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Music-Study in Germany, a non-fiction book by Amy Fay |
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With Deppe - Chapter 26 |
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_ WITH DEPPE CHAPTER XXVI A Set of Beethoven Variations. Fannie Warburg. Deppe's Inventions. His Room. His Afternoon Coffee. Pyrmont.
I wish you were here now so that I could play you a set of little variations by Beethoven called, "I've only got a little hut." They are bewitching, and I think I can now play them so as to express (as Deppe says) "that he had indeed nothing but his little hut, but was quite happy in it." In the last variation he dances a waltz in his little hut! I have learned a great deal from these tiny variations, taught in Deppe's inimitable fashion. When I first took them to him I began playing the second of the variations--which is rather plaintive and seems to indicate that the proprietor of the little hut had a misgiving that there might be a better abode somewhere on the earth--with a great deal of "expression," as I thought. I soon found out I was overdoing it, however, and that it is not always so easy to define where good expression stops and bad style begins. "Why do you make those notes stick out so?" asked Deppe, as I was giving vent to my "soul-longings," (as P. says). "Learn to paint in grossen Flaechen (great surfaces)." He made me play it again perfectly legato, and with no one note "sticking out" more than another. I saw at once that he was right about it, and that the effect was much better, while it took nothing from the real sentiment of the piece. It was one of those cases where a simple statement was all that was necessary. Anything more detracted from rather than added to it. I have at last heard Fannie Warburg in a Mozart concerto, for she has got back from England. How she did play it! To say that the passages "pearled," would be saying nothing at all. Why, the piano just warbled them out like a nightingale! The last movement had the infectious gayety that Mozart's things often have, with a magnificent cadenza by himself. She rendered it so perfectly, and with such naïve light-heartedness, that none of us could resist it, and we all finally burst into a laugh! There was a little orchestra accompanying, which Deppe had got together and was directing. When she got to the cadenza, he laid down his bâton, and retired to lean against the door and enjoy it. She did it in the most masterly manner, and O, it was so difficult! I thought of the Boston critic, who considered Mozart's compositions "child's play." They are child's play--that is, they are nothing at all if they are not faultlessly played, and every fault shows, which is the reason so few attempt them. Your hand must be "in order," as Deppe says, to do it. Fannie Warburg is a sweet little eighteen-year-old maiden. A shy little bud of a girl without any vanity or self-consciousness. She has a lovely hand for the piano, and the way she uses it is perfectly exquisite. It is small and plump, but strong, with firm little fingers. Every muscle is developed, and indeed it could not be otherwise, after such a six years' training. One of Deppe's rules is that when you raise the finger the knuckle must not stick out. The finger must "sit firm (fest-sitzen) in the joint." Fannie Warburg's fingers "sitzen" so "fest" that when she plays she positively has a little row of dimples where her knuckles ought to be. It looks too pretty for anything--just like a baby's hand. She does not seem to have the slightest ambition, however, and I doubt whether she will ever do anything with her music after she leaves Deppe. Her mother was from Hamburg, and had taken lessons of Deppe there when they were both quite young. She thought him such a remarkable teacher that she declared her daughter should have no other master. So when Fannie was twelve years old she brought her to him, and he has been giving her lessons ever since--something like Samuel's mother bringing him to the Temple, wasn't it?--and indeed when I go into Deppe's shabby little room I always feel as if I were in a little Temple of Music! I like to see the furniture all bestrewn with it, and Deppe himself seated at his table surrounded with piles of manuscript, pen in hand, going over and arranging them, bringing order out of chaos. Other orchestra leaders are always writing and begging him to lend them his copies of Oratorios, etc. Deppe has all sorts of practical little ideas peculiar to himself. For instance, he has invented a candlestick to stand on a grand piano. In shape it is curved, like those things for candles attached to upright pianos, but with a weighted foot to hold it firm. It is a capital invention, for you put one each side of the music-rack, and then you can turn it so as to throw the light on your music, just as you can turn those on the upright pianos. It is on the same principle, only with the addition of the foot. It is much more convenient than a lamp, because it doesn't rattle, and you can throw the light on the page so much better.--Then he always insists on our having our pieces bound separately, in a cover of stout blue paper, such as copy books are bound in. He entirely disapproves of binding music in books. "Who will lug a great heavy book along?" he will ask, "and besides, they don't lie open well." The other day Deppe told me he wanted me to come and hear Fräulein Steiniger take her lesson, as she had some interesting pieces to play. I found her already there when I arrived. Deppe was in an uncommonly good humour, and kept making little jokes. She played a string of things, and finally ended off with Liszt's arrangement of the Spinning Song from Wagner's Flying Dutchman. Deppe is dreadfully fussy about this piece, and made some such subtle and telling points regarding the conception of the composition, that they were worthy of Liszt himself. I mean to learn it, and when I come home I will play it to you as Deppe taught it to Steiniger, and you will see how fascinating it is. I know you'll be carried away with it. Toward the end of the lesson it was growing rather late, and time also for Deppe's coffee, which beverage you know the Germans always drink late in the afternoon, accompanied with cakes. He had just laid down his violin, as he and Fräulein Steiniger had played a sonata together, and had seated himself at the piano to show her about some passage or other. Deeply absorbed, he was haranguing her as hard as he could, when the maid of all work suddenly entered with the coffee on a tray, and was apparently about to set it down on the piano in close proximity to the violin. "Herr Gott, nicht auf die Violin! (Good gracious, not on the violin!)" exclaimed Deppe, springing frantically up and rescuing the beloved instrument. "Where then?" said the girl. "Oh, anywhere, only not on the violin." She set it down on a chair and vanished. There were only three chairs in the room, and the sofa was covered with music. Fräulein Steiniger occupied one chair, I the second, and the coffee the third. Deppe glanced around in momentary bewilderment, and then sat himself plump down on the floor, took his coffee, stretched out his legs, and began stirring it imperturbably. "But Herr Deppe!" remonstrated Steiniger. "Well," said he, with his light-hearted laugh, "what else can I do when I have no chair?" There was no carpet on the floor, which was an ordinary painted one, and he looked funny enough, sitting there, but he enjoyed his coffee just as well!--After he had finished drinking it, the shades of night were falling, and it occurred to him it would be well to illuminate his apartment. He is the happy possessor of five minute lamps and candlesticks, no two of which are the same height. The lamps are two in number, and are about as big as the smallest sized fluid lamp that we used in old times to go to bed by. The three candlesticks are of china, and adorned with designs in decalcomania--probably the handiwork of grateful pupils, for in Germany there is no present like a "Hand-Arbeit (something done by the hand of the giver)." It is the correct thing to give a gentleman. When Fräulein Steiniger and I only are present, Deppe usually considers the two lamps sufficient. But if others are there and he is going to have some music in the evening, he will produce the three minute candlesticks, with an end of candle in each, light them, and dispose them in various parts of the room. When, however, as on great occasions, the five lamps and candlesticks are supplemented by two more candles on the piano in the curved candlesticks of Deppe's own invention, the blaze of light is something tremendous to our unaccustomed eyes! Nothing short of the Tuileries or the "Weisser Saal" at the palace here could equal it!
BERLIN, May 31, 1874. This season with Deppe has been of such immense importance to me, that I don't know what sum of money I would take in exchange for it. By practicing in his method the tone has an entirely different sound, being round, soft and yet penetrating, while the execution of passages is infinitely facilitated and perfected. In fact, it seems to me that in time one could attain anything by it, but time it will have. One has to study for months very slowly and with very simple things, to get into the way of playing so, and to be able to think about each finger as you use it--to "feel the note and make it conscious." Deppe won't let me finish anything at present, so I can't tell how far along I am myself. His principle is, never to learn a piece completely the first time you attack it, but to master it three-quarters, and then let it lie as you would fruit that you have put on a shelf to ripen;--afterward, take it up again and finish it. The principle may be a good one, but it prevents my ever having anything to play for people, and consequently I have ceased playing in company entirely. In fact, I find it impossible, and I don't see how Sherwood manages it. He has a whole repertoire, and sits down and plays piece after piece deliciously. But then he is a perfect genius, and will make a sensation when he comes out. He has that natural repose and imperturbability that are everything to an artist, but which, unfortunately, so few of us possess. His compositions, too, are exquisite, and so poetical! Mrs. Wrisley,[I] of Boston, and Fräulein Estleben, of Sweden, who left Kullak when I did, are also gifted creatures, whereas I think I am only a steady old poke-along, who won't give up! Sherwood, however, is head and shoulders above all of us.
My lessons with Deppe are a genuine musical excitement to me, always. In every one is something so new and unexpected--something that I never dreamed of before--that I am lost in astonishment and admiration. The weeks fly by like days before I know it. Deppe gives me the most beautiful music, and never wastes time over things which will be of no use to me afterward. Every piece has an aim, and is lovely, also, to play to people. Now, in Tausig's and Kullak's conservatories I wasted quantities of time over things which are beautiful enough, and do to play to one's self, but which are not in the least effective to play to other people either in the parlour or in the concert-room--as Bach's Toccata in C, for example. Such things take a good while to learn, and are of no practical advantage afterward. But Deppe has an organized plan in everything he does. In my study with Kullak when I had any special difficulties, he only said, "Practice always, Fräulein. Time will do it for you some day. Hold your hand any way that is easiest for you. You can do it in this way--or in this way"--showing me different positions of the hand in playing the troublesome passage--"or you can play it with the back of the hand if that will help you any!" But Deppe, instead of saying, "Oh, you'll get this after years of practice," shows me how to conquer the difficulty now. He takes a piece, and while he plays it with the most wonderful fineness of conception, he cold-bloodedly dissects the mechanical elements of it, separates them, and tells you how to use your hand so as to grasp them one after the other. In short, he makes the technique and the conception identical, as of course they ought to be, but I never had any other master who trained his pupils to attempt it. Deppe also hears me play, I think, in the true way, and as Liszt used to do: that is, he never interrupts me in a piece, but lets me go through it from beginning to end, and then he picks out the places he has noted, and corrects or suggests. These suggestions are always something which are not simply for that piece alone, but which add to your whole artistic experience--a principle, so to speak. So, without meaning any disparagement to the splendid masters to whom I owe all my previous musical culture, I cannot help feeling that I have at last got into the hands not of a mere piano virtuoso, however great, but, rather, of a profound musical savant--a man who has been a violinist, as well as a director, and who, without being a player himself, has made such a study of the piano, that probably all pianists except Liszt might learn something from him. You may all think me "enthusiastic," or even wild, as much as you like; but whether or not I ever conquer my own block of a hand--which has every defect a hand can have!--when I come home and begin teaching you all on Deppe's method, you'll succumb to the genius and beauty of it just as completely as I have. You will then all admit I was RIGHT! July 22.--I have finally made up my mind to go to Pyrmont when Deppe does, and spend several weeks, keeping right on with my lessons, and perhaps, giving a little concert there. I have always had a curiosity to visit one of the German watering places, as I'm told they are extremely pleasant. * * * PYRMONT, August 1, 1874. Here I am in Pyrmont, and there's no knowing where I shall turn up next! Fräulein Steiniger got here before me, but Deppe has not yet arrived from Brussels, whither he has gone to be present at the yearly exhibition of the Conservatoire there. He has been appointed one of the judges on piano-playing. Pyrmont is a lovely little place. It is in a valley surrounded by hills, heavily wooded, and has a beautiful park, as all German towns have, no matter how small. The avenues of trees surpass anything I ever saw. The soil has something peculiar about it, and is particularly adapted to trees. They grow to an immense height, and their stems look so strong, and their foliage is so tremendously luxuriant, that it seems as if they were ready to burst for very life! Fräulein Steiniger went with me to look up some rooms. Every family in Pyrmont takes lodgers, so that it is not difficult to find good accommodations. The women are renowned for being good housekeepers and their rooms are charmingly fitted up, but the prices are very high, as they live the whole year on what they make in summer. People come here to drink the waters of the springs, and to take the baths, which are said to be very invigorating. My rooms are near the principal "Allée" or Avenue, leading from the Springs. About half way down is a platform where the orchestra sit and play three times a day--at seven in the morning (which is the hour before breakfast, when it is the thing to take a glass or two of the water, and promenade a little), at four in the afternoon, when everybody takes their coffee in the open air, and at seven in the evening. As I don't drink the waters I do not rise early, and am usually awakened by the strains of the orchestra. There is a little piazza outside my window where I take my breakfast and supper. For dinner I go to "table-d'hôte" at a hotel near.--It is a great relief to get out of Berlin and see something green once more. I find the weather very cool, however, and one needs warm clothing here. There are the loveliest walks all about Pyrmont that you can imagine, and beautiful wood-paths are cut along the sides of the hills. My favourite one is round the cone of a small hill to the right of the town. The path completely girdles it, and you can start and walk round the hill, returning to the point you set out from. It is like a leafy gallery, and before and behind you is always this curving vista. Whenever I take the walk it reminds me of--
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