with snow, and all the roads across the mountains have become impracticable. Surely it is time to put an end to such sufferings. The proper and humane course open to the powers must be to insist at once upon an armistice, pending the decision of the conference. disaster on both sides. Those theorists | heights of Solintse, while the cold is so who pretend that democracy is identical intense that the Dragoman pass is blocked with peace must be somewhat staggered at seeing these entirely popular risings in Servia and Bulgaria, not to speak of the fomentation daily increasing amongst the populations of Greece, Albania, etc., who, if Servia is successful, will probably force the hands of their rulers and call up other scenes of bloodshed. Why cannot these It is not my intention to advocate the foolish enthusiasts understand that by rights of either of these contending prov. giving way to their misguided ambition inces, seeing that they are both in the they are playing into the hands of their wrong. There is no doubt that Prince worst enemies, besides bringing poverty Alexander was to blame in placing himand misery upon themselves? The in- self at the head of the revolution in favor vasion of Bulgaria has already cost Ser- of the union, for he thus was the original via hundreds of lives, without counting cause of the difficulty, by violating the the enormous expenses of the campaign; Treaty of Berlin; but it is equally cer and it is very doubtful whether she will tain that his independent action has had obtain an inch of territory, or even the the salutary effect of thwarting the decosts of the war, which she demands un- signs of Russia, and also that his presder the pretext that hostilities were caused ent attitude removes all reasons for Musby the infringement of the frontier at covite interference. I am convinced my. Vlasina. The Porte has declared to self that Servia too has, unintentionally, Prince Alexander, through Kiamil Pasha, defeated the calculations of Russia, which that it "will not allow a single point of hoped to force all the onus of the war the imperial frontier to be changed," with Bulgaria upon the sultan, and was though this decision would depend en- working the conferences in that direc tirely upon the restoration of the status tion. A more serious movement toquo ante. Russia has formally notified wards the defeat of Russian ambition her disapproval of Servia's proceedings, and is not likely to give her vote in favor of an indemnity; in fact, there is small hope of any repayment on either side, for both States are about as impecu nious as they can well be. However, be this as it may, it is certain that Servia has no longer any excuse for continuing the war. She has re-established the Treaty of Berlin, not because she desired so to do her intentions were not so Quixotic -but simply that she might, relying on the protection of Austria, find a good opportunity for seizing on Trn and Widdin, which she has long been coveting. Bulgaria has made her submission to the Porte, and consequently is now a part of Ottoman territory, so that any attack upon her becomes a direct attack upon Turkey. If the powers continue to permit Servia, contrary to international law, to violate Turkish territory, and if they will not take active measures against her, it behoves Prince Alexander to drive Servia out of his dominions single-handed. It is painful to read the daily ac counts of this prolonged and fratricidal struggle. We hear of terrible slaughters, of the wounded lying exposed for days to drenching rain and snow, of half-clothed recruits passing nights without shelter on the freezing Visker Mountains and the could hardly be imagined than a united Bulgaria, for such a power would always be a standing bulwark against its encroachments. But it would seem that all idea of the union must be renounced for the present; though, as Bulgaria has now given Europe a proof of her determination not to be influenced by Russia, she may perhaps look forward to the day when her dream may be realized. In the mean time, let the unruly little States around her take warning and rest assured that their soundest policy consists not in destroying one another, but in fraternal co-operation, in concentrating their forces, and prepar ing gallantly for the often delayed but inevitable attack of their real foe, the great Russian bear, who only waits his opportunity to make a clean sweep of them all. HOBART PASHA. Constantinople. AUBER. From Teniple Bar. THE nation la plus spirituelle du monde counts among its greatest composers Daniel François Esprit Auber, whose Christian name, "Esprit," seems to have been a favorable omen for one of the most spirituel musicians who ever delighted the public, not only of France but of the world, by refined, harmonious, witty music, if I may so term it. Mozart began writing as a mere child, and he died barely thirty-five years old, yet he left an admirable library of masterpieces of sacred, operatic, instrumental, and vocal works. Rossini's rapid working was entirely due, not to his activity, but to his idleness, because he left everything to the last moment, and was then compelled to write so rapidly, only too eager to return to his beloved "doing nothing." He gave up writing when he was a little over thirty. Auber began serious work when he was nearer forty than thirty, in fact, his first opera - not a success was produced when he was thirty seven years old. He had the good sense to live to eightynine, and thereby made up the time which he had lost at the beginning of his life. I remember having seen at Paris Heine, the poetical singer, or the singing poet, whose verses were so melodiously written that music for them arose spontaneously to many a composer while he read them. Théophile Gautier, who translated these verses, had such respect for their inimitable form that he never tried to rhyme his translation, but only to lend his French expression to the ideas. In English there are many good translations, but especially one by Julian Fane, the brother of the present, and the genial son of that art. loving Earl of Westmoreland who founded the Royal Academy of Music. To Heine then I went, to see the inspired bard who had sung better than any contemporary poet the Sufferings and blessings of love: Die Engel nennen es Himmelsfreud', "The angels," he says, "call it heaven's delight, the devil calls it Hades' fright, but men just call it love." I remember when I saw him whose eternal theme was this sweet disease of youth, and he could no longer boast the curly hair and silky moustache of the young lover; I was fully prepared to see him with a stern look, having long passed the years of folly. But how did I find him? Old, shrivelled, dried-up, with a large green shade over one eye, the other protruding and barely seeing, he was stretched on the floor with a cushion under his head, and a counterpane over the short, thin legs, a thorough invalid, yet receiving me in the kindest manner, and full of sarcasm about his own condition. While we were talking about the immense popularity of his "Buch der Lieder," he said, "Popularity is very fine, but what little of it I may have, I get only because I live in Paris. The Germans will not let their own great men enjoy celebrity before they are dead." "And how," said I, "did Goethe live, distinguished by every mark of favor that sovereign or nation could bestow on him?" "Goethe," he said, "was too clever to die before he attained all he wished. An octogenarian succeeds at last, but I can't wait so long, I am rather pressed for time." Poor man! he told me, that in the night just past he had suffered very much. He could not endure any one to be in the room with him in the dark, and he wanted only a glass of water to be left within reach against the time he might awake during the night. That glass, it seems, was not exactly at the right place, and when he reached for it, he upset it, and there he was, thirsty, alone, unable to call, not strong enough to grope his way to the call-bell, and condemned to wait till morning to get a drop of water. He was indeed, as he said, pressed for time, because a month after this conversation he was dead. Auber's esprit to live up to eightynine and give his contemporaries time enough to let him enjoy les grandeurs et jouissances de la gloire, reminded me of Heine's words that he could not wait so long. Auber was born in 1782- not, as many biographers have it, in 1784 — and at Caen, where his mother was on a travelling visit. His grandfather had been ap pointed décorateur des carrosses de Louis XVI. Imagine what a responsibility for the peace of the State. Decorator of the king's carriages, forsooth! The times, however, were not royalist. A storm began to blow which made royalty lose its equilibrium, and Papa Auber with all his dignities had to flee for his life, until Napoleon I., the very enfant de la Révolu tion, seized the sceptre. The Aubers then came back, and instead of carriage decoration, established a commerce de gravures. Auber's father had been a suspect during the Revolution, on account of his connection with the court, and his being established in the street which to this day is called La Rue des Petites Ecuries. Very fond of music, far from opposing his son's inclination, he took him to a master, Monsieur Landurner, who gave young Daniel violin lessons. The name of this professor has a dreadful German sound, but Germans have from time immemorial been good instrumental teachers, and young Auber made good use of his time, and rapid progress. A violin concerto, which he composed later on, was the result of these studies. What he wrote first was a cahier de romances, to please the ladies whom he knew, and by whom he was known as an amateur. Rather timid, and not meeting with much success in these songs, he got tired of music, and asked his father to get him an introduction to some great commerçant, but when he was established behind a desk with a big ledger on it, book-keeping became so tedious to him, that he was suddenly taken with a desire to study business and the English language in London; and, procuring numbers of introductions, to London he went with a friend of his. When he arrived in the English metrop olis he was much more interested in the auburn hair and the fair faces of the ladies, so he decided to leave the commercial studies to his friend, simply burned all his business introductions, and sacrificed on the altar of grace and beauty all that his talent enabled him to lay at their feet. If I may be allowed to step out of the regular progression from child to boy, and boy to man, I might say that his perpetual noting down of little melodies gained him the reputation of a composer of "small" music, but, as Rossini said, "He may write small music, but he writes it like a great and accomplished musician." It is well known that in the same way Catalani said of Sontag: "Her genre is small, but she is great in her genre." When one comes to compare what one artist says of another, there is not always such fair and kind impartiality as Rossini showed to Auber. Even Beethoven, whose misfortune was to have flown so high before his time that his contemporaries could barely follow him, when asked his opinion about Rossini, said he might have been somebody if he had only studied more seriously. Yet that same Beethoven, that recognized colossus among composers, was once discussed by Kreutzer and Habeneck; by the very Kreutzer, the violinist, whose name he immortalized in his so-called "Kreutzer Sonata ;" and by Habeneck, the man who thirty-five years ago introduced Beethoven's symphonies to the Conservatoire audiences, and most undoubtedly secured the best possible performances of them ever given in any country. Only this was after Beethoven's death, and the conversation alluded to took place in 1820, when Beethoven was all but unknown in France. Then Habeneck asked Kreutzer, "What do you think of Beethoven ?" "In what respect?" asked Kreutzer. "Why, as a composer," said Habeneck. "Oh, a poor fool who will never do anything worth preserving!" replied the man whose very existence would already be forgotten had he not had the great luck to be "preserved" under the wings of the man whose every bar has survived a whole army of executants. One of Auber's biographers says that Auber composed without study, because he was better served "by a natural instinct than by sustained application to study." A very strange assertion, seeing that the same biographer speaks of a conversation between Cherubini, the director of the Paris Conservatoire, and Auber's father, who took young Daniel to the great composer to learn whether there was any serious hope for the musical career of his son, and received the following reply, which I wish could be engraved in marble for all students with undeniable disposition and talent: "Undoubtedly your son has a gifted nature, and if properly developed he may attain a very high position. But before all, he will have to unlearn all he has until now considered the proper way of writing, and then he must begin from A to work and study, and go through a regular training and musical education, or he will never do any solid work." Until then he had led the agreeable life of a romance writer for the sake of romance, because he preferred being happy to being celebrated. Was he right or wrong? I will not take upon me to decide the question. Schiller, the great German poet, speaks of a king who on his death-bed is asked by his successor:“You have seen life in its every aspect. You have had every enjoyment and every pleasure. What is now, as the curtain falls, your opinion of the great drama?" To which the dying king replies, "Hearty contempt for everything_that seemed to me great or desirable." "Being happy is so relative, that whilst one person is happy in a barrel for a house, and has no other favor to ask of a king than to step aside, so as not to intercept the sun's rays; another, surrounded with every blessing, position, and wealth, which a throne can procure, dies, despising all that had seemed to him worth having, or elevated and coveted in life. Auber, then, preferred being happy to earning or work. ing for a great and celebrated name. His father, however, was not of the opinion that fooling away life in order to please the ladies was a worthy existence, and he compelled his son to look life seriously in the face, and to choose a career that miscuit utile dulci, "that gave him wealth and glory, and nevertheless left him leisure enough to sacrifice his artistic offerings on the altar of any admired beauty. nothing but run after the ladies? He will never do any good." Then his father died, supposed to be very rich, but without leaving him a penny; and necessity, that great mother of great work and great invention, compelled him to do better. And he did better. In The first step which Auber took as a 1820 he produced "La Bergère Châtecomposer was not very practical. He laine," his first success. At last! Of his wrote for the then well-known violoncello previous opera a kind friend had written: player Lamarre, a certain number of con- "In the music there are no noisy effects certos, which were signed by Lamarre as it is written with a sagesse extrême.” composer. Having thus taken unto him- And that was a merit, for young composself the glory of the work, Lamarre was ers usually overstep the line, in the direcnot scrupulous enough to trouble young tion of loud instrumentation. They are Auber with accounts or payments, or always afraid of not being sonorous other such tedious proceedings. He was enough, and the brass and the drums are practical and logical, and having kept Au- worked as if by steam-power. It was ber's merit to himself, he kept the event- therefore his great good sense which kept ual payment for the same too, which made Auber within bounds. But the Journal the affair more complete, and saved Au- des Débats, then the great oracle in ber the bother of counting and calculating, France, published one line of cutting an occupation against which his artistic sharpness: "La musique est d'un jeune nature revolted, and which therefore La- homme!" That was all. marre was generous enough to take upon himself. He wrote a concerto, too, for the violinist Mazas, which had so great a success that his father said to him, “Malheureux, si tu n'écris pas pour le théâtre, je te maudis." Finding, as I said before, that the salons and their amusement offered no serious compensation in any way whatever, he began his studies under Cherubini, and then he composed a messe à quatre voix, which was never published, except the Agnus Dei, which he used as the prayer in Masaniello." In 1813 he came out with "Le Séjour militaire," which brought him neither laurels nor a heavy cheque. This opera, either on account of the very grave polit ical times, or because the composer was not known enough, was soon forgotten, and from 1813 to 1819 Auber did nothing but run to the librettists, begging for a new book. "And did you," a friend asked him, "submit your desire only to the great authors?" "Great and small," he said, "I went to everybody patiently every day for six years, nearly as long as Jacob served for Rachel, but I did not even acquire a Leah nobody had confidence in my talent." He went, among others, to a Monsieur Planard every day, rain or sunshine, cold or hot, and when he got a little piece" Le Testament et les Billets doux" he failed entirely. Every body instantly said at Paris, where nothing succeeds like success, and where a failure is a man's moral death: "What can you expect from a freluquet who does His first success was therefore all the more important for a man thirty-eight years old, when it is considered that Rossini had already ceased to write long be fore that age, covered with glory. Auber achieved another success in 1821 with "Emma." But the critics of the time not only felt disinclined to risk any great praise for a man who had only had some succès d'estime, and whom it was perhaps not "safe" to praise; but when Castil Blaze (who had an opinion of his own, and the courage to express it whether he stood alone or not) said that "the music was spirituelle and dramatic," that it was "the great and good school of music," they attacked him so violently, for being the only prophet among them, that he wrote in answer: "Messieurs, please agree among yourselves; I am assailed by one side for patronizing foreigners, by the other for being governed only by my patriotic zeal. I say that the music of Monsieur Auber is charming, melodious, well written, and the time will come when you will all say the same." And the time did come, the reader knows that. The success of a little opera written for amateurs, had such an effect upon the singers, that one and all proposed to carry him on their shoulders to the theatre. There is, however, an incident which I shall take good care not to pass over. During the dress rehearsal of this little opera ("Julie "), which he had written in one week, he saw one of the amateurs who played the fiddle in that small orches tra staring at a very handsome girl who | mission to use a romance of his in a new sang on the stage, but so fixedly that he play. The acquaintance once made, they held his bow on the violin without play- worked a long lifetime together. Auber ing a note. After having observed him in one year achieved two successes (1832): awhile, Auber approached him politely "Leicester " first, "La Neige" afterwards. and said, “It seems to me that you are If there was any need to prove the ficklenot exactly playing in time?" Ah," ness of the French public, it might be said the amateur, "vous croyez? I must furnished by this latter opera, into which tell you candidly that I paint a little, and Auber interpolated an air that he had prewhen I see such a pretty model, with such viously written to Italian words. The pit a pure complexion, I admire her above rose against it. One shouted "Paix à all." The name of this amateur who l'orchestre," another, "Cut it out," and painted a little" was Ingres, and from when the air was continued a cry suddenly that day, for fifty-two years, he and Auber arose, "Ce n'est donc pas fini?" Anyremained great friends. I must here men- body else would have taken the air and tion a circumstance which I heard of from burned it. But Auber knew his public Ingres himself, and which teaches a good too well. After a time he inserted the lesson to this age. Ingres told me that same air in the "Fiancée," and it created for a great many years before he dared to quite a furore. sketch anything like a figure, he was com Auber uttered so many mots spirituels, pelled to design nothing but lines, circles, that he was very often supposed to be and mathematical outlines. When he be- the author of many amusing méchancetés gan to sketch figures he was again kept of which he was guiltless. Although exfor years to the inanimate, before he was tremely courteous he belonged to the permitted to sketch from nature; and be good old times of the last century - he fore he dared to take a palette in his hand occasionally launched a little criticism and paint in oils, no less than seven years which cut sharply enough. Thus he said passed. Only thus are great artists de- of Madame Rigault, a fair-haired, exveloped; and as it is with one art so it is tremely correct, but cold singer, "There is with another. It is because so few pupils a prima donna who might fire the rockets will take the trouble seriously to study, of her immense technique into a powderthoroughly to learn, and slowly and surely mill without the slightest danger to any to advance, that we have and shall have body around it." In one of the biograless and less of the great singers. In the phies of Auber, I find that he was never Paris Conservatoire they must remain six among the audience at any of his peryears, or they are not admitted to the com-formances, and had never allowed himself petition for prizes. Since the acquiring a first or even a second prize has the advantage of an immediate engagement at some lyric theatre, the pupils take good care not to lose their opportunity. If we had a great musical college in England where whoever was found on examination to be worthy, would be instructed gratis, on condition that he or she should submit to the rules of the institution, and should regularly attend the classes until the moment arrived to compete for the first prize, we should reach great results, for voices and intelligence are not lacking. It is the perseverance which is wanting, the eagerness to rush before the public which is ruinous, simply because you can sing a trumpery ballad and earn two guineas; thus preventing talents, otherwise capable of becoming the glory of their country, from developing into that artistic com. pleteness which cannot be obtained in any art without long and hard work. Necessity made Auber work, and he was at last rewarded when he was politely approached by Scribe, who asked his per In to be called before the footlights. were never The two letters are rather remarkable for shortness and courtesy: — Scribe wrote: "Monsieur, voulez-vous me permettre de placer, dans un vaudeville que j'écris en ce moment pour le populaire de la Bergère Châtelaine? Je ne vous théâtre de Madame, votre ronde si jolie et si justement cacherai pas, monsieur, que je me suis engagé auprès de mon directeur à faire réussir ma pièce, et que j'ai comté pour cela sur votre charmante musique." To which Auber replied: "Ma ronde est peu de chose, monsieur, et votre esprit peut se passer de mon faible secours. Mais si, avec la permission que vous me demandez, et dont vous n'avez nul besoin, je pouvais vous prêter la jolie voix et le joli visage de Mme. Boulanger, je crois que nous ferions tous les deux une bonne affaire." |