My Musical Experiences

fSsMS':-'*^"-'" CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY MUSIC Cornell University Library ML 417.W17A3 My musical experiences / 3 1924 022 431 385 The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022431385 MY MUSICAL EXPERIENCES ' MY MUSICAL EXPERIENCES BY BETTINA WALKER ' What I aspiftd to be, And was not, comforto me A XEW EDITION LONDON KICHABD BENTLEY & SON NOVELLO, EWER & CO. riMiahers in Ordinary to Her Majesty And at Kew YorTc 1892 TO MY SISTERS PREFACE When the first edition of the book called ' My Musical Experiences ' had gone into the press and was about to be published, I could but little have anticipated that it would have met with so favourable a reception. Not only from various parts of Great Britain and the Continent, but even from the shores of the far Pacific, I have received letters expressive of hearty sympathy and grateful thanks from both amateur and pro- fessional musicians. These letters have been to me at once a source of mingled pleasure and perplexity. In their pathetic confessions of failure, their allusions to foiled aspirations and chilled enthusiasm, they have helped me to realize, as I had, perhaps, niever done before to the same degree, that in the difficulties which so often impede our upward progress, the cross currents in struggling against which so many of us lose much of our primal native power and elasticity, there is not a single individual who stands so entirely by -himself as he is so often apt to imagine. The perplexity which these letters have occasioned PREFACE me has been caused by the many appeals made to me for counsel and guidance—appeals that have laid on me the burthen of a responsibility which I never could have foreseen and still less desired, since they contained such questions as could never be adequately dealt with by any amount of correspondence. Among the questions which have been put to me, there is, however, one which I have no diiSculty in answering, and the appearance of this second edition seems to offer a very suitable opportunity for doing so. ?' That question is, ' What is the Henselt method To this I reply that it is a method of pianoforte study which may be divided into two heads—con- sidered under two aspects. I. The purely technical or physical—a preparatory drill which, according as it may be more or less com- pletely carried out, is intended to fit the hand for approaching and mastering every imaginable difficulty presented to us in the works of pianoforte composers. II. The mental, or that method of studying pianoforte pieces which has for its aim an intelligent appre- ciation of the composer's intentions, and a thorough cari;ying out of the same. Now, as regards the first or technical aspect of the school, I am of opinion that, apart from personally conveyed teaching, no amount either of talking or writing on the subject could enable the student to get a definite hold of it. The mental aspect of the method is, however, admir- — PREFACE ably outlined in a little work called 'Advice to Teachers,' by Adolf Henselt, which will, I hope, shortly appear in print. I likewise take this opportunity of thanking the friends whose sympathy encouraged me both to begin and to go on relating my musical experiences. My. warmest and best thanks are, however, due to Mrs. Alfred Marks, known in literary circles as the authoress of ' The Masters of the World,' ' A Great Treason,' and many other interesting and admirably written novels. This lady, while my book was in progress, gave me the benefit of her wide literary experience in the form of many valuable hints and suggestions, and when, owing to a severe attack of ophthalmia, which during several weeks rendered it impossible for me either to read or write, I would have had to give up the idea of finishing it at least for months to come, this kind friend, although then deeply absorbed in a new work of her own, gave up entire days not only to writing from my dictation, but to the ungrateful drudgery of copying large portions of my somewhat illegible writing, and seeing that the whole MS. was in a fit condition for being sent to the publisher. The fresh matter contained in this edition consists I. Of two traits relating to Sterndale Bennett, pages 24-32. II. A short paragraph at page 83, and another at page 212. : PREFACE III. The following letters A letter from Wagner to the head of the Sehott firm at Mayence. Signor Sgamhati gave me a reproduc- tion of this letter, and it is with his sanction that I translate and give a considerable portion of it to the public. Two letters from the Fraulein Hummel, who, at my request, were kind enough not only to give me their written assurance that the lock of Beethoven's hair and the pen which he last used are in the possession of their (the Hummel) family, but still further verified my reference to the same by giving the dates of the visits to the dying musician during which her grand- parents (Hummel and his wife) came into possession of these 'precious relics.' IV. An interesting sketch of Henselt's life and career from the German of La Mara, an author whose 'Musical Portraits,' and other works referring to music, are highly valued in musical circles abroad. This sketch contains a long letter by Henselt written in early youth, two letters by Schumann, written before his marriage, and several by Henselt, which are highly characteristic of him. It is with the author's permission that the above sketch is here given. V. Copies of letters from Eubinstein, Liszt, and Von Billow, handed to me for translation and publication by Frau Mila, of Berlin (Henselt's niece by marriage). ' CONTENTS PAtJK 1. SIR STERNDALE BENNETT 1 II. TAUSIG 37 III. SGAMBATI 44 IV. LISZT 85 V. DEPPE AND SCHAEWENCKA 115 VI. HENSBLT 153 ARTICLE ON HBNSELT BY LA MARA, FROM THE ' LEIPZIGEK ZEITUNG - 279 LETTERS TO HENSELT FROM LISZT, VON BULOW, AND RUBINSTEIN 319 MY MUSICAL EXPERIENCES I. SIE STEENDALE BENNETT. A FULL and faithful account of the efforts and studies of an individual (especially if these efforts and studies be self-chosen) is, in fact, the history of that individual's life. But I do not mean to write my life ; and the following pages do not, therefore, contain every single fact in my musical experience, but only such selections from it as I beUeve may possibly interest those who are working in the same field as myself. How many whys there are in this world of ours, to which scarce one of the answers given ever seems to do more than circle and wheel round the central point, never once hitting it right to the core ! How many hundreds of persons have, like myself, asked themselves over and over again, why they go on from year to year, giving some of the best hours in their 1 ; 3IY MUSICAL EXPERIENCES ought lives to pianoforte-playing ! Their aim is—or to be—to reproduce, in all the glow and life and pulsation of the moment when they were first breathed into being, those exquisite tone-poems, in which the master-spirits of the divine art have embodied some of the subtlest thoughts, the most weird and wonder- ful fancies—some of the most impassioned yearnings of the human soul. But leaving this xvliy for everyone to answer for himself, the fascination remains as an undeniable fact—a source at once of joy and pain to the individual who has once come under its spell. Joy, because in all effort, in all quest, there is joy ; and pain, because we can never attain to our ideal. We advance, indeed, but only to realize that there are fresh vistas opening in every direction round us and when the shadows fall, we only seem to have reached the true starting-point. But the spell does not lose its power, and I could tell of an artist, still with us when I began to write these experiences, but now departed—a giant in his art—who, at the age of seventy-six, was still wrestling aii,d fighting with ' the flesh ' (his name for technique), in order to render it ever a fitter medium for embodying his ideal aspirations. I allude to Adolf von Henselt, composer, artist, and teacher. Of him I shall speak more later. The musical natures to whom these pages are addressed will like to have some little clue to the Sm STERNDALE BENNETT whole—something to explain, at least partly, the experiences which I am about to narrate. I shall try to do this in the simplest manner possible, colour- ing nothing, and putting in no fancy-spun incident to make it more interesting. The first nine years of my life were passed in a remote country village, to which no news from the outward world ever seemed to come. My first con- scious sensations of delight were the joy I felt in sun- shine, in the scent and colour of certain flowers, in the sound of running water, which always sent me off into a sort of waking dream, and in the wind, every varied tone of which never failed to arrest my atten- tion. If it were sighing among the leaves, I felt pleased and happy ; if it were wild and stormy, I loved to run before it in an exuberant flow of animal spirits ; if it whistled round the corners of the house, and moaned at night up in the chimney-top, I shuddered and shivered, and seemed to see an endless sweep of desolate moorland, beneath as endless a sweep of cloud, which grew ever grayer and grayer.

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