Zigzag Journeys in Northern Lands Part 39

"Hark! hear ye the shouts and the thunders before ye?

On, brothers, on, to death and to glory!

We'll meet in another, a happier sphere!"

On May 28, 1813, Major Von Lutzow determined to set out on an expedition towards Thuringia, with his young cavalry and with Cossacks. Korner begged to accompany him. Lutzow commissioned him as an officer. He was wounded, and left for a time helpless in a wood, on the 17th of June. In this condition he wrote his famous "Farewell to Life."

"My deep wound burns," &c.

Korner recovered, but was suddenly killed in an engagement on August 26th.

The "Sword Song" of Korner which Von Weber's music has made famous, was written a few hours before his death. It was an inspiration to the German cause.

"Lutzow's Wild Chase" thrilled Prussia. Like the "Watch on the Rhine" in the recent war, it was the word that fired the national pride, and nerved men to deeds that crowned the cause with glory.

"The Rhine! the Rhine!" shouted the young German heroes at last, looking down on the river.

"Is there a battle?" asked the officers, das.h.i.+ng on in the direction of the shout.

"No, the enemy has gone over the Rhine," was the answer. "The Rhine!

the Rhine!"

Mr. Beal introduced a number of selections from German composers, the loved tone-poets, with interesting stories and anecdotes. We reproduce a part of these musical incidents, as they properly belong to the history of the river of song.

Taking up a selection from Schubert's famous symphony, he spoke feelingly of the author, and then gave some pictures of the lives of Beethoven and Bach.

THE AUTHOR OF THE ERL KING.

Poor Schubert! The composer of what operas, symphonies, overtures, choruses, ma.s.ses, cantatas, sonatas, fantasias, arias! What tenderness was in his soul!--Listen to the "Last Greeting;" what fancy and emotion! listen to the "Fisher Maiden" and "Post Horn;"

what refinement! listen to the "Serenade;" what devotion! hear the "Ave Maria"!

Dead at the age of thirty-one; dead after a life of neglect, leaving all these musical riches behind him!

Franz Schubert was born at Himmelpfortgrand, in 1797. His father was a musician, but a poor man. Franz was placed at the age of eleven among the choir-boys of the Court Chapel, where he remained five years, absorbed in musical studies, and making himself the master of the leading instruments of the orchestra.

To compose music was his life. His restless genius was ever at work; always seeking to produce something new, something better. The old masters, and especially Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, were his sources of study and inspiration. Music became his world, and all outside of it was strange and unexplored. All of his moods found expression in music: his love, his hopes, his wit, his sadness, and his dreams.

He seems to have composed his best works for the pure love of his art, with little thought of money or fame. Many of his best works he never heard performed. He left his ma.n.u.script scores scattered about his rooms, and so they were found in confusion after his decease.

A monument was erected to his memory. On it is the following simple but touching inscription:--

"The art of music buried here a rich possession, but yet far fairer hopes. Franz Schubert lies here. Born on the 30th of January, 1797, died on the 19th of November, 1828, thirty-one years old."

Fame almost failed to overtake him in life; his course was so rapid, and his works were so swiftly produced. It crowned his memory.

Schubert's magnificent symphony in C is one of the most beautiful works of the kind ever written, and lovers of orchestral music always delight to find it on the programme of an evening concert. It is a charm, an enchantment; it awakens feelings that are only active in the soul under exceptional influences. Yet the listener does not know to what he is listening: it is all a mystery; no one can tell what the composer intended to express by this symphony. We know that the theme is a n.o.ble one,--but what? that the soul of the writer must have been powerfully moved during its composition,--by what influences? It is an enigma: each listener may guess at the theme, and each will a.s.sociate it with the subject most in harmony with his own taste.

In 1844 Robert Schumann, while looking over a heap of dusty ma.n.u.scripts at Vienna, found this wonderful symphony, until then unknown. He was so much charmed with it that he sent it to Mendelssohn at Leipzig. It was there produced at the Gewandhaus concerts, won the admiration it deserved, and thence found its way to all the orchestras of the world. The youthful composer had been dead nearly twenty years when the discovery was made.

One of the best known of the dramatic German ballads is the Erl King.

The Erl King is Death. He rides through the night. He comes to a happy home, and carries away a child, galloping back to the mysterious land whence he came.

In this ballad a father is represented as riding with a dying child under his cloak. The Erl King pursues them.

Schubert gave the ballad its musical wings. I need not describe the music. It is on your piano. Let it tell the story.

BEETHOVEN'S BOYHOOD AT BONN.

Literary men have often produced their best works late in life.

Longfellow cites some striking ill.u.s.trations of this truth in _Morituri Salutamus_:--

"It is too late! Ah, nothing is too late Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.

Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles Wrote his grand Oedipus, and Simonides Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers, When each had numbered more than fourscore years.

And Theophrastus, at fourscore and ten, Had but begun his Characters of Men.

Chaucer, at Woodstock with the nightingales, At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales; Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last, Completed Faust when eighty years were past."

Such examples of late working are seldom found in musical art. Men seem to become musicians because of the inspiration born within them. This impelling force is very early developed.

Handel, the greatest musical composer of his own or any age, was so devoted to music in childhood that his father forbade his musical studies. At the age of eleven he as greatly delighted and surprised Frederick I. of Prussia by his inspirational playing; he was in youth appointed to a conspicuous position of organist in Halle.

Haydn surprised his friends by his musical talents at his _fifth_ year. He had a voice of wonderful purity, sweetness, and compa.s.s, and was received as a choir-boy at St. Stephen's Church, Vienna.

Mozart's childhood is a household story. He was able to produce chords on the harpsichord at the age of three, and wrote music with correct harmonies at the age of six. Gluck had made a musical reputation at the age of eighteen.

Mendelssohn was a brilliant pianist at six, and gave concerts at nine. Verdi was appointed musical director at Milan in youth.

Rossini composed an opera at the age of sixteen, and ceased to compose music at forty.

No other art exhibits such remarkable developments of youthful genius; though many eminent poets like Pindar, Cowley, Pope, Mrs.

Hemans, L. E. L., have written well in early youth. Music is a flower that blossoms early, and bears early fruit.

Music may justly be called the art of youth.

Beethoven was born at Bonn on the Rhine, 1770. He lived here twenty-two years. His musical character was formed here.

Beethoven was put at the harpsichord at the age of four years. He was able to play the most difficult music in every key at twelve years; and was appointed one of the court organists when fifteen.

The boy received this appointment, which was in the chapel of the Elector of Cologne, by the influence of Count Waldstein, who had discovered his genius. Here he was the organ prince.

The following curious anecdote is told of his skill at the organ:--

"On the last three days of the pa.s.sion week the Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah were always chanted; these consisted of pa.s.sages of from four to six lines, and they were sung in no particular time. In the middle of each sentence, agreeably to the old choral style, a _rest_ was made upon one note, which rest the player on the piano (for the organ was not used on those three days) had to fill up with a voluntary flourish.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BEETHOVEN'S HOME AT BONN.]

"Beethoven told h.e.l.ler, a singer at the chapel who was boasting of his professional cleverness, that he would engage, that very day, to put him out, at such a place, without his being aware of it, so that he should not be able to proceed. He accepted the wager; and Beethoven, when he came to a pa.s.sage that suited his purpose, led the singer, by an adroit modulation, out of the prevailing mode into one having no affinity with it, still, however, adhering to the tonic of the former key; so that the singer, unable to find his way in this strange region was brought to a dead stand.

"Exasperated by the laughter of those around him, h.e.l.ler complained to the elector, who (to use Beethoven's expression) 'gave him a most gracious reprimand, and bade him not play any more such clever tricks.'"