The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1   By: Rupert Hughes (1872-1956)

By Rupert Hughes

Illustrated

Volume I.

[Illustration]

1903

NOTE

Portions of a few of the chapters of this work appeared serially in The Criterion , and the last chapter was published in The Smart Set .

While, so far as the author knows, this is the first book on the subject, it is given, perhaps, especial novelty by the fact that advantage could be taken of much new material given to the public for the first time (with one exception) in the last few months, notably: a revelation of the exact identity of Beethoven's "Immortal Beloved;" the letters of Liszt to his princess; letters of Chopin long supposed to have been burned, as well as diaries and letters gathered by an intimate friend for a biography whose completion was prevented by death; the publication of a vast amount of Wagneriana; the appearance of a full life of Tschaikovski by his brother, with complete elucidation of much that had been suppressed; the first volume of a new biography of Clara Schumann, with a detailed account of the whole progress of her beautiful love story, down to the day of the marriage; and numberless fugitive paragraphs throwing new light on affairs more or less unknown or misunderstood.

Love it is an hatefulle pees, A free acquitaunce without re lees. An hevy burthen light to here, A wikked wawe awey to were. It is kunnyng withoute science, Wisdome withoute sapience, Bitter swetnesse and swete errour, Right eville savoured good savour; A strengthe weyked to stonde upright, And feblenesse fulle of myght. A laughter it is, weping ay; Reste that traveyleth nyght and day. Also a swete helle it is, And a soroufulle Paradys.

Romaunt of the Rose.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. THE OVERTURE

II. THE ANCIENTS

III. THE MEN OF FLANDERS

IV. ORLAND DI LASSUS AND HIS REGINA

V. HENRY AND FRANCES PURCELL

VI. THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF STRADELLA

VII. GIOVANNI AND LUCREZIA PALESTRINA

VIII. BACH, THE PATRIARCH

IX. PAPA AND MAMMA HAYDN

X. THE MAGNIFICENT BACHELOR

XI. GLUCK THE DOMESTIC, ROUSSEAU THE CONFESSOR, AND THE AMIABLE PICCINNI

XII. A FEW TUNESTERS OF FRANCE AND ITALY PERI, MONTEVERDE, ET AL

XIII. MOZART

XIV. BEETHOVEN: THE GREAT BUMBLEBEE

XV. VON WEBER THE RAKE REFORMED

XVI. THE FELICITIES OF MENDELSSOHN

XVII. THE NOCTURNES OF CHOPIN

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PRINCESS LICHTENSTEIN (Frontispiece)

DAPHNE

HÉLOISE

MARY STUART

ORLAND DI LASSUS (Roland de Lattre)

HENRY PURCELL

JOHN SEBASTIAN BACH

MORNING PRAYER IN THE FAMILY OF SEBASTIAN BACH

JOSEPH HAYDN

MRS. BILLINGTON

GEORG FRIEDRICH HANDEL

CHRISTOPH WILLIBALD VON GLUCK

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU

NICOLA PICCINNI

JEAN BAPTISTE DE LULLY

WOLFGANG MOZART

MOZART, AT VIENNA, PLAYING HIS OPERA "DON JUAN" FOR THE FIRST TIME

LUDWIG VON BEETHOVEN

BETTINA BRENTANO VON ARNIM

COUNTESS THÉRÈSE VON BRUNSWICK

CARL MARIA VON WEBER

FELIX MENDELSSOHN

FREDERICK CHOPIN

GEORGE SAND

COUNTESS POTOCKA

THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF GREAT MUSICIANS

VOLUME I.

CHAPTER I.

THE OVERTURE

Musicians as lovers! The very phrase evokes and parades a pageant of amours! The thousand heartaches; the fingers clutching hungrily at keys that might be other fingers; the fiddler with his eyelids clenched while he dreams that the violin, against his cheek is the satin cheek of "the inexpressive She;" the singer with a cry in every note; the moonlit youth with the mandolin tinkling his serenade to an ivied window; the dead marches; the nocturnes; the amorous waltzes; the duets; the trills and trinkets of flirtatious scherzi; the laughing roulades; the discords melted into concord as solitude into the arms of reunion these are music's very own.