Читать книгу My Recollections - Jules 1842-1912 Massenet - Страница 7

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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.

Then I was called.

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.

I raced all the way home, running like a gamin, but I found no one there, for my sister had gone to the prize contest. However I did not stay long, for I finally decided to go back to the Conservatoire. I was so excited that I ran all the way. At the corner of the Rue Sainte-Cécile I met my boon companion Alphonse Duvernoy, whose after career as a teacher and composer was most successful, and I fell into his arms. He told me what I might have known already, that Monsieur Auber had announced the decision for the jury, "Monsieur Massenet is awarded the first prize on the piano."

One of the jury was Henri Ravina, a master who was one of the dearest friends I ever had, and my thoughts go out to him in affectionate gratitude.

I scarcely touched the ground in getting from the Rue Bergère to the Rue de Bourgogne where my excellent master M. Laurent lived. I found my old professor at lunch with several generals who had been his comrades in the army.

He had hardly caught sight of me when he held out two volumes to me: the orchestral score of Le Nozze di Figaro, dramma giocoso in quarti atti. Messo in musica dal Signor W. Mozart.

The binding bore the arms of Louis XVIII and the following superscription in gold letters: Menus plaisirs du Roi. École royale de musique et de déclamation. Concours de 1822. Premier prix de piano décerné à M. Laurent.

My honored master had written on the first page:

"Thirty-seven years ago I won, as you have done, my child, the prize for the piano. I do not think that there is any more pleasing gift I could give you than this with my sincerest friendship. Go on as you have begun and you will be a great artist.

"This is the opinion of the jury which to-day awarded you this fine reward.

"Your old friend and professor,

"LAURENT."

It was indeed a fine thing for an honored professor to speak like this to a youth who had hardly begun his career.