Читать книгу The Life of Hector Berlioz as Written by Himself in His Letters and Memoirs - Hector Berlioz - Страница 10

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A short time after this M. Masson, choirmaster of St Roch, suggested that I should write a mass for Innocents’ Day.

He promised me a month’s practice, a hundred picked musicians, and a still larger chorus. The choir boys of St Roch should copy the parts carefully, so that that would cost me nothing.

I started gaily. Of course the whole thing was nothing but a milk-and-water copy of Lesueur, and—equally of course—when I showed it to him he gave most praise to those parts wherein my imitation was the closest.

Masson swore by all his gods that the execution should be unrivalled, the one thing needful being a good conductor, since neither he nor I was used to handling such vast masses of sound. However, Lesueur most kindly induced Valentino, conductor of the opera, to take the post, dubious though he was of our vocal and instrumental legions.

The day of the general rehearsal came, and with it our vast masses—twenty choristers (fifteen tenors and five basses), twelve children, nine violins, one viola, one oboe, one horn, one bassoon.

My rage and despair at this treatment of Valentino—one of the first conductors in the world—may be imagined.

“It’s all right,” quoth Master Masson, “they will all turn up on the day.”

Valentino shrugged his shoulders resignedly, raised his baton, and they started.

In two seconds all was confusion; the parts were one mass of mistakes, sharps and flats left out, ten-bar pauses omitted, a little further on thirty bars clean gone.

It was the most appalling muddle ever heard, and I simply writhed in torment. There was nothing for it but to give up utterly my fond dream of a grand orchestral performance.

Still, it was not lost time as far as I was concerned, for, in spite of the shocking execution, I saw where my worst faults lay, and, by Valentino’s advice, I rewrote the whole mass—he generously promising to help me when I should be ready for my revenge.

But alas! while I worked my parents heard of the fiasco, and made another determined onslaught by ridiculing my chosen vocation, and laughing my hopes to scorn. Those were the bitter dregs of my cup of shame; I swallowed them and silently persevered.

Unable, for lack of money, to employ professional copyists, and being justly afraid of amateurs, when my score was finished I wrote out every part myself. It took me three months. Then, like Robinson Crusoe with the boat he could not launch, I was at a stand-still. How should I get it performed? Trust to M. Masson’s musical phalanx? That would be too idiotic. Appeal to musicians myself? I knew none. Ask the help of the Chapel Royal? My master had distinctly told me that was impossible, no doubt because, had he allowed me such a privilege, he would have been bombarded with similar requests from my fellow-students.

My friend, Humbert Ferrand, came to the rescue with a bold proposal. Why not ask M. de Châteaubriand to lend me twelve thousand francs? I believe that, on the principle of it being as well to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, I also asked for his influence with the Ministry. Here is his reply:

“Paris, 31st Dec. 1824.

“Monsieur,—If I had twelve thousand francs you should have them. Neither have I any influence with the ministers. I am indeed sorry for your difficulties, for I love art and artists. However, it is through trial that success comes, and the day of triumph is a thorough compensation for past sufferings. With most sincere regret,

“Châteaubriand.”

Thus I was completely disheartened, and had no plausible answer to make when my parents wrote threatening to stop the modest sum that alone made life in Paris possible.

Fortunately I met, at the opera, a young and clever music-lover, Augustin de Pons, belonging to a Faubourg St Germain family, who, stamping with impotent rage, had witnessed my disaster at St Roch. He was fairly well off then, but, in defiance of his mother, he later on married a second-rate singer, who left him after long wanderings through France and Italy.

Entirely ruined he returned to Paris to vegetate by giving singing lessons. I was able to be of some use to him when I was on the staff of the Journal des Débats, and I greatly wish I could have done more, for his generous and unasked help was the turning-point of my career, and I shall never forget it.

Even last year he found life very hard; I tremble to think what may have become of him since the February revolution took away his pupils.

Seeing me one day in the foyer, he shouted:

“I say, what about your mass? When shall we have another go at it?”

“It is done,” I answered, “but what chance have I of getting it performed?”

“Chance? Why, confound it all, you have only got to pay the performers. How much do you want? Twelve or fifteen hundred francs? Two thousand?”

“Hu-s-s-sh, don’t roar so, for heaven’s sake! If you really mean it I shall be most grateful for twelve hundred francs.”

“All right. Hunt me up to-morrow and we’ll engage the opera chorus and a real good orchestra. We must give Valentino a good innings this time.”

And we did. The mass was grandly performed at St Roch, and was well spoken of by the papers. Thus, thanks to that blessed de Pons, I got my first hearing and my foot in the stirrup—as it were—of all things most difficult and most important in Paris.

I boldly undertook to conduct the rehearsals of chorus and orchestra myself, and, with the exception of a slip or two, due to excitement, I did not do so badly. But alas! how far I was from being an accomplished conductor, and how much labour and pains it has cost me to become even what I am.

After the performance, seeing exactly how little my mass was worth, I took out the Resurrexit—which seemed fairly good—and held an auto-da-fé of the rest, together with the Gamester, Estelle, and the Passage of the Red Sea. A calm inquisitorial survey convinced me of the justice of their fate.

Mournful coincidence! After writing these lines I met a friend at the Opéra Comique, who asked:

“When did you come back?”

“Some weeks ago.”

“Then you know about de Pons? No? He poisoned himself last week. He said he was tired of living, but I am afraid that, really, he was unable to live since the Revolution scattered his pupils.”

Horrible! horrible! most horrible!

I must rush out and work off this horror in the fresh air.

Lesueur, seeing how well I got on, thought it best for me to become a regular Conservatoire student and, with the consent of Cherubini, the director, I was enrolled.

It was a mercy I had not to appear before the formidable author of Medea, for the year before I had put him into one of his white rages by thwarting him.

Now the Conservatoire had not been run on precisely Puritanic lines, so, when Cherubini succeeded Perne as director, he thought proper to begin by making all sorts of vexatious rules. For instance, men must use only the door into the Faubourg Poissonière and women that into the Rue Bergère—which were at opposite ends of the building.

One day, knowing nothing of the new rule, I went in by the feminine door, but was stopped by a porter in the middle of the courtyard and told to go back and all round the streets to the masculine door. I told the man I would be hanged if I did, and calmly marched on.

I had been buried in Alcestis for a quarter of an hour, when in burst Cherubini, looking more wicked and cadaverous and dishevelled even than usual. With my enemy, the porter, at his heels, he jerked round the tables, narrowly eyeing each student, and coming at last to a dead stop in front of me.

“That’s him,” said the porter.

Cherubini was so furious that, for a time, he could not speak, and, when he did, his Italian accent made the whole thing more comical than ever—if possible.

“Eh! Eh! Eh!” he stuttered, “so it is you vill come by ze door I vill not ’ave you?”

“Monsieur, I did not know of the new rule; next time——”

“Next time? Vhat of zis next time? Vhat is it zat you come to do ’ere?”

“To study Gluck, Monsieur, as you see.”

“Gluck! and vhat is it to you ze scores of Gluck? Vhere get you permission for enter ze library?”

“Monsieur” (I was beginning to lose my temper too), “the scores of Gluck are the most magnificent dramatic works I know, and I need no permission to use the library since, from ten to three, it is open to all.”

“Zen I forbid zat you return.”

“Excuse me, I shall return whenever I choose.”

That made him worse.

“Vha-Vha-Vhat is your name?” he stammered.

“My name, Monsieur, you shall hear some day, but not now.”

“Hotin,” to the porter, “catch ’im and make ’im put in ze prison.”

So off we went, the two—master and servant—hot foot after me round the tables. We knocked over desks and stools in our headlong flight, to the amazement of the quiet onlookers, but I dodged them successfully, crying mockingly as I reached the door:

“You shan’t have either me or my name, and I shall soon be back here studying Gluck.”

That was my first meeting with Cherubini, and I rather wondered whether he would remember it when I met him next in a less irregular manner. It is odd that, twelve years later, in spite of him, I should have been appointed first curator, then librarian of that very library. As for Hotin, he is now my devoted slave and a rabid admirer of my music. I have many other Cherubini stories to tell. Any way, if he chastised me with whips, I certainly returned the compliment with scorpions.