Their Obstacles and How They Overcame Them

by Louis C Elson

There is a lesson to be drawn from the story of almost every genius in art - the lesson of the value of obstacles in the path. Almost every genius was a sturdy fighter, at least for his art ideals, and almost always had to overcome opposition before he won his triumph. The trials of the great tone masters had much to do also with awakening their emotional powers.

Fetis defines music as "the art of awakening the emotions by combinations of sounds." We may add to this that it also is many cases awakens the intellect, as, for example, in fugues, canons and much contrapuntal music. but the fact remains that music is chiefly emotional (certainly the most emotional of arts), and that anyone who has not had his emotions deeply stirred by one cause or another can scarcely hope to take rank as a musical genius. This was, however, less marked in the older contrapuntal music, which leaned heavily to the intellectual side.

The obstacle in Palestrina's path was the fact that musicians set but a slight value on Italian music. All the best work of his era was supposed to be produced by the Netherlanders - the Flemish school. In 1544, however, Palestrina proved, by a set of Masses dedicated to Pope Julius III, that an Italian could vie with these northern musicians. Yet during his entire life there were many, particularly among the aristocracy, who held the chief Fleming, Orlando De Lasso, as far above Palestrina - a verdict which time has reversed.

With Bach, as with Schubert and Mozart, the prosaic obstacle was poverty. His most intricate work, the Mass in B minor, was in some degree the outcome of this, for, although the Mass was sung in the German Protestant churches in his day, yet he hoped by this work to win the patronage of a Catholic court as well as that of the Thomas-kirche, where he was cantor.

Handel, his great contemporary, was toughened by his constant struggles in the domain of opera. He made fortunes and lost them in his managerial career. The friendship of George I and the devotion of George II were not able to brush these obstacles from his path. Some of the critics ranked him below Buononcini, a view at which the world laughs today. But when, after his 50th year (mark it, oh, Dr. Osler!), he decided to devote himself entirely to oratorio, he had conquered so many obstacles that everything thereafter was plain sailing. None of his great oratorios was written before this epoch.

Mozart's Trials

Mozart's career, after his childhood, was a constant combat with difficulties. The first giant to be overthrown was the terribly low caste of the musician. The Archbishop of Salzburg, in whose orchestra he took service, treated his artists not only as servants, but as menials of the very lowest class. When Mozart finally determined to leave the archbishop's service because of this degradation, he was literally kicked down stairs! The entries in his diary show his intense indignation at the outrage. He intended to challenge Count Arco, the steward of the archbishop (who had committed the assault) to a duel. He determined to achieve a position in art that should force respect. That poverty was also a constant obstacle in the career of Mozart is well known, perhaps too well known, for there is evidence that although there was thriftlessness and shiftlessness in the household (thanks partially to that invalid featherbrain, Constance Weber Mozart), although there was plenty of borrowing and of using credit as far as it would be allowed, yet actual want was not there, as the following letter from Mozart to his wife, written very shortly before his death, may show. The lady was then (October, 1791) taking the waters at Baden for her health:

"Now as to my mode of life: As soon as you were gone I played two games of billiards with Herr von Mozart, who wrote the opera for Schickaneder's theatre; then I sold my nag for fourteen ducats; then I had Joseph call my primus and bring a black coffee, to which I smoked a glorious pipe of tobacco. At 5:30 I went out of the door and took my favorite promenade through the Glacis to the theatre."

"What do I see? What do I smell? It is the primus with the cutlet - Gusto! I eat to your health!"

"You ought to have seen my yesterday at supper! I could not find the old dishes, and therefore produced a set as white as snow flowers, and had the wax candelabra in front of me."

Playing billiards by himself; selling a horse which he had been riding for his health; a primus, a janitor valet; coffee, tobacco, and excellent cutlet, dainty tableware - these things give a different picture from the one of barren poverty so often portrayed in musical history.

But Mozart's obstacles were, nevertheless, real enough. The Austrian Emperor was one of these. Franz Josef II was something of a musical amateur and possessed that "little knowledge" which is well described as "a dangerous thing". He did not understand the greatness of Mozart. "Too many notes", said he to the composer after the first performance of "The Escape From Seraglio". "Just enough for the subject", was the bold reply of the composer. But the lukewarmness of the Emperor caused many others to slight Mozart, and the musicians, especially, were often so antagonistic to him that it was not unnatural for him to imagine, as he did during his last illness, that a jealous musical rival had poisoned him. None of these things turned him from the path of his ideal. His triumph, however, was too largely posthumous.

Beethoven's Difficulties

With Beethoven the triumph came earlier. Dauntless by nature, a born fighter, he loved to meet the obstacles in his way and crush them. Musicians could not always understand the bold reformer and iconoclast, but no opposition could swerve him from his advance. "These passages are too high for the instrument", said the violinists, of part of the coda of the "Egmont" overture. "They must be played as written", insisted Beethoven, and today the high C of the violin passage near the end is considered one of the finest touches in the work. "Beethoven is now ready for the madhouse", said Weber, after the fourth symphony had been produced, and then proceeded to satirize mercilessly the contrabass passages at the end of its last movement. Beethoven's only reply (apart from some rather vehement swearing) was to write an equally difficult passage for the same instruments, in the trio of the scherzo of the fifth symphony.

The greatest obstacle in this composer's life, however, did not come from man - unless (as is suspected) it was a legacy from his father. Can one consider what deafness means to a composer? What it means to anyone? The deaf are generally much more morose and suspicious than the blind. There were suicidal thoughts for a brief time in Beethoven's mind when he learned that the disease would grow and finally become almost total; but these thoughts did not stay long. He soon determined to work out his destiny even with the fearful handicap. He wrote, "I will grapple with Fate; it shall not quite bear me down", and the rest of his life was keyed to this high thought.

Smetana and Robert Franz fought the same malady with noble courage, but with them it came later in life, and they did not, like Beethoven, achieve their greatest musical works in spite of deafness. We have not spoken of the physical obstacle in the lives of Bach and Handel, for their blindness came late in life, after their chief work had been accomplished; but here, too, the great lesson of fortitude and power to override that which would crush lesser men can be studied. The blind Handel, writing the aria, "Total Eclipse", for the blind Samson of the oratorio, is a subject worthy of a painter.

Chopin's Obstacles

Chopin's career is in strong contrast to such heroism. The roses thrive in sunshine, the pansies thrive in shade. Chopin needed the sunshine of life to develop his powers. Yet even here we find music overleaping, not an obstacle, but a great trial. When the sick man was cast off by Mme. Dudevant ("George Sand") and went to Paris alone, after their great quarrel, he did not pule and weep, but brought forth that masterpiece of resolution, the A major (some say the A flat) Polonaise.

The contrast between Beethoven and Chopin leads us to notice how diametrically opposite is the inspiration of different composers. Schubert wrote his noblest songs when he was in deepest trouble. He complained of the fact that the public seemed to love best that which he brought forth in misery. Schumann, on the other hand, wrote at his best only when he was happiest. Sorrow seemed to make him utterly helpless. Yet he, too, (study it, he hypochondriacs!), could fight and master obstacles when necessary.

Schumanns' Path Not Easy

Greater obstacles no composer ever had than were involved in the wooing of Clara Wieck. Nor could one easily imagine a more formidable mishap than a young pianist, cut loose from the study of law after most vehement pleading, suddenly becoming maimed in one hand. In this latter case, when everything seemed hopeless, our hero did not turn back, but simply changed his path from execution to creation in music, and the world was the gainer thereby.

But the story of the wooing and winning of Clara Wieck is the chief idyl of musical history. Not Abelard and his Heloise, not Petrarch and his Laura, can dim this beautiful love story. All the more pity, therefore, that musical "historians" should tamper with it. The tale that is told regarding "Warum", that Schumann was separated from his Clara and wrote this pleading little musical question to her; that she wept over it and took it to her stern father; that he also wept over it; that he sent for Schumann and said, "Bless ye, my children", and that they lived happily ever afterwards, is entirely untrue.

But there was enough of obstacle here to call for much heroism. The father, Frederic Wieck, opposing the match, made the vilest attacks upon Schumann, slandering him in every way. Schumann lived that down. That father claimed that Schumann was of no position in art and unable to support a wife. Schumann thereupon worked doubly and trebly hard to advance his standing. He won literary fame, he gave musical history lectures that he might obtain the degree of doctor, he composed great and greater works. He overcame all these obstacles in 1840 and married Clara Wieck. Then he burst into his sweetest song, in the jubilation of perfect happiness.

Other opposition to Schumann there was, both in Germany and England, and in this matter Mendelssohn was not guiltless. Mendelssohn was at that time looked up to as the greatest of living composers. A few words of praise from him (words such as Schumann had often spoken from struggling genius - for Franz, Chopin, Brahms, etc) would have smoothed the path at once; but those words were never spoken. It has become the fashion in England to deny that Mendelssohn was antipathetic to Schumann, but the criticisms of Chorley, in London, upon all of Schumann's works were of the most brutal character; and Chorley was the most intimate friend of Mendelssohn, and his worshiper also. Chorley sneezed whenever Mendelssohn took snuff, and his attacks may indicate that the last named was not adverse to having Schumann's music decried.

Berlioz's Fight For Triumph

But if there was one critic constantly attacking Schumann there was a phalanx arrayed against Berlioz. All the Paris journals vented their spleen and their sarcasm upon the new school of orchestration that the great Frenchman was founding. It is almost always thus in musical history. Liszt has well named the critics the "rear guard in the army of musical progress". If we were to recite the obstacles raised by criticism in the paths of composers our task would be endless. First, these commentators found Haydn overloaded; then they found Mozart developing his accompaniments at the expense of the vocal parts; of Beethoven one of them said: "Learning, learning and learning, and not a bit of melody, or music, or song. And when one examines it one finds it to be only a crude and undigested learning that only fatigues the auditor." An interesting book might yet be written on "Mistakes of Criticism."

The whole life of Wagner was a fight against obstacles. Not one of them but what was finally conquered. The lions in his path have been chronicled too frequently to need recapitulation here. Suffice it to say that he never gave away in the slightest degree where a musical ideal was concerned. The result was absolute victory.

The anithesis of this is to be found in Meyerbeer, a man not without high talents, but who turned back from, or crawled around every obstacle that he met. He desired the applause of the multitude above all things. He won it - temporarily. But his fame has faded just as the fashions of his time have faded, while Wagner's stands firm as the eternal hills.

It is not given to every musical life, even among the very great, to meet with obstacles. Mendelssohn, for example, even in his childhood, received the name (not given him at birth) of "Felix", ("happy"), and it fitted to almost his entire life. But the very lack of opposition, the possession of wealth and social position, worked havoc with his greatness; he might have been a genius, he became something less.

Brahms, too, although at first there was something of the sting of poverty, lived a rather phlegmatic life, which alone prevented him from becoming a second Beethoven. Verdi, also, after the earliest period seems to have been without any adverse events. but in his case it led to no emasculation of power; he was a notable exception to the rule that:

"The anguish of the singer
Makes the beauty of the strain."

Haydn also led a sheltered  and protected life until nearly sixty years of age at the castle of Esterhazys, and then produced his best works in a triumphant old age.

Sometimes, alas, the victory is not won during the lifetime of the composer. The careers of Hugo Wolf, of Goetz, even of Schubert, seem to end in defeat, but posterity at least accorded the triumph to their steadfastness under trial. On the whole, however, the lesson in the lives of most musical geniuses is unmistakable. Be true to yourself and to your ideal no matter what difficulties stand in the path. The triumph is possible, nay, if you are of proper caliber, it is certain. "Sweet are the uses of adversity", for in this crucible the pure gold of art is refined.

The Japanese have a high minded belief in a personal courage. Not merely the courage of the battlefield, or the contempt of danger, but a courage that shall defy the ordinary or the more prosaic obstacles of life; that shall bear want, hunger, sickness, disappointment cheerfully and calmly; that shall win against both the great tempests and the mosquito bites of existence. They call this everyday courage bushido! From the lives of many of the greatest composers the lesser musicians may also attain an inspiring lesson for their humbler careers and attain bushido.

The Etude Magazine October 1909