Musings And Memories Of A Musician

MUSINGS AND MEMORIES OF A MUSICIAN By SIR GEORGE HENSCHEL, Mus. Doc. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1919 AH rights reserved TO AMY BUT FOIl WHOSE TIMELY AND COMPASSIONATE RESUSCITATION THE WRITER WOULD MOST LIKELY UK REPOSING AT THE BOTTOM OK LETHE WHERE IT IS DEEPEST THESE PAUES ARE AWECTTONATELY INSCRIBED THIS book was written and in type before the War. The courtesy of the Publishers however, which I take this opportunity of gratefully acknowledging, has made it possible to make such happily few additions and alterations as the deaths, since, of some of the friends mentioned therein, rendered desirable and to change the name of St. Petersburg to Petrograd. G. H. AJLI TNAORICHE, October, 1918. SHAKESPEARES All the worlds a stage must appear of particular aptness and truth to the man who, approaching the threescore and ten of the Patriarch, reviews his past with the object of writing down his reminiscences. Looking back on the events of his life he sees them as he would so many scenes in an old stage-play upon which the curtain has fallen long ago, and the men and women who appeared in them pass before his spiritual vision like actors and actresses some having stirred his imagination, kindled the fire of his enthusiasm, some touched him to tears, pro voked his mirth some perhaps exceeded his expectations, some fallen short of them but all having left some mark, some impression on his mind, lasting for a longer or shorter period, according to their part and to the manner in which it was acted. I shall never forget a little incident at the Court Theatre of Weimar long years ago. The play had been Shakespeares King Lear. It 2 MUSINGS AND MEMORIES i was exceedingly well done as a whole, and theimpersonation, in particular, by the chief actor a member of the regular company of the tragic and majestically pathetic figure of the aged king, was a wonderfully fine and powerful performance. At the end of the play, amid the enthusiasm of the crowded house, the chief actor was vociferously called before the curtain over and over again. At last, when recalled for the tenth time or so, he seemed quite over come with emotion on receiving so great an ovation in the historical playhouse which could boast the traditions of Goethe and Schiller, and, bowing deeply, he was heard to mutter audible, however, to part of the audience I think I have merited it This, many people, and some of the Press, considered a great piece of arrogance and self-conceit on the part of the actor, whilst I emphatically held with the few who, in that no doubt unusual utterance, could see nothing but the innocent, in the excitement of the moment thoughtlessly escaped, expression of the artists consciousness of having given, having done his best and I have often thought since then, how it would by no means be a deplorable state of things if more of the actors on the stage of Life could make their final exits with that consciousness, whether unnoticed or amid the plaudits of the multitude. i MUSINGS AND MEMORIES 3 People who care to read a mans Recollec tions at all are generally supposed to be desirous of also knowing something of the man himself. Thus it is that theVish to gratify the readers curiosity imposes upon me, strangely enough, the necessity of commencing these re collections with the very fact of which I have no recollection whatever, namely, my birth and here again it strikes me as rather curious thatthat essential and certainly most important event in a mans life, his birth, should be just the one he cannot possibly help. Yet, taken for granted I had raised no objection to being born at all, I doubt if I could have chosen a more interesting place for my first appearance than dear old picturesque Breslau, or kinder, more loving parents to be welcomed by on my arrival in this world on the 18th of February 1850, than Moritz Jacob Henschel and Henriette Frankenstein, his wife...