300.—THE FINANCIAL CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS.
The recent deaths of Gounod, Tschaikowski, von Bülow and Rubinstein call to mind the great difference, in the surroundings and circumstances, between the composers of the classical period and our own times.
Bach, the greatest disciple of the contrapuntal school, died in Leipzig in 1750. He had been the recipient of a small salary as church music director. During his lifetime, appreciation for his works was limited to a section of his own country, and there it was only moderate in degree. When his widow died, ten years later, she was given a pauper's burial; yet Bach was the fountain head of all our modern music.
Händel, born the same year as Bach (1685), outlived him nine years. The most of his life was spent in England, where he was, during the latter portion, the principal musical figure. Though his operas were financial failures, his oratorios, beginning with the "Messiah" (1742), brought him renewed popularity, position and income. His lot was far more easy than that of his contemporary, Bach, though his disposition was not nearly so exemplary.
Haydn was, in common with many other musicians of his day, a sort of upper servant. His family relations were highly unpleasant, and his position was dependent on the whim of his patron prince. He was of a religious and servile nature, the latter being due largely perhaps to the custom of the times, which gave a musician, however great he might be, but little more respect than a valet or head cook. He died in 1809, with the applause caused by his oratorio of the "Creation" still in his ears. His income would to-day be deemed small by a player in a theater orchestra, and his estate was very moderate in size, and most of that was the proceeds of his English journeys.
Mozart, that gifted prodigy, that jovial good fellow, that hard-working composer, was worn out by his work and his privations when but thirty-five years old. He died in 1791. Though the greatest composer of his time, he suffered for proper financial support, and at times for sufficient nourishment. He was the victim of many conspiracies on the part of less talented musicians. He wrote his immortal operas; others profited by them. He worked; they laughed. His life was a labor to keep soul and body together and at his death he left his family without inheritance. So little was he missed that his last resting place was quickly lost sight of.
Beethoven, that rugged and self contained spirit, died in 1827. His father was a drunkard. His early home life was not the most pleasant, and even in later years he never knew the joys of a quiet home. He lived by himself and put forth the mighty children of his brain in solitude. Händel, Beethoven and Schubert form a trio of bachelor composers. Beethoven's financial circumstances were moderate, and he considered himself a poor man, though he was better situated than Mozart or Schubert in that respect.
Schubert, one of the most musical geniuses that ever lived, died in 1828, at the age of thirty-one. He was a school teacher, with hardly enough income to keep soul and body together. He was so poor that he sold the manuscripts of his songs for tenpence, and so unknown that he saw comparatively few of his great compositions published Dying almost alone, in great poverty,—yet before his death, sitting up and composing merry strains to bring in a mere pittance,—his life and its end were particularly pathetic.
Schumann's disposition was of that intense nature that borders on insanity; and insanity was the end of his busy life. He died in 1856, honored and beloved. His wife still lives, now (1894) seventy-five years of age,—a connecting link to the times of Beethoven, Schubert and Mendelssohn.
Chopin died in 1849, after an illness of almost ten years. He was highly honored and greatly beloved for his sweet nature. He was of a retiring disposition and seldom appeared in public. Yet the public appreciated his work even during his lifetime.
Mendelssohn had an ideal career. Surrounded by wealth, position, education, his circumstances were all that could be asked. Honored by musicians and worshiped by the people, his life is the greatest possible contrast to that of Schubert or Mozart. He died in 1847, aged thirty-nine.
Meyerbeer also was a child of favorable circumstances. Though ranking lower than that of Mendelssohn, his music obtained much popular applause, and at his death, in 1864, his funeral was such as might have been given a monarch.
The life of Richard Wagner might be divided into three epochs: the first of poverty; the second, of musical controversy and political strife; the third of rewarded success and applauded pre-eminence in the musical world. At one time he lived in a garret in Paris and did musical hack-work to keep soul and body together; at another he lived in palaces, the pet of a monarch and one of the most successful composers of musical history. The latter part of his career, which ended in 1883 was passed amid lavish and princely surroundings.
Franz Liszt, although not attaining the great pre-eminence as a composer that fell to the lot of those we have mentioned, was one of the most prominent musical figures of our century. His life reads like a dream. It is a continual ascendancy, reaching to the greatest heights of virtuosity and popularity. He died in 1886.
Gounod, when twenty years of age (1838) carried off the Conservatoire prize which gave him some years in Italy, for music study. On return to France, his works did not achieve immediate popularity, and even his now popular opera, "Faust," was sneered at. But becoming better understood and appreciated, he poured forth work after work which were eagerly seized by the musical public. His oratorios, "The Redemption," and "Mors et Vita" are among the best specimens of modern composition in this extended form. Applauded, flattered, appreciated, and lacking nothing in a financial way, Gounod's latter years may be compared in some slight degree with those, of Wagner.
Side by side with Liszt, in the estimation of the public, stood Anton Rubinstein, and after his death, Rubinstein was the foremost figure in the pianistic world. Great as a composer, but greater as an interpreter of the works of others, Rubinstein was almost the last of the musical giants of the nineteenth century. He died in 1894, just as he was finishing his sixty-fifth year. His concert tours had brought immense sums into his coffers; but upon his discontinuance of concert giving, save for charitable purposes, his income had largely diminished, and his fortune was further decreased by the lavish expenditures at his Peterhof Villa and by his general carelessness in financial matters.
We might go on and mention the names of lesser lights. The circumstances of some of them would tend to show that even this century does not always repay genius with honor and riches. Still, the contrast between the last half century and the time that preceded it is certainly in our favor. Perhaps the twentieth century will repay all its debts to genius.
But, be that as it may, the greatest success genius achieves is in the conscious fulfilment of its high mission and not in the accumulation of riches. The possession of genius is the rarest fortune, and "Whoever fortune gives a touch, everywhere succeeds."