My Recollections — Story, Setting & Ideas

e thought that my mother would read about my misdeed made me rather shamefaced. She came in at that very moment and saw my confusion; but directly she knew the cause she clasped me in her arms and said:

"You have acted like an honest man and I forgive you. All the same that is no reason why you should ever again eat chocolate on the sly!"

Later on, when I munched other and better chocolate, I always obtained permission.

Thus it came about that from day to day I have always made notes of my recollections be they good or bad, gay or sad, happy or not, and kept them so that I might have them constantly in mind.

I MY ADMISSION TO THE CONSERVATOIRE 1

III THE GRAND PRIX DE ROME 20

IV THE VILLA MEDICI 29

V THE VILLA MEDICI (CONTINUED) 37

VI THE VILLA MEDICI (CONTINUED) 43

VII MY RETURN TO PARIS 53

VIII MY DEBUT AT THE THEATER 63

IX THE DAYS AFTER THE WAR 74

XI MY DEBUT AT THE OPÉRA 93

XII THE THEATERS IN ITALY 103

XIII THE CONSERVATOIRE AND THE INSTITUTE 114

XIV A FIRST PERFORMANCE AT BRUSSELS 123

XV THE ABBÉ PREVOST AT THE OPÉRA-COMIQUE 136

XVI FIVE COLLABORATORS 148

XVII A JOURNEY TO GERMANY 161

XX MILAN--LONDON--BAYREUTH 199

XXI A VISIT TO VERDI--FAREWELL TO AMBROISE THOMAS 208

XXII WORK! ALWAYS WORK! 217

XXIII IN THE MIDST OF THE MIDDLE AGES 231

XXIV FROM _Chérubin_ TO _Thérèse_ 242

XXV SPEAKING OF 1793 254

XXVI FROM _Ariane_ TO _Don Quichotte_ 267

XXVIII DEAR EMOTIONS 288

XXIX THOUGHTS AFTER DEATH 302

The Master, Jules Massenet _Frontispiece_

Massenet at Égreville 44

One of the last portraits of Massenet 68

Mme. Pauline Viardot 84

Titta Ruffo, Caruso and Chaliapine 110

The Forum from the First Act of _Roma_ (_See page 300_) 154

Posthumia (_Roma_) (_See page 297_) 170

Persephone in _Ariane_ 244

Queen Amahelly (_Bacchus_) 268

Dulcinée (_Don Quichotte_) 282

Facsimile of Massenet's Reply to an Invitation to Visit America 296

MY ADMISSION TO THE CONSERVATOIRE

Were I to live a thousand years--which is hardly likely--I should never forget that fateful day, February 24, 1848, when I was just six years old. Not so much because it coincided with the fall of the Monarchy of July, as that it marked the first steps of my musical career--a career which, even yet, I am not sure was my real destiny, so great is my love for the exact sciences!

At that time I lived with my parents in the Rue de Beaune in an apartment overlooking the great gardens. The day promised to be fine, but it was very cold.

We were at luncheon when the waitress rushed into the room like a maniac. "_Aux armes, citoyens!_" she yelled, throwing rather than placing the plates on the table.

I was too young to understand what was going on in the streets. All I can remember is that riots broke out and that the Revolution smashed the throne of the most debonair of kings. The feelings which stirred my father were entirely different from those which disturbed my mother's already distracted soul. My father had been an officer under Napoleon Bonaparte and a friend of Marshal Soult, Duke of Dalmatia. He was all for the Emperor, and the atmosphere of battles suited his temperament. My mother, on the other hand, had experienced the sorrows of the first great revolution, which dragged Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette from their throne, and thrilled with worship for the Bourbons.

The memory of that exciting meal remained the more deeply fixed in my mind because on the morning of that historic day, by the light of tallow candles (wax candles were only for the rich) my mother for the first time placed my fingers on the piano.

In order best to introduce me to the knowledge of this instrument, my mother--she was my music teacher--stretched along the keyboard a strip of paper upon which she wrote the notes corresponding to each of the black and white keys, with their position on the five lines. It was most ingenious; no mistake was possible.

My progress on the piano was so pronounced that three years later, in October, 1851, my parents thought I ought to apply at the Conservatoire for the entrance examination to the piano classes.

One morning that month we went to the Rue de Faubourg-Poissonnière. The Conservatoire National de Musique was there then, and it remained there until it was moved to the Rue de Madrid. The large room we entered--like all the rest in the place at that time--had walls painted a bluish gray, spotted with black. A few old benches were the only furniture in this anteroom.

M. Ferrière, a harsh, severe looking man--he was one of the upper employees--came out to call the candidates by flinging their names into the crowd of relatives and friends that accompanied them. It was like summoning the condemned to execution. Then he gave each candidate the number of his turn before the jury which had already assembled in the rooms where the sessions were held.

This room was intended for examinations and was a sort of small theater with a row of boxes and a circular gallery in the Consulate style. I confess that I have never entered that room without feeling emotion. I have always fancied that I saw, seated opposite in a first-tier box, as in a black hole, Bonaparte, the First Consul, and Josephine, the sweet companion of his early years. He with his forceful, handsome face; she with her kind and gentle glances, for both used to come to such occasions. By her visits to this sanctuary dedicated to Art and by bringing him, so preoccupied with many cares, good and noble Josephine seemed to wish to soften his thoughts and to make them less stern by contact with the youth who some day perforce would not escape the horrors of war.

From the time of Sarette, the first director, until recently, all the examinations for classes in the institution, both tragedy and comedy, were held in this same small hall, but it should not be confused with the hall so well known as the Salle de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire.

The organ class was also held there several times a week for at the back, hidden behind a large curtain, was a great organ with two keyboards. Beside that old, worn, squeaky instrument was the fateful door through which the pupils came on to the platform that formed the small stage. Again, this same small hall, for many a year, was the judgment seat for the award of prizes for musical composition known as the _Prix de Rome_.

But to return to the morning of October 9, 1851. When all the youngsters had been informed of the order in which we must take our examinations, we went into an adjoining room which led into the hall through the "fateful" door, and which was only a sort of dusty, disordered garret.

The jury whose verdict we had to face was composed of Halèvy, Carafa, Ambroise Thomas, several professors of the school, and the director, who was also the president of the Conservatoire, Monsieur Auber. We rarely said just Auber when we spoke of this French master, the most eminent and prolific of all who made the opera and opéra-comique of that time famous.

At this time Monsieur Auber was sixty-five. He was universally respected and everyone at the Conservatoire adored him. I shall always remember his pleasing, unusually bright black eyes, which remained the same until his death in May, 1871.

May, 1871! We were then in open insurrection, almost in the last throes of the Commune ... and Monsieur Auber, still faithful to his beloved boulevard near the Passage de l'Opéra--his favorite walk--met a friend also in despair over the terrible days we were passing through, and said to him, in an accent of utter weariness,

"Ah! I have lived too long!" Then he added, with a slight smile, "One should never abuse anything."

In 1851--the date when I became acquainted with Monsieur Auber--he had already lived a long time in his old mansion in the Rue St. George, where I remember having been received soon after seven in the morning, the master's work was finished by that time, the hour at which he gave himself to the calls he welcomed so simply.

Then he went to the Conservatoire in a tilbury which he ordinarily drove himself. At sight of him one was instantly reminded of the opera _La Muette de Portici_, which had exceptional good luck, and which was the most lasting success before _Robert le Diable_ made its appearance at the Opéra. To speak of _La Muette de Portici_ is to be vividly reminded of the magical effect which the duet in the second act, _Amour sacre de la patrie_, produced on the patriots in the audience when it was produced at the Théâtre de la Monnaie at Brussels. In very truth it gave the signal for the revolution which broke out in Belgium in 1830 and which brought about the independence of our neighbors on the north. The whole audience was wild with excitement, and sang the heroic strain with the artists, repeating it again and again without stopping. What master can boast of a success like that in his own career?

When my name was called, all of a tremble, I made my appearance on the stage. I was only nine years old and I had to play the finale of Beethoven's Sonata, Opus 29. What ambition!

They stopped me in the usual way after I had played two or three pages. I was utterly embarrassed as I heard Monsieur Auber's voice calling me before the jury. To get down from the stage, I had to descend two or three steps. I paid no attention to them and would have gone head first if Monsieur Auber had not kindly called out, "Take care, my little man." Then he immediately asked me where I had studied so well. After replying with some pride that my mother had been my only teacher, I went out, absolutely bewildered, almost at a run, but entirely happy. _He_ had spoken to me!

Next morning my mother received the official notice. I was a pupil at the Conservatoire.

At this time there were two teachers of the piano at the great school--Mamontel and Laurent. There were no preparatory classes. I was assigned to Laurent's class, and I remained there two years while I continued my classical studies at college. At the same time I took _sol-fa_ lessons from M. Savard who was excellent.

Professor Laurent had been _Premier Prix de piano_ under Louis XVIII. Then he was a cavalry officer, but left the army to become a professor in the Royal Conservatoire of Music. He was goodness itself, realizing the ideal of that quality in the fullest sense of the word. He placed entire confidence in me.

M. Savard was an extraordinarily erudite man. He was the father of one of my pupils, a Grand Prix de Rome, now the director of the Conservatoire at Lyons. (What a number of my old pupils are or have been directors of conservatoires!) His heart was as large as his learning was extensive. It is pleasant to recall that when I wanted to work at counterpoint, before I entered the class in fugue and composition--Ambroise Thomas was the professor--M. Savard was quite willing to give me lessons. I went to his house to take them, and every evening I went down from Montmartre where I lived to Number 13, Rue de la Vielle-Estrpade, behind the Pantheon.

What wonderful lessons I had from that simple, learned man! How courageous I was as I walked the long way I had to go to his house from which I returned each evening about ten o'clock full of the wise and learned advice he had given me!

As I said, I made the trip on foot. I did not even ride on the top of an omnibus in order to set aside sou by sou the price I would have to pay for my lessons. I had to follow this system; the shade of Descartes would have congratulated me.

But note the delicacy of that charitable-hearted man. When the day came for him to take what I owed him, M. Savard told me that he had some work for me--the transcription for a full orchestra of the military band accompaniment to Adolphe Adam's mass, and he added that the work would net me three hundred francs!!...

His purpose was obvious, but I did not see it. It was not till long afterwards that I understood that M. Savard had thought of this way of not asking me for money--by making me think that the three hundred francs represented the fee for his lessons; that, to use a fashionable phrase, they "compensated" him.

After all the years which have gone since he was no more, my heart still says to that master, to that charming, admirable soul, "Thank you!"

When I took my seat on the benches of the Conservatoire, I was rather delicate and not very tall. This was the excuse for the drawing which the celebrated caricaturist Cham made of me. He was a great friend of the family and often came to spend the evening with my parents. They had many talks which the brilliant craftsman enlivened with his sprightly and witty enthusiasms, seated around the family table lighted by the dim light of an oil lamp. (Kerosene was scarcely known and electricity had not come into use for lighting.)

We used to drink a sweet syrup on such occasions, for this was before a cup of tea was the fashionable drink.

I was often asked to play, so that Cham had every opportunity to draw my profile. He represented me as seated on five or six folios of music with my hands in the air, scarcely reaching the keyboard. This was obviously an exaggeration, but there was enough truth in it to show that it was founded on fact.

I often went with Cham to see a lovely and lovable friend of his in the Rue Tarranne. Naturally I was asked to "play the piano." I remember that on one evening when I was asked to play I had just received third place in a prize competition both on the piano and in solfeggio, and to prove it I had two heavy bronze medals inscribed "Conservatoire impérial de musique et de déclamation." It is true that they listened to me no better on this account, but I was affected by the honor nevertheless.

Some years later, in the natural course of events, I learned that Cham had secretly married the beautiful lady of the Rue Tarranne. As he was somewhat embarrassed by the marriage, he did not send announcement cards to his friends, much to their surprise. When they asked him about it, he replied, wittily,

"Of course I sent announcements.... They were anonymous."

In spite of my mother's extreme watchfulness, I escaped from home one evening. I knew that they were giving Berlioz's _L'Enfance du Christ_ at the Opéra-Comique and that the great composer was to conduct. I could not pay my way in, but I had an irresistible desire to hear the work, especially as it was a creation of Berlioz's, who aroused the enthusiasm of all our young people. So I asked my companions who sang in the children's chorus to take me in and let me hide among them. I must confess that I secretly wanted to get behind the scenes of a theater.

As might be imagined, my escapade rather upset my mother. She waited up for me until after midnight ... she thought I was lost in this vast Paris.

Needless to say that, when I came in abashed and shamefaced, I was well scolded. I bore up under two storms of tears--if it is true that a woman's wrath, like the rain in the forests, falls twice; still, a mother's heart cannot bear anger forever--and I went to bed made easy on that scare. Nevertheless I could not sleep. I recalled all the beauties of the work I had just heard and before my mind's eye I saw again the tall and impressive figure of Berlioz as he directed the superb performance in masterly style.

My life ran on happily and industriously, but this did not last. The doctors ordered my father to leave Paris, as the climate did not agree with him, and to take treatment at Aix-les-Bains in Savoy. My mother and father followed this advice and went to Chambéry taking me with them. My artistic career was interrupted, but there was nothing else for me to do.

I stayed at Chambéry for two long years; still the life there was not monotonous. I passed the time in classical studies, alternating with diligent work on scales and arpeggios, sixths and thirds, as if I were going to be a fiery pianist. I wore my hair ridiculously long, as was the style with every virtuoso, and this touch of resemblance harmonized with my dreams. It seemed to me that wild locks of hair were the complement of talent.

Between times I took long rambles through the delightful country of Savoy which was still ruled by the King of Piémont; sometimes I went to the Dent de Nicolet, sometimes as far as Les Charmettes, that picturesque dwelling made famous by Jean Jacques Rousseau's stay there.

During my enforced rustication I found, by sheer accident, some of Schumann's works which were then little known in France and still less in Piémont. I shall always remember that everywhere I went I did my share by playing a few pieces on the piano. I sometimes played that exquisite thing entitled _Au Soir_ and that brought me one day this singular invitation, "Come and amuse us with your Schumann with its detestable false notes." It is unnecessary to repeat my childish outburst at these words. What would the good old people of Savoy say if they could hear the music of to-day?

But the months went on, and on, and on ... until one morning, before the first signs of day-break had come over the mountains, I escaped from the paternal homestead and started for Paris without a sou or even a change of clothes. For Paris, the city with every artistic attraction, where I should see again my dear Conservatoire, my masters, and the "behind the scenes," for the memory of them was still with me.

I knew that in Paris I should find my good older sister, who, in spite of her modest means, welcomed me as though I were her own child and offered me board and lodging; a very simple lodging and a very frugal table, but made so delightful by the magic of greatest kindliness that I felt exactly as though I were in my own home.

Imperceptibly my mother forgave me for running away to Paris.

What a good devoted creature my sister was! Alas! she died January 13, 1905, just as she was glorying in attending the five hundredth performance of _Manon_, which took place the very evening of her death. Nothing can express the sorrow I felt.

In the space of two years I had made up for the time I had lost in Savoy and I had won a prize. I was awarded a first prize on the piano, as well as one in counterpoint and fugue, on July 26, 1859.

I had to compete with ten of my fellow students and by chance my name was number eleven in the order. All the contestants were shut up in the foyer of the concert hall of the Conservatoire to wait until their names were called.

For a moment Number Eleven found himself alone in the foyer. While waiting for my turn, I studied respectfully the portrait of Habeneck, the founder and the first conductor of the orchestra of the Société des Concerts. A red handkerchief actually blossomed in his left buttonhole. If he had become an officer of the Legion of Honor and had several orders to accompany that, he certainly would have worn, not a rosette, but a rose.

The test piece was the concerto in F minor by Ferdinand Hiller. At the time it was pretended that his music was so like that of Niels Gade that they would think it was Mendelssohn's.

My good master M. Laurent stayed close to the piano. When I had finished--concerto and sight reading--he threw his arms about me without thought of the public which filled the hall and I felt my face grow moist from his dear tears.

Even at that age, I was apprehensive about success, and during my whole life I have always fled from public rehearsals and first nights, thinking it better to learn the worst ... as late as possible.