Читать книгу The Love Affairs of Great Musicians (Vol. 1&2) - Hughes Rupert - Страница 9

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A contemporary of the Rizzio, so humble as a musician and so soaring in his intrigues, was the great Roland de Lattre, better known as Orland di Lassus or Orlandus Lassus, the "Belgian Orpheus," "le Prince des Musiciens." There is as much dispute over the date of his birth as over the early conditions of his life. But he was born in either 1520 or 1530 at Mons in Hainault, and, according to the old Annales du Hainault, he changed his name from Roland de Lattre to Orland di Lassus because his father had been convicted of making spurious coin and, as a "false moneyer," had to wear a string of his evil utterances round his neck.

Rarely in history has a composer held a more lofty position than that of this son of a criminal, and even to-day he rivals Palestrina in the esteem of historians as one of the pillars of his art.

He was in the service of the Duke of Bavaria, who gave him as much honour as the later King of Bavaria gave Wagner; he stood so high at court that a year later he won the hand of a maid of honour, Regina Weckinger. She bore him two daughters and four sons. One of the daughters was named after her, Regina, and when she grew up married a court painter. Two of the sons became prominent composers. The mother was probably beautiful, since an old biographer, Van Ouickelberg, described her children as elegantissimi.

There is every reason to believe that the wedded life of these two was thoroughly happy, save that Lassus was an indefatigable fiend of work. As his biographer Delmotte says, "His life indeed had been the most toilsome that one could think of, and his fecund imagination, always alert, had enfanté a multitude of compositions so great that their very number astounds us (they exceeded two thousand), and forbids us almost to believe them the work of one man. This incessant tension of soul made imperious demands for the distraction of repose; far from this, he redoubled his work till nature, worn out, refused to Lassus the aid she had lavished. His mental powers abandoned him abruptly.

"Regina, one day when she returned, found him in a very precarious state; he had lost his mind and knew her no more. In her terror, she sent word at once to the Princess Maximilienne, sister of the Duke William, who sent at once to the invalid her own physician, the doctor Mermann. Thanks to his care, the health of Orland improved, but his reason did not return. From that moment he became sad, dreamy, absorbed in melancholy. 'He is no longer,' said Regina, 'what he was before, gay and content; but is become sombre, and speaks always of death.'"

While Lassus was in this sad condition he grew petulant over his imagined ill-treatment at the hands of the new duke, and wrote a letter bitterly complaining that he had not carried out his father's promises. In fact, Orland in his condition of semi-insanity threatened to resign, and when the insulted Duke Maximilian showed signs of accepting the resignation, it was the wife that saved the family from disgrace and poverty. Regina made a fervent appeal (quoted in Mathieu's poem on Lassus) that "his Altesse Sérénissime be pleased not to heap on the poor family of Orland the wrongs that the unhappy father may have deserved through his fantaisies bizarres, the result of too much thought for his art and too incessant zeal; but that the duke deign to continue his former treatment; for to put him out of the service of the court chapel would be to kill him."

He was left undisturbed in his post, but, before long, death forced the acceptance of his resignation. Over his grave was placed a tomb on which besides the effigy of himself, are shown also his devoted wife and some of their children.

Regina two years later founded a perpetual annual funeral service for him. By a later intercession, she secured for her son, Ferdinand, the succession to his father's dignities at the court of Bavaria. She died June 5, 1600, and on her tomb she is named, "la noble et vertueuse dame Regina de Lassin, veuve de feu Orland de Lassus." She had been a good wife to a good husband. The sadness of her latter years with her beloved and demented husband reminds one of the pathetic fate of Robert Schumann and his wife.