took
pains to mount only a horse that had arrived at years
309
WOLFGANG MOZART
of discretion, matronly brood-mares or run-down plow-
horses; but this is only proof of my practical turn of
mind. Mozart never learned how to control either horse
or man by means of a tattered hat or diplomacy: music
was his hobby, and it was long years after his death
before the world discovered that his hobby was no
hobby at all, but a genuine automobile that carried him
miles and miles, clear beyond all his competitors : so far
ahead that he was really out of shouting distance.
Indeed, Mozart took such an early start in life and drove
his machinery so steadily, not to say so furiously, that
at thirty-five all the bearings grew hot for lack of
rebabbitting, and the vehicle went the way of the one-
horse shay all at once and nothing first, just as bubbles
do when they burst.
At the age which Mozart died I had seen all I wanted to
of business life, in fact I had made a fortune, being the
only man in America who had all the money he wanted,
and so just turned about and went to college. This I
firmly hold is a better way than to be sent to college and