Mabel W. Daniels

“ Quite a number of the German women smoke and she does so constantly, in fact even when giving lessons, which goes ahead of Thuille.
But my head all the time was full of Gugeline—how could one forget it?—and I looked about for Thuille. He was talking to Stavenhagen in the corner, with his back towards me. A moment later he turned, and as I went forward with outstretched hand he met me half way. The beauty of his music had so intensely moved me, that I grew excited when I endeavored to congratulate him, and my German flew away as if on wings. ”

“ A moment later we were gravely sitting on the table side by side, our feet not touching the floor, our eyes not seeing the stage, but our ears straining to catch every note of that wonderful music. Polly had brought her score. One of the players in the Kaim Saal orchestra comes to her weekly and they read together, so she is familiar with all the sonatas. But after a time I shut my eyes to the printed symbols. I wanted only to hear, for from the moment Ysaye draws his bow across the strings "the weariness, the fever, and the fret" fade away, and one lives in another world. ”

“ At any rate she is decidedly the most interesting person in the pension, and I hope to know her better.
Six o'clock.
The day is dying royally, and as I look out across the now brown and barren tree-tops of the Platz, I see a sky which is one blaze of glory. There is always music in the clouds. Have you never heard the tender, inspiring melody in soft, fleecy puffs as they float in a sea of azure—or caught the melancholy strains of 'cello and oboe in lowering gray masses against a background darker still? ”

“ Easter Sunday is just beginning, and I am about to retire after an evening spent at La Scala in hearing Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera. Am I living in another world? Can Germany and the dear old Hof-Theatre be but a day's trip away? When one has for months been going to the opera at seven and returning at the discreet hour of nine-thirty it seems nothing less than wild dissipation to find the final curtain falling in the wee small hours o' the night. Milan and München may bear a certain euphonic similarity, but they are really as unlike as black and white. ”

“ Isn't it queer to picture the nobility of Europe as running boarding-houses? I rather fancied I might see some of its members riding by in magnificent carriages, with high-stepping horses and clashing chains. I had pictured them as lounging against the cushions of their coaches with an air of bored grandeur, while somewhere in the background shone a glint of ermine,—but behold! German aristocracy bursts upon me in my landlord and landlady.
Mütterchen was given the place of honor at the Baron's right. I sat next. My vis-à-vis was a Frenchman whom I heard them addressing as "Herr Doktor." ”

“ Amerika! Amerika!" What mattered it that it was only an unpretentious pupils' concert? I could not have felt any prouder if it had been my début in grand opera when Stavenhagen and Thuille congratulated me, and the latter said, in his kind way, "We must make that counterpoint run as easily from your pen as those tones from your lips."
When one studies singing merely for the love of it, it is all very well, but it would make your heart sick to see the number of American girls over here who are half-starving themselves in order to study for the grand opera stage. ”

“ To be sure, it is rather a come-down to discover Professor B——, whom you saw a moment ago enthralled by the strains of the Waldweben, now prosaically munching a ham-sandwich and drinking beer in a corner of the café, as though his soul had never been stirred beyond the excitement of choosing what he should order for dinner. But that is the German temperament, and one soon gets used to it. ”

“ Her entrance was the signal for a fresh outburst of applause, and there was no more enthusiastic group in the hall than ours in the east corner, for Polly, Edith, and Louise are all her pupils and loyally adore her. "Frau Langenhan," as they generally call her, looked very young as she took her place at the piano. She is slight, and her short black hair curls roguishly about her head, while a pair of dark, innocent eyes give her an almost childlike appearance. But however youthful she may seem, she plays with a mastery and force unusual in a woman. ”

“ At eleven o'clock the walk is crowded. Meran is not only a fashionable resort in winter, but a favorite spot for invalids on account of the perfection of its climate. One sees them always on the Promenade at this time, walking slowly up and down, leaning back in wheel chairs, listening to the music of an excellent Capelle, as they call the orchestra, which plays here daily. If the weather happens to be cold, which is seldom the case, the music can be enjoyed in the luxurious Curhaus especially built for the purpose. ”

“ If, however, one wishes to attend any form of entertainment he must eat a cold supper early, in a bare and deserted dining-room, for the opera and concerts generally begin at seven o'clock. Do not imagine, my dear, that the German can now go to bed satisfied, for the Baroness assures me that he either sets out at once for a beer-hall and lingers over his stein all the evening, or about ten he has brought to his room such soporific things as cheese sandwiches, cold sausage, and, of course, the inevitable beverage. It's simply impossible for people to be hungry here. ”

“ The first meal in a strange pension is an awful ordeal. We both rather dreaded it, the more so as no one present spoke English, except Frau von Waldfel, and we were rather timid about airing our knowledge of German. Then, too, every one seemed to converse so fast that the words fairly tumbled over one another. Whenever I heard a totally strange phrase I soothed my pride by saying, sotto voce, to Mütterchen, "Again that demoniacal dialect!" The Baron and Baroness were extremely kind, however, and did their utmost to make us feel at home, while Frau von Waldfel was in her element. ”

“ If I had insensibly acquired an impression of ostentation from all this array of tributes—a common custom of every artist here, they tell me—this vanished the moment the door opened, for Professor Thuille and anything like ostentation are as far from one another as the poles. I was surprised to see a man so young in appearance, for I had in some inexplicable way formed the idea that he was much older. ”

“ I for one wanted to be quiet and think—or rather to hear again in my mind those haunting, exquisite strains. Is there anything in the world more marvellous than music or more indescribable than its hidden soul? And now I must to bed, and hear it all over again, I hope, in my dreams.
München, March 6.
As soon as my greetings with Thuille were over to-day I hastened to congratulate him again on the success of his Gugeline music last Monday. This time my German was a little more fluent, and I even made bold to ask him how long it had taken him to write the act. ”

“ Not two or three, my dear, but six, yes, even ten, in one hand. It is an art in itself. If one is careless and holds the handful a quarter of an inch from perpendicular, the beer comes oozing out at the top and trickles on the sidewalk. This disturbs no one in the least. As we passed the droschky stand on Max-Joseph-Platz about eleven o'clock, there stood all the cabbies lounging against their carriages or ranged along the curbstones, leisurely drinking great steins of frothy beer which one of these blue-aproned girls had just brought. ”

“ I entered the smoke-wreathed studio, he tossed his cigarette into the waste-basket, jumped up from his desk, and with both hands extended came to meet me.
"Ach! gnädiges Fräulein!" he exclaimed, "you were so kind to remember me in that charming way." Then what do you think he did? He bent over my hand in the most dignified way and kissed it. I felt like an empress holding court, and blushed to the roots of my hair at the honor he had done me. ”

“ Let me inform you immediately, my dear young lady, that those whom you see before you in red waistcoats are married men, while those in green are bachelors and in the market, so to speak. It strikes me as not a half-bad idea. Surely a girl can't innocently fall in love with the wrong man here."
"Unless she is color-blind," I added.
It is time for supper, and as Mrs. S—— has promised us a real American meal I don't want to risk being a second behindhand. No one can realize what that means—a real American meal—unless one has been living for four months on a German pension diet. ”

“ Obviously to be a bass singer requires both dignity and experience. Most of them think it also requires a full beard. Several of the pupils affect the artistic, or are dressed after the old masters, with long hair, brown corduroy velvet jackets, and flowing neckties. There is one I have named Rubenstein, he looks so much like the pictures of the great pianist. And the most interesting tenor-boy I call Beethoven. He wears a big white collar into which he sinks his chin, and with deep, earnest eyes under closely knit brows gazes gravely out on a frivolous world. ”

“ On the altar steps stood a company of soldiers with black plumes to their helmets, while separating the men in the nave from those in the choir stretched a great orchestra.
What a wonderful sea of color it was! The sunshine pouring through the long windows made the gleaming swords, the shining helmets and the gold-fringed epaulets a thousand times more brilliant. At the close of the service the band suddenly struck up the Hallelujah chorus from the "Messiah." ”

“ For Meran, you must know, lies exclusively apart from the rest of the world, deep down in the valley of the Adige and jealously guarded on every side by high mountains, like a jewel in a casket. The mountains themselves, covered with snow from base to summit, are so magnificent and stirring that I call them Wagner mountains. And oh! the sunset on their frosty peaks, when all the white is changed to rose—it beggars description.
We left München on Christmas Day—just after my writing you. ”

“ To-day Mütterchen, the Baroness, Herr Martens, and I took a carriage before the house at two o'clock. One's first carnival is not a thing to be taken calmly and I was all excitement, staring to right and left, and craning my neck in my endeavor not to miss anything. On every corner we passed stood old women and men with little pushcarts full of bright-colored bags of confetti or baskets of Luft-Schlangen (long paper streamers done up in small rolls, to be thrown through the air like those we have at the Harvard Class Day exercises around the statue) . ”

“ Such pleasantries are almost unheard of in German girls, and whenever they do say anything facetious they look very much frightened, as though at a loss whether to apologize at once or explain how it came to happen. I must send you one of the comic papers. They considerately print the point of a joke in italics. One has at least the satisfaction of knowing when to laugh, a virtue not to be despised when one considers the subtleties of modern wit, so called.
"This is where I buy my music," said Fräulein L——, stopping before a small store, "and if it pleases you I will introduce you here." ”

“ I took my accustomed chair beside his at the piano, inwardly praying that it would not be my ill luck to push off to the floor any one of the dozens of cigarettes which always lie carelessly strewn about. Then I placed my fugue on the music rack. Whatever I bring, be it sonatina, invention, or merely a counterpoint exercise, Thuille daringly plays it out forte. This is so different from the way Mr. Chadwick does. He seldom if ever touches the piano when looking over work, but takes the sheet and leaning back in his chair "hears it in his head," marking the mistakes with a blue pencil. ”

“ Remember I am in a materialistic land, amid a materialistic people. Truly the problem which continually confronts me is: how can a people who seem so lethargic, and who make no disguise of their love for the product of the soil and the grape, produce such marvellous, almost superhuman results in the fields of music and philosophy?
I might have meditated at some length on this question during the Namens-Tag supper, had not the Lieutenant kept up a rapid conversation, for we were at the table until half-past eleven. ”

“ This is only the ell, you know," said our guide.
"And—and do you fight there?" asked Mütterchen hesitatingly. I think she had visions of walking in on a crowd of masked creatures fiercely plunging at one another with swords.
Herr Martens laughed in hearty German fashion. "There is a small room up six flights in a house not far away," he said. "We hire it especially for fighting. You know that duelling of any sort is strictly prohibited by the police. But if one isn't a good fighter he cannot join the corps, so of course we have to have a place where we can fight secretly." ”

“ Our itinerary has been specially planned to include places of musical interest and we are to go to Mozart's birthplace, Salzburg; Leipsic, crowded with memories of Bach and Wagner; Vienna where Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms lie buried; Berlin, Dresden, and Bremen. We may run down to Budapest, since we are so near, and thus have an opportunity to hear a bona fide Hungarian orchestra. Isn't that fine, and doesn't it make you long to be with us?
Now no more for the present, my dear, as I want my last lesson for Thuille to be a good one, and my orchestration work is unfinished. ”

“ The Baroness never seemed so much like a beneficent angel as when she opened the dining-room door and invited us to the table. And now a light shone through the clouds, for the stupid Count with whom I had been struggling to converse was whisked away to the other end of the table, and Lieutenant Linder, a young man of about seven and twenty, in the dark blue and scarlet uniform of Bavaria, took the place on my left.
Oh, these officers! They simply own Munich. When they stride along the street, the entire sidewalk is their undisputed possession. ”

“ There were yet five minutes before the overture.
La Scala is an enormous opera house, and its stage stretches beneath one like a great plain. To be sure, after a winter of Wagnerian harmonies, Verdi's music sounded somewhat colorless, but oh! the language! I cannot tell you what a peaceful, refreshing change it was to hear a soft Cielo! issue from the soprano's lips, instead of the Ach, Gott! to which we were accustomed; and to remark how easily the tenor floated along on broad ahs instead of struggling over a succession of gutturals. Don't imagine that I sneer at German. ”

“ Weingartner takes the first movement slower than I have ever heard it at home, but in the allegro con brio he simply sweeps the orchestra along. At the close of the concert occurred the usual ovation, a number of enthusiastic admirers staying to cheer and applaud until the lights were put out. Weingartner's conducting of Beethoven without score is far more inspiring than any other directing I have ever seen, just as the words of an extemporaneous speaker are more forceful than one who confines himself to notes. ”