Joseph II. and His Court Part 19

"Heaven will hear thy prayer, my better self," cried Gluck, drawing his wife close to his heart. "Oh, how happy I feel to be permitted to speak with thee of my past labors! How gladly shall I listen to thy criticisms or thy approval! both, more to me than those of all the world beside.

Come, Marianne, I will begin now."

He sprang up from the divan, and would have hurried to the piano, but Marianne held him back. "Maestro," said she, "before we sacrifice to Apollo, let us give to life and mortality their rights. Prose awaits us in the dining-room, and we shall give her audience before we open the pages of this nameless opera."

"You shall hear its name, Marianne. It is--"

Marianne put her arms around his neck, and whispered, "Hush, my Orpheus!"

"How! You know that also?"

She raised her hand, as if in menace. "Know, Christopher, that little Hymen tolerates no man who has secrets from his wife. You tried to be silent, but betrayed yourself in your sleep. You do not know how often during the night you have called Eurydice in tones of plaintive music.

Nor do you know how, as you appealed to the deities of the infernal regions, I shuddered at the power of your weird notes!"

"You heard, then," cried Cluck, enchanted. "And you--"

"My friend Prose, Prose calls with angry voice. Away to the dining-room!

A man who has revelled all night with the Muses, needs refreshment in the morning. Nay--you need not frown like Jupiter Tonans--you must go with me to eat earthly food, before I taste your nectar and ambrosia.

Come, and to reward your industry you shall have a gla.s.s of Lacrimae Christi from the cellar of the Duke of Bologna."

She drew him from the room, and succeeded in landing him at the breakfast-table.

"Now, I will not hear a word about art," said Marianne, when the servants had brought in the breakfast. "I am the physician, both of body and mind, and condemn you to a silence of fifteen minutes. Then you may talk."

"Of my opera, carissima?"

"Heaven forbid! of the wind and weather--nothing else. Now hush, and drink your chocolate."

So Gluck, obedient, drank his chocolate, and ate his biscuit and partridge-wing in silence.

All at once, the comfortable stillness was broken by a loud ringing of the door-bell, and a servant announced Signor Calzabigi.

Gluck darted off from the table, but Marianne, laughing, brought him back again. "First, your gla.s.s of Lacrimae Christi," said she.

"Calzabigi will be indulgent and wait for us a moment."

He took the gla.s.s, and inclining his head, drank her health.

"Marianne," said he cheerfully, "I have been amiable and tractable as a good child. Enough of Prose, then--give me my freedom now, will you?"

"Yes, maestro; you are free; your body is refreshed, and can bear the weight of that strong soul that has no infirmities to impede its flight.

Fly, if you list--to Calzabigi!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

RANIER VON CALZABIGI.

The door of the drawing-room bad scarcely opened before Calzabigi hastened forward to meet Gluck. But, seeing his wife, he stopped, and made a profound inclination.

"Speak out, friend," cried Gluck merrily. "She knows every thing, and think what a treasure of a wife she is! She has known it all along, without betraying herself by a word."

"And does that surprise you?" answered Calzabigi, "It does not me, for well I know that the signora is an angel of prudence as well as of goodness. The signora will allow me to speak before her? Well, then, maestro, the die is cast. I am just from the house of Count Durazzo, to whom, at your request, I took the opera yesterday. The count sat up all night to examine it; and this morning, when I was ushered into his room, I found him still in his evening-dress, the score on the table before him."

"Hear, Marianne," exclaimed Gluck, triumphantly, "it is not only the composer who forgets to sleep for the sake of this opera. And what said the theatrical director, Raniero?"

"He said that no intrigue and no opposition should prevent him from representing this magnificent opera. He says that he feels proud of the privilege of introducing such a chef-d'oeuvre to the world. He has already sent for the transcribers; he has chosen the performers, and begs of the author to distribute the parts. But every thing must be done at once, for the opera comes out in October to celebrate the birthday of the young Archd.u.c.h.ess Isabella."

"That is impossible," cried Gluck. "We are in July, and such an opera cannot be learned in three months."

"With good-will, it can be done, Christopher," said Marianne, imploringly. "Do not leave your enemies time to cabal against you; s.n.a.t.c.h the victory from them before they have time for strategy."

"You do not know what you require at my hands," returned he, pa.s.sionately. "You do not know how an ill-timed pause or a slighted rest would mar the fair face of my G.o.dlike music, and travesty its beauty."

"Hear how he defames himself!" laughed Marianne, "as if it were so easy to desecrate Gluck's masterpiece."

"It is precisely because it is my masterpiece that it is easy to travesty," returned Gluck, earnestly. "The lines which distinguish the hand of a Raphael from that of a lesser genius are so delicate as to be almost imperceptible. Slight deviations of the pencil have no effect upon a caricature; but you well know how completely a beautiful face maybe disfigured by a few unskilful touches. I will cite as an example the aria of 'Orpheus,' 'Che faro senza Euridice' Change its expression by the smallest discrepancy of time or modulation, and you transform it into a tune for a puppet-show. In music of this description a misplaced piano or forte, an ill-judged fioriture, an error of movement, either one, will alter the effect of the whole scene. The opera must, therefore, be rehea.r.s.ed under my own direction, for the composer is the soul of his opera, and his presence is as necessary to its success as is that of the sun to the creation." [Footnote: These are Gluck's own words. Anton Schmid, "Life of Gluck," page 152.]

"Well, I am sure, you can manage the whole troupe with that stentor voice of yours," replied Marianne.

"If you do not consent, Gluck," interposed Calzabigi, "they will have to rehea.r.s.e for the birthday fete an opera of Ha.s.se and Metastasio."

"What!" shrieked Gluck, "lay aside my 'Orpheus' for one of Ha.s.se's puny operas? Never! My opera is almost complete. It needs but one last aria to stand out before the world in all its fulness of perfection, and shall I suffer it to be laid aside to give place to one of his tooting, jingling performances? No, no. My 'Orpheus' shall not retire before Ha.s.se's pitiful jeremiades. It shall be forthcoming on the birthday, and I must train the singers by day and by night."

"Right!" exclaimed Marianne, "and we shall crown you with new laurels, Christopher, on that eventful night."

"I am not so sure of that, Marianne. It is easier to criticise than to appreciate, and every thing original or new provokes the opposition of the mult.i.tude. In our case, they have double provocation, for Calzabigi's poem is as original as my music. We have both striven for simplicity, nature, and truth; we have both discarded clap-trap of every sort. Oh, Calzabigi, my friend, how happy for me that I have found such a poet! If, through his 'Orpheus,' Gluck is to attain fame, he well knows how much of it is due to the inspiration of your n.o.ble poem."

"And never," exclaimed Calzabigi, grasping the extended hand of the composer, "never would the name of poor Calzabigi have been known, had Gluck not borne it along upon the pinions of his own fame. If the world calls me poet, it is because my poem has borrowed beauty from Gluck's celestial music."

"Yes," said Gluck, laughing, "and if your poem fails, you will be equally indebted to Gluck's music. Those half-learned critics, so numerous in the world, who are far more injurious to art than the ignorant, will rave against our opera. Another cla.s.s of musical pedants will be for discovering carelessness, and, for aught we know, the majority of the world may follow in their wake, and condemn our opera as barbarous, discordant, and overstrained."

"We must try to forestall all these prejudices, and win the critics to the side of truth and real art," said Marianne.

"The signora is right," said Calzabigi. "It is not so much for our own sake, as for the sake of art, that we should strive to have a fair hearing before the world. We have the powerful party of Metastasio and Ha.s.se to gain. But I will deal with them myself. You, maestro, speak a word of encouragement to Ha.s.se, and he will be so overjoyed, that he will laud your opera to the skies. And pray, be a man among men, and do as other composers have done before: pay a visit to the singers, and ask them to bring all their skill to the representation of your great work; ask them to--"

Here, Gluck, boiling over with indignation, broke in upon Calzabigi, so as actually to make the poet start back.

"What!" cried he, in a voice of thunder, "shall I visit the ladies'

maids also, and make them declarations of love? Shall I present each singer with a golden snuff-box, while I entertain the troupe at a supper, where champagne shall flow like water, and Indian birds-nests shall be served up with diamonds? Shall I present myself in full court-dress at the anteroom of the tenor, and, slipping a ducat in the hand of his valet, solicit the honor of an interview? Shall I then bribe the maid of the prima donna to let me lay upon her mistress's toilet-table a poem, a dedication, and a set of jewels? Shame upon you, cravens, that would have genius beg for suffrages from mediocrity!

Rather would I throw my 'Orpheus' behind the fire, and let every opera I have ever written follow it to destruction. I would bite out my tongue, and spit it in Ha.s.se's face, sooner than go before him with a mouth full of flattering lies, to befool him with praise of that patchwork he has made, and calls AN OPERA! When I was obscure and unknown, I scorned these tricks of trade; and think you that to-day I would stoop to such baseness? Eight years ago, in Rome, a cabal was formed to cause the failure of my 'Trionfo de Camillo,' Cardinal Albini came to a.s.sure me that his influence should put down the plots of my enemies. I thanked him, but refused all protection for my opera: and I told his eminence that my works must depend upon their own worth for success. [Footnote: This is true. Anton Schmid, page 88.] And you dare, at this time, to come with such proposals to me? You are not worthy of my friends.h.i.+p. I will have nothing further to say to either of you, you cringing puppets!"

So saying, with his dark-blue dressing-gown flying out like an angry cloud behind him, Gluck strode across the room, and sailed off to his private study.

Marianne, smiling, reached out her hand to the astounded poet. "Forgive his stormy temper," said she, gently; "he can no more bear contradiction than a spoiled child. His wrath looks formidable; but though there is much thunder, there is no lightning about him. Wait a quarter of an hour, kind friend, and he will be back, suing for pardon and imploring us to take his hand, just like a naughty child that he is. Then he will smile, and look so ashamed that you will never have the heart to feel resentful."

"I have none already," replied Calzabigi; "his thunder has rolled grandly over our heads, and right n.o.ble are its sounds; but the lightning has spared us. We are safe, and--unconvinced. For, indeed, signora," continued Raniero, with earnestness, "we are right. No reliance is ever to be placed upon the justice or good taste of the world, and since the maestro refuses to propitiate his judges; I will undertake the task myself. I shall go at once to Metastasio, and after that I shall invite the performers to a supper."