Louis Spohr's Autobiography. Spohr Louis
the hundred copies.
In Riga, Herr Eck had a quarrel with the Society of Musical Dilettanti there. Being in possession of the Concert room; they required from him, as from all foreign artists, that he should first perform in their concert, for which they were ready to give him up the room and orchestra, for his own concert afterwards. Herr Eck refused to comply with these conditions and would rather give up his own concert altogether. This made the company more compliant; and they declared themselves satisfied, if he would agree to play in no other concert than theirs, after his own. He consented to this, on the condition that they would be silent about it beforehand: because he had been told that the subscribers to the dilettanti concerts would be unwilling to pay for an extra-concert, if they were sure of hearing the foreign Artist in the former. Silence, however, was not kept, and the consequence was that Herr Eck’s concert was badly attended. Angry at this, he now demanded the sum of fifty ducats for his appearance in their concert, as a remuneration for the loss which their gossiping had caused him. The gentlemen directors, feeling in some degree that they had been wrong; after long debating, agreed to pay thirty ducats. Herr Eck, however, stood by his first demand. The gentlemen now threatened to make the police compel him to appear; and he was actually summoned before the Chief of the police. But he succeeded in winning him over to his cause, and the gentlemen directors were dismissed, with their charge. At last, upon the day of the concert, after the bills parading forth the name of Herr Eck, had been posted up at the corners of the streets, they vouchsafed to grant the required demand; but they were not a little surprised at the declaration of Herr Eck, that, now, after having been summoned before the police he would not play at all, not even for double the sum demanded. All their threatning and storming was of no avail; they were obliged to give their concert without him. “I was there,” says the diary, “and much enjoyed the fermentation that prevailed among the dilettanti. Nothing but Herr Eck and his refusal were spoken of; but nobody said one single word in his favour; all were too much annoyed at their disappointed expectations. The concert went off badly. A virtuoso on the flute, from Stockholm, who first played an old fashioned concerto by Devienne in place of Herr Eck, pleased as little as a dilettante from St. Petersburgh, who executed a concerto for the piano by Mozart, in a most schoolboy-like manner.”
Eck, had however won the good will of the Director of the police, by having offered to give a concert for the benefit of the Nikolai Asylum for the poor. Meirer, the Director of the Theatre, gave the house gratis, and Messeurs Arnold and Ohmann, as well as the ladies Werther and Bauser gave their vocal services. The Musical Society did all they could to put a stop to it; but in vain. “Immediately upon his appearance Herr Eck was received with the liveliest applause, which was still more increased after he had played. The proceeds, after deducting the expenses, amounted to more than a hundred ducats, which were handed over to the cashier of the Asylum; but a gift of one hundred ducats from the nobility present was also made to Herr Eck, and the next morning, fifty more followed from several rich merchants, who did not wish to be behindhand in generosity.”
Among the many invitations, one is also mentioned in the diary, to the house of the rich sugar baker Klein, who “kept no less than three tutors for his children”—a German, a Frenchman and a Russian.
On the seventeenth of December we quitted Riga. In Narwa the governor, a great lover of music, who had seen from the Paderoschna, which we were obliged to deliver up at the gate of the town, to be examined, what a celebrated Artist was passing through, invited us immediately for the evening. “Our excuse, that we could not appear in our travelling clothes, was not accepted. The governor sent his state carriage, and we were carried off half by force. The embarrassment at finding ourselves all at once in the midst of a brilliant society, clad in travelling costume, very soon wore off after the friendly welcome and obliging politeness of those present, and we passed a pleasant evening. At one o’clock when the party broke up, we found our carriage with post-horses ready before the door, and set out immediately.
But, between Narwa and St. Petersburgh, one misfortune after the other occured to us. Two stations on this side of St. Petersburgh, we were persuaded to place our carriage upon a sledge. But hardly had we driven half an hour in it, when the cords with which it was fastened, broke, and we could get on no farther. The postillion was obliged to get some peasants from the neighbouring village to help us. After the job was done, they made us understand by signs that we were to pay them five rubles. Very angry at this shameful demand, we refused to give so much, but as they shewed the intention of cutting the cords with which they had bound the wheels, with their axes; and as we saw that we could not contend against the crowd of wild looking fellows who by degrees had surrounded our carriage, we were obliged to comply with the demand.
“After a halt of more than an hour we were at last enabled to proceed; but it was not long before we stuck fast in the snow, and it was only by the help of several peasants whom we called to assist us, that we were able to extricate ourselves. We now found that in the deep snow, the sledge hindered more than it served us, and we had the carriage taken off. After this was done, and paid for, we were enabled to proceed; but again seven times did we stick fast, so that no less than sixteen hours were necessary to accomplish this post of three miles. As we came nearer to St. Petersburgh we found the roads better, and were also driven faster. At last, Wednesday the 22. at nine in the evening, we arrived; after being six days and five nights upon the road. The last part of the journey from Narwa to St. Petersburgh is dreadfully uniform and tiresome. The perfectly straight road cut through the fir forests, with the party coloured Werst-stones, each exactly like the other, are enough to weary the most patient! Seldom only does the endless forest open, to disclose a few buildings, or a miserable village. The houses, or rather the huts of these villages, have for the most part, one room only, with a window a foot square. In this room, men and animals live together quite peaceably. The walls consist of unhewn beams laid upon each-other, the crevices being filled up with moss. It cannot certainly be very warm in these holes; but the inhabitants do not seem to care for that; for I saw children and grown up people running about in their shirts, and barefoot in the snow. The poorer and more wretched the objects appear during the journey, the more surprising is the magnificent St. Petersburgh and its palaces..... We descended at the Hôtel de Londres, and immediately engaged a guide, without whom one cannot be here even for one day; for as soon as the stranger is shown his room, not a soul troubles himself about him any farther.”
In St. Petersburgh, I was at first quite left to myself. This would therefore have been the most favorable opportunity for me to look round that splendid city. But the extreme cold, which already exceeded twenty degrees, would not permit of this. I therefore continued to work with my usual diligence, and indeed with increased zeal, for the period of Herr Eck’s instruction was more than half elapsed.—Through a member of the Imperial orchestra we were introduced into the “Citizen Club,” and there made the acquaintance of almost all the celebrated artistes and scholars then in St. Petersburgh. Among others, my diary mentions Clementi, his pupil Field, the violinist Hartmann, the first violin of the Imperial orchestra, Remi, also a member of the orchestra, Leveque, the son of the leader in Hanover, and director of an orchestra of serfs belonging the senator Teplow, Bärwald from Stockholm, the hornist Bornaus, and others.
Clementi, “a man in his best years, of an extremely lively disposition, and very engaging manners,” liked much to converse with me “(in French, which from my great practice in St. Petersburgh I soon spoke pretty fluently)” and often invited me after dinner to play at billiards. In the evening, I sometimes accompanied him to his large pianoforte warehouse, where Field was often obliged to play for hours, to display the instruments to the best advantage to the purchasers. The diary speaks with great satisfaction of the technical perfection and the “dreamy melancholy” of that young artist’s execution. I have still in recollection the figure of the pale, overgrown youth, whom I have never since seen. When Field, who had outgrown his clothes, placed himself at the piano, stretched out his arms over the keyboard, so that the sleeves shrunk up nearly to his elbows, his whole figure appeared awkward and stiff in the highest degree; but as soon as his touching instrumentation began, everything else was forgotten, and one became all ear. Unhappily, I could not express my emotion and thankfulness to