Music-Study in Germany, from the Home Correspondence of Amy Fay. Fay Amy
of the music is entirely congregational, and they only have trombones on great occasions. We sat close by the chancel, and the great wax candles flared on the altar below us, and the Lutheran clergyman read the German so that it sounded a good deal like Latin. I was quite surprised to see how much like Latin German could sound, for it has these long, rolling words, and it is just as pompous. Altogether it made a strange but splendid impression. I thought if they had only had their choir in the chancel, and in white surplices, it would have been much more beautiful, but perhaps the music would not have sounded so fine as when the singers were overhead. The Berlin churches all look as if religion was dying out here, so old and bare and ill-cared for, and so few in number. They are only redeemed by the great castles of organs which they generally have; and it is a difficult thing to get the post of organist here. One must be an experienced and well-known musician to do it. They sing no chants in the service, but only chorales.
To-night is the last Royal Symphony Concert of this season, and of course I shall go. This wonderful orchestra carries me completely away. It is too marvellous how they play! such expression, such élan! I heard them give Beethoven's Leonora Overture last week in such a fashion as fairly electrified me. This overture sums up the opera of Fidelio, and in one part of it, just as the hero is going to be executed, you hear the post-horn sound which announces his delivery. This they play so softly that you catch it exactly as if it came from a long distance, and you cannot believe it comes from the orchestra. It makes you think of "the horns of elf-land faintly blowing."
Tausig is expected back this week, and he has indeed been gone long enough. He is going to give a lesson every Monday to the best scholars who are not in his class, and as I stand at the head of these I hope to have a lesson from him every week. This would suit me better than two, as he is so dreadfully exacting, and it will give me time to learn a piece well. Then I should have my regular lesson beside from Mr. Beringer, or whoever he appoints to take Ehlert's place. Beringer, who is a young man about twenty-five years old, has turned out a capital teacher, and I am learning much with him. He plays beautifully himself, and is a great favorite of Tausig's. He has been with him so long that he teaches his method excellently, and gives me pieces that he has studied with him. I believe he is to come out at the Gewandhaus, in Leipsic, in October, and after that he will settle in London.
CHAPTER V
We've had the vilest possible weather this spring, but Berlin looks perfectly lovely now. There are a great many gardens attached to the houses here. Everything is in bloom, and is laden with the scent of lilacs and apple blossoms. The streets are planted with lindens and horse chestnut trees, and on the fashionable street bordering on the Thier-Garten, all the houses have little lawns in front, carpeted with the most dazzling green grass, and rising out of it are solid banks of flowers. The shrubs are planted according to their height, close together, and one behind the other, and as they are all in blossom you see these great masses of colour. It is like a gigantic bouquet growing up before you.
The Thier-Garten is perfectly beautiful. It is so charming to come upon this unfenced wood right in the heart of an immense city, with roads and paths cut all through it, and each over-arched with vivid green as far as the eye can reach. When you see the gay equipages driving swiftly through it, and ladies and gentlemen glancing amid the trees on horseback, it is very romantic.
Frau W.'s brother, "Uncle S." as I call him, announced the other day that he was going to take us to Charlottenburg. I had often been told that I must go there and see the "Mausoleum," but as you know I never ask for explanations, this did not convey any particular idea to my mind, and I started out on this excursion in my usual state of blissful ignorance. We took two droschkies for our party, and meandered slowly through the Thier-Garten and along the Charlottenburg road till we arrived at our point of destination. This was announced from afar by an absurd statue poised on one toe on the top of the castle which stands in front of the park containing the Mausoleum.
The first thing we did on alighting was to go into a little beer garden close by to take coffee. It was a perfect afternoon, and the trees and flowers were in all their June glory. We sat down around one of those delightful tables which they always have under the trees in Germany. The coffee was soon served, hot and strong, and Uncle S. took out a cigar to complete his enjoyment. Then we began to stroll. We went through a gate into the grounds surrounding the castle, and after passing through the orangery emerged into a garden, which soon spread into a beautiful park filled with magnificent trees, and with beds of flowers cut in the smooth turf for some distance along the borders of the avenues. We turned to the right (instead of to the left, which would have brought us directly to the Mausoleum) in order to see the flowers first, then the river, and then come round by the pond where the carp are kept.
The Germans certainly understand laying out parks to perfection. They are not too rigidly kept, and there is an air of nature about everything. This Charlottenburg park is a particularly fascinating one. A dense avenue borders the River Spree, which is broad at this point, and flows gloomily and silently along. The branches of the trees overhang the stream, and also lock together across the walk, forming a leafy avenue before and behind you. We met very few people, scarcely any one, in fact, and the songs of the birds were the only sounds that broke the all-pervading calm. The path finally left the river, and we came out on an open spot, where was a pretty view of the castle through a little cut in the trees. We sat down on a bench and looked about us for awhile, and then went up on the bridge which crosses the pond where the carp are kept. The Germans always feed these carp religiously, and that is a regular part of the excursion. The fish are very old, many of them, and we saw some hoary old fellows rise lazily to the surface and condescend to swallow the morsels of cake that we threw them. They were evidently accustomed to good living, and, like all swells, considered it only their due!
At last we came gradually round towards the Mausoleum. An avenue of hemlocks led to it – "Trauer-Bäume (mourning-trees)," as the Germans call them, and it was an exquisite touch of sentiment to make this avenue of these dark funereal evergreens. At first you see nothing, for the avenue is long, and you turn into it gay and smiling with the influence of the birds, the trees, and the flowers fresh upon you. But the drooping boughs of the sombre hemlocks soon begin to take effect, and the feeling that comes over one when about half way down it is certainly peculiar. It seems as if one were passing between a row of tall and silent sentinels watching over the abode of death!
Involuntarily you begin repeating from Edgar Poe's haunting poem:
"Then I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And conquered her scruples and gloom,
And banished her scruples and gloom,
And we passed to the end of the vista
Till we came to the door of a tomb;
And I said, 'What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?'
And she said, 'Ulalume, Ulalume,
'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume."
And so, too, does your eye become fixed upon a door at the end of this vista, which comes nearer and nearer until finally the Mausoleum takes form round it in the shape of a little Greek temple of polished brown marble. A small flower garden lies in front of it, and it would look inviting enough if one did not know what it was. Two officials stand ready to receive you and conduct you up the steps.
Within these walls a royal pair lie buried – King Friedrich Wilhelm III. and his beautiful wife, Luisa, who so calmly withstood the bullying of Napoleon I. and for whom the Prussians cherish such a chivalrous affection. They are entombed under the front portion of the temple, and two slabs in the pavement mark their resting places. These are lit from above by a window in the roof filled with blue glass, which throws a subdued and solemn light into the marble chamber. You walk past them to the other end of the temple, which is cruciform in shape, go up one step between pillars, and there, in the little white transept, lie upon two snowy marble couches the sculptured forms of the dead king and queen side by side. Though this apartment is lit by side windows of plain glass high up on the walls, so that