My Recollections. Jules 1842-1912 Massenet
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.
CHAPTER III
THE GRAND PRIX DE ROME
So I had won the first prize on the piano. I was doubtless as fortunate as I was proud, but it was out of the question for me to live on the memory of this distinction. The necessities of life were pressing, inexorable, and they demanded something more real and above all more practicable. I really could not go on accepting my dear sister's hospitality without contributing my personal expenses. So to ease the situation I gave lessons in solfeggio and on the piano in a poor little school in the neighborhood. The returns were small, but the labor was great. Thus I drew out a precarious and often difficult existence. I was offered the post of pianist in one of the large cafés in Belleville; it was the first café to provide music, a scheme invented to hold the customers, if not to distract them. The place paid me thirty francs a month!
Quantum mutatus. … Like the poet I may say, "What changes since that time?" To-day even the young pupils have only to enter a competition to get their pictures in the papers and at the very outset of their careers they are anointed great men. All this is accompanied by Bacchanalian lines and they are fortunate if in their exalted triumph they do not add the word "colossal." That is glory; deification in all its modesty. In 1859 we were not glorified in any such way.
But Providence—some called it Destiny—watched over me.
A friend, who to my great joy is still living, got me better lessons. He was not like so many friends I met later, who are ever in need of one's assistance; those who slink away when you want to be comforted in poverty; the friends who are always pretending that they defended you last night against malevolent attacks in order to show you their fine opinions, but at the same time torturing you by repeating the wounding words directed at you. I must add, however, that I have had truly genuine friendships, as I have found in my hours of weariness and discouragement.
The Théâtre-Lyrique was then on the Boulevard du Temple and it gave me a place in its orchestra as kettle-drummer. Then, good Father Strauss, the orchestra leader at the Opéra balls, let me play the bass drum, the kettle-drums, the tam-tam, and all the rest of the resonant instruments. It was dreadfully tiring to sit up every Saturday from midnight until six in the morning, but all told I managed to make eighty francs a month. I felt as rich as a banker and as happy as a cobbler.
The Théâtre-Lyrique was founded by the elder Alexander Dumas as the Théâtre-Historique, and was established by Adolphe Adam.
I was living at the time at No. 5, Rue de Ménilmontant, in a huge building, almost a city in itself. My neighbors on the floor, separated only by a narrow partition, were the clowns—both men and women—of the Cirque Napoléon which was near our house.
From my attic window I was able to enjoy—for nothing of course—whiffs from the orchestra which escaped from