The Life of Phineas T. Barnum Part 16

"The orchestra commenced with Rossini's Overture to "William Tell"--perhaps the finest piece of instrumental picture music since Haydn's Creation and the Pastoral Symphony of Beethoven.

Its fresh and vivid coloring, its atmospheric changes, its smart Alpine vigor and heroic ensemble, were made as present and as real as any sixty instruments could make them. Exquisitely did those three violoncellos sketch the first scene of soft, cool sunset on the unruffled lake; the mellow Corno Anglaise, male partner to the oboe, sweetly woke the flute-like mountain echoes; the low moan and whistle of the storm rose life like in the crescendo of the violins, and as it died away the startling quick-step of liberty leaped strong and simultaneous from such a tutti as we have hardly heard from any orchestra. We can believe that Mr. Benedict was quite sincere in telling them he had not conducted a better orchestra in Europe. The other Overture to Masaniello was also splendidly played, but the composition is, to our taste, too hackneyed to fill out the programme of a Jenny Lind before the largest audience in the world. The accompaniments to the singing were usually given with sympathetic precision, and subdued shading or vigorous seconding, as the case required. We cannot speak too well of M. Benedict's control of his forces.

"The second piece was the Viravviso ("As I View Now") from La Somnambula, delivered in the richest and most vibrating barytone that WE Americans have heard, by Sig. Belletti. Now that we have heard him from a nearer position, we have not a doubt left of his superiority in voice, style, execution to all our Italian favorites of the same register hitherto. He absolutely glorified the cavatina which rapidly grew commonplace with Brough, and had but half recovered even in the hands of the worthy Italian artists who have since sung it on the stage for us. His crowning achievement last night, however, was the actual singing of a Tarentella by Rossini--a kind of movement which we have hitherto heard only from instruments--a whirling, spinning, delirious, top-like movement in which the singer seems galvanized and tyrannized by one too happy and all-mastering idea in spite of himself. The audience too, in spite of themselves, were sucked into its whirling ecstacy, and it was imperatively encored. In Mozart's Non piu Andrai the chaster prototype of Rossini's Largo al factotum, his vocalization was elastic, spirited and elegant, but the effect of such a piece was necessarily lost upon the outer circles of so vast an auditory.

"For other variety there was a brilliant show duett on themes from La Somnambula for piano and violin by Messrs. Benedict and Noll, and a solo on the pianoforte by that most promising young artist, Hoffman. For this he chose De Meyer's fantasy on Semiramide, decidedly of the modern monster school of pianoforte composition, though quite a vigorous, graceful and redeeming specimen thereof.

"And now for the 'Queen of Song'--or, if so qualifying it will better suit the Italians, the NORTHERN Queen of Song.

"She commenced with one of the most tender and graceful, and hereabouts least hackneyed airs of Bellini--the Qui la Voce from I Puritani. Her liquid purity of voice and graceful gliding through its flowery labyrinthine pa.s.sages was to us not more remarkable than the true but quiet fervor which animated it.

Jenny Lind shows no feeling! and excites none! draws no tears!

True Art supplies the place of tears by touching the emotions which are deeper and serener, and not a whit less human. But of this more fully when we have room.

"The splendid song from Mozart's 'Magic Flute,' Non Paventar, brought into play the salient diamonds of her highest voice, which arches like the tall shaft of a fountain sparkling in the sun. The introduction, a bold, exhorting strain, in grandiose style, full of large intervals, was given with a glorious fervor, and no lark ever carolled more blithely or more at ease than her voice as it soared to F in alt! Benedict's English ballad, 'Take this Lute,' she sang with a simplicity and pathos that won the audience completely; and no part seemed more genuine or more expressive than the difficult cadenza at its close.

"The romanza from Robert le Diable was perhaps the most fascinating of her more studied performances. This, like all her brilliant things, if not impa.s.sioned in the cheaper superficial sense, was at all events vital, and from the soul. She is never mechanical, whatever you may say about want of pa.s.sion. Is any tragic pathos, such as is ready on the smallest occasion, or on none, more admirable and more inspiring, more from the inmost soul, than is that gus.h.i.+ng up of a full, glad, true heart which is her native mood of song, and which was so glorious last night in the Ah! non Giunge from Somnambula? The rapturous encore to this was answered by the Swedish 'Herdsman's Song.'

"It was in the song from Mozart's 'Magic Flute' that we first fully KNEW the voice and art and soul of Jenny Lind. She warmed to that music. It is narrow criticism which imprisons such a singer within the partial scope, albeit cla.s.sical, of the Italian School; ignores that vital part of her which may exceed the conventional requirements of such a School, and condemns whatever in her is most characteristic, and in contrast with its models.

It has been well said by those who make the most intelligent reference to those models and that school, that the style of the Swedish Nightingale is sui generis, as marked as her own personality. True, you would not say of her, in the conventional Italian sense of the word, what is often said in first acknowledgment of a good singer: 'She has STYLE'--meaning the one style which is a.s.sumed as the standard. If we are to limit style to that sense, Mdlle. Lind has more than style; she has genius--Northern genius, to be sure, which is precisely what she should have to make her greatness genuine. Song is original in her; and from her singing we drink in new life, after long satiety of such pa.s.sion-sweets as have become habits rather than fresh inspirations in the delightful--we may almost say perfected--but yet confined music of the Italians.

"It is, perhaps, too late to await the advent of a Queen of Song from the warm South. The South has had its turn; it has fulfilled its mission; the other end of the balance now comes up. The Northern Muse must sing her lesson to the world. Her fresher, chaster, more intellectual, and (as they only SEEM to some) her colder strains come in due season to recover our souls from the delicious languor of a Music which has been so wholly of the Feelings, that, for the want of some intellectual tonic and some spiritual temper, Feeling has degenerated into mere Sensibility and a very cheap kind of superficial, skin-deep excitability that usurps the name of Pa.s.sion.

"We admire and feel and love the Melody of Italy. We reverence her native gift of song, her popular sensibility to it. We have been again and again transported by her best vocal artists who have visited these sh.o.r.es, and they are not THE best--the world-wide celebrities, we have to confess, are only traditions to us--traditions, however, to which we yield ourselves in full faith. From what we HAVE heard and experienced of Italian singing, we know, as well as if we had heard Grisi, Pasta and Rubini, that it is not IN the genius of the Italian School to produce or hardly to appreciate such a new revelation of song as this human nightingale or canary of Sweden.

"Is this underrating the Italian music? By no means. That is an established fact, and has its characteristic worth. Equally so, but in a contrasted way has the music of the North, which, till this Nightingale appeared, had found its utterance mainly through instruments and orchestras. Now it finds worthy utterance in song. But of its peculiar characteristic we must take another time to speak."

CHAPTER XVIII. CONTINUED TRIUMPH.

SUCCESSFUL ADVERTISING--THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF RICHES--VISIT TO IRANISTAN--OVATIONS AT BOSTON, PHILADELPHIA, BALTIMORE AND WAs.h.i.+NGTON--VISIT TO MT. VERNON--CHARLESTON--HAVANA--FREDERICKA BREMER.

All of Barnum's inventive powers were called into play effectually to advertise his song-bird. Biographies of Jenny Lind were circulated. "Foreign correspondence" raved over her talents, narratives of her benevolence filled the papers; her pictures and her name were seen everywhere. So when she made her first appearance, it was before an audience already wrought up to a high pitch of enthusiasm in her behalf. Never before, or after for that matter, was any singer so lauded by the press. The following editorial from the New York Herald of September 10th, 1850, is a fair sample:

"What ancient monarch was he, either in history or in fable, who offered half his kingdom (the price of box-tickets and choice seats in those days) for the invention of an original sensation, or the discovery of a fresh pleasure? That sensation--that pleasure which royal power in the Old World failed to discover--has been called into existence at a less price, by Mr.

Barnum, a plain republican, and is now about to be enjoyed by the sovereigns of the New World.

"Jenny Lind, the most remarkable phenomenon in the musical art which has for the last century flashed across the horizon of the Old World, is now among us, and will make her debut to-morrow night to a house of nearly ten thousand listeners, yielding in proceeds by auction, a sum of forty or fifty thousand dollars.

For the last ten days our musical reporters have furnished our readers with every matter connected with her arrival in this metropolis, and the steps adopted by Mr. Barnum in preparation for her first appearance. The proceedings of yesterday, consisting of the sale of the remainder of the tickets, and the astonis.h.i.+ng, the wonderful sensation produced at her first rehearsal on the few persons, critics in musical art, who were admitted on the occasion, will be found elsewhere in our columns.

"We concur in everything that has been said by our musical reporter, describing her extraordinary genius--her unrivalled combination of power and art. Nothing has been exaggerated, not an iota. Three years ago, more or less, we heard Jenny Lind on many occasions, when she made the first great sensation in Europe, by her debut at the London Opera House. Then she was great in power--in art--in genius; now she is greater in all. We speak from experience and conviction. Then she astonished, and pleased, and fascinated the thousands of the British aristocracy; now she will fascinate, and please, and delight, and almost make mad with musical excitement, the millions of the American democracy. To-morrow night, this new sensation--this fresh movement--this excitement excelling all former excitements--will be called into existence, when she pours out the notes of Casta Diva, and exhibits her astonis.h.i.+ng powers--her wonderful peculiarities, that seem more of heaven than of earth--more of a voice from eternity, than from the lips of a human being.

"We speak soberly--seriously--calmly. The public expectation has run very high for the last week--higher than at any former period of our past musical annals. But high as it has risen, the reality--the fact--the concert--the voice of Jenny Lind--will far surpa.s.s all past expectations. Jenny Lind is a wonder, and a prodigy in song--and no mistake."

Barnum had not hoped to manage such an enormous enterprise as this one, without some trouble and anxiety, but he soon discovered that in this case, realization far exceeded antic.i.p.ation. He often declared that from the first concert, September 11th, 1850, until the ninety-third concert, June 9th, 1851, he did not experience a single waking moment that was free from care.

Miss Lind was utterly unprepared for the enthusiasm of her American audience, and it is scarcely to be wondered at that she should appear to listen at first to the dishonorable counsels of some of her friends, who constantly besought her to break her contract with Barnum, who, they urged, was "coining money out of her genius," and to take the enterprise into her own hands. But whether Miss Lind realized that Mr. Barnum's management was largely responsible for her triumph, or whether she was simply too high-minded to consider such a breach of honor, certain it is that she continued to stand by her contract. John Jay, her lawyer, took every occasion to interfere, and Barnum suffered much from his unreasonable intrusions. The following letter, written to Mr. Joshua Bates of Baring Bros. & Co., London, will show the difficulties which beset the perplexed manager:

"NEW YORK, October 23, 1850.

"JOSHUA BATES, Esq.:

"Dear Sir: I take the liberty to write you a few lines, merely to say that we are getting along as well as could reasonably be expected. In this country you are aware that the rapid acc.u.mulation of wealth always creates much envy, and envy soon augments to malice. Such are the elements at work to a limited degree against myself, and although Miss Lind, Benedict and myself have never, as yet, had the slightest feelings between us, to my knowledge, except those of friends.h.i.+p, yet I cannot well see how this can long continue in the face of the fact that, nearly every day they allow persons (some moving in the first cla.s.ses of society) to approach them, and spend hours in traducing me; even her attorney, Mr. John Jay, has been so blind to her interests, as to aid in poisoning her mind against me, by pouring into her ears the most silly twaddle, all of which amounts to nothing and less than nothing--such as the regret that I was a showman, exhibiter of Tom Thumb, etc., etc.

"Without the elements which I possess for business, as well as my knowledge of human nature, acquired in catering for the public, the result of her concerts here would not have been pecuniarily one-half as much as the present--and such men as the Hon. Edward Everett, G. G. Howland, and others, will tell you that there is no charlatanism or lack of dignity in my management of these concerts. I know as well as any person, that the merits of Jenny Lind are the best capital to depend upon to secure public favor, and I have thus far acted on this knowledge. Everything which money and attention can procure for their comfort, they have, and I am glad to know that they are satisfied on this score. All I fear is, that these continued backbitings, if listened to by her, will, by and by, produce a feeling of distrust or regret, which will lead to unpleasant results.

"The fact is, her mind ought to be as free as air, and she herself as free as a bird, and being satisfied of my probity and ability, she should turn a deaf ear to all envious and malevolent attacks on me. I have hoped that by thus briefly stating to you the facts in the case, you might be induced for her interests as well as mine to drop a line of advice to Mr. Benedict and another to Mr. Jay on this subject. If I am asking or expecting too much, I pray you to not give it a thought, for I feel myself fully able to carry through my rights alone, although I should deplore nothing so much as to be obliged to do so in a feeling of unfriendliness. I have risked much money on the issue of this speculation--it has proved successful. I am full of perplexity and anxiety, and labor continually for success, and I cannot allow ignorance or envy to rob me of the fruits of my enterprise.

"Sincerely and gratefully yours, "P. T. BARNUM."

Miss Lind's benevolence had been so largely extolled that it was not surprising that she should have been continually beset by applicants for charity.

In almost all cases she gave liberally in sums varying from $20 to $1,000, and to one Swedish friend, it is said, she actually gave $5,000.

On her return from Boston to New York the whole party stopped at Iranistan, Mr. Barnum's Bridgeport place. The next morning Miss Lind was escorted over the grounds, the beauty of which delighted her. "Do you know, Mr. Barnum," she said, "that if you had not built Iranistan, I should never have come to America for you?"

Mr. Barnum, much surprised, asked her to explain.

"I had received several applications to visit the United States,"

she continued, "but I did not much like the appearance of the applicants, nor did I relish the idea of crossing 3,000 miles of ocean; so I declined them all. But the first letter which Mr.

Wilton, your agent, addressed me, was written upon a sheet headed with a beautiful engraving of Iranistan. It attracted my attention. I said to myself, a gentleman who has been so successful in his business as to be able to build and reside in such a palace cannot be a mere 'adventurer.' So I wrote to your agent, and consented to an interview, which I should have declined, if I had not seen the picture of Iranistan."

"That, then, fully pays me for building it," replied Barnum.

The night after Miss Lind's arrival in Boston, there was a display of fireworks, in her honor, in front of the Revere House, which was followed by a torchlight procession by the Germans of the city. At Philadelphia, they were met by such a dense throng of people that it was with the greatest difficulty that they pressed through the crowds to their hotel. Jenny was suffering from a very severe headache and retired at once to her rooms.

Outside, the streets were packed with the thousands that had followed them to the door, and were now clamoring for Jenny Lind.

Knowing that the noise would seriously disturb the sensitive songstress, Barnum tried to induce the crowd to disperse; but they declared they would not until Miss Lind appeared on the balcony. In despair he finally put Jenny's bonnet and shawl on her companion, Miss Ahmansen, who went out on the balcony and bowed gracefully to the mult.i.tude, who gave three hearty cheers and dispersed.

Miss Lind hated crowds, and always wished her arrival in any city kept secret, so as to avoid the excitement of a public reception, but Barnum knew that the success of the enterprise depended in a large measure on this very excitement.

One day Miss Lind remarked to Mr. Barnum, "I have just heard that you and I are to be married. Now how do you suppose such a report ever originated?"

"Probably from the fact that we are 'engaged,' suggested Barnum, the inveterate punster.

Miss Lind always went to church when she could do so without attracting too much attention, always inquiring for the Swedish church wherever it could be found.

One Sunday in Baltimore, Miss Caroline Barnum, now Mrs. David W.

Thompson, of New York, went with a friend of hers who resided in the city, into the choir, where she joined in the singing.

A number of people in the audience had seen her with her father the day previous and supposed her to be Jenny Lind. Like lightning the news that Jenny Lind was in the choir, flew through the church, and when Miss Barnum, whose voice was not at all extraordinary, rose with the rest to sing, the congregation listened breathlessly. "Heavenly!" "Exquisite!" "Angelic!" sighed the excited audience. The two young ladies, all unconscious of the furore they had inspired were utterly astonished when, after church, the crowd pressed round them so closely that they had the greatest difficulty in reaching their carriage.

The day after their appearance in Was.h.i.+ngton, President Fillmore called, and left his card, Miss Lind being out. Jenny was very much flurried when she returned, and was prepared to call at the White House immediately, as would have been proper had Mr.

Fillmore been the head of any European country. Barnum a.s.sured her, however, that etiquette was not so strict in America, and she postponed her visit until the next day, when with Benedict, Belletti and Mr. Barnum she spent several delightful hours in the President's family.

The President, the Cabinet and nearly every member of Congress attended both concerts. The great Statesman Webster was so pleased with one of her songs that he drew himself up to his full height and bowed profoundly, to Miss Lind's great gratification.

Of all the distinguished men who called upon her in Was.h.i.+ngton, none impressed her like Webster. She walked up and down in great excitement after he had gone, exclaiming: "Ah! Mr. Barnum, what a man! I have never before seen such a man!"

Miss Lind was escorted through both Houses of Congress and through the Capitol and grounds, by Hon. C. F. Cleveland, Representative from Connecticut. She was very much pleased with everything and asked innumerable questions about the American Government.

During their stay in Was.h.i.+ngton, they were invited by Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton, then owner of Mt. Vernon, to visit the home and the tomb of the first President.