Whims of Musical Composers.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 450, 1 March 1890, Page 5

Whims of Musical Composers.

HE methods of inspira<3^ G° n resorted to by some musical geniuses have been most singular. Meyerbeer could best compose while a thunderstorm passed over his house; bub Gluck preferred to bask in sunshine, taking inspiration in draughts from a bottle of champagne always kept in readiness. Sponbini, on the contrary, thought darkness a favourable condition. Haydn sought inspiration in counting his rosary beads ; and Handel found the surroundings and associations of a graveyard with the shade of a weeping-willow congenial to him in his work. Auber’s musical ideas came to him with the rhythmical motion of horse riding, aud it is said he could compose nothing outside the neighbourhood of Paris ; while Charles Adam, one of his followers, found the practice of lying in bed with his clothes on an

aid to composition. Mendelssohn’s flow of harmony was influenced by an indulgence in sweets; and Salieri also had a ‘sweet tooth,’ finding his ideas came easiest when eating confections as he walked along the ci’owded streets. Chopin on one occasion indicated his means of getting inspiration by telling a friend that when he played, he always thought of his country, unhappy Poland, and was bub giving full vent to his indignation at her wrongs when his playing seemed extravagant. Moscheles made his wife’s birthday the invariable opportunity for commencing something new. Mozart found the companionship of singing birds, particularly a cherished canary, solacing to him in his work.

Beethoven was a great believer in the efficacy of the cold water douche to give him inspiiation ; and his peculiar use of it, it may be supposed, often gave him a severe cold likewise. He would abstractedly pour jug-full after jug-full over his hands, all the while ‘humming and roaring’ in his attempts to sing, and after dabbling till ho was web through, he would hurriedly pace the room, then set himself down to work, rising at intervals to continue his splashing and humming. He would also be seized with sudden fits in the middle of his work to go for long perambulations in his garden or walks in the fields, snow, hail, or rain being of no consideration ; while he sought inspii’ation daily by a run round the town ‘as if the bailiffs were after him.’ Rossini would devote weeks to ridiculing the libretto of an opera he was commissioned to compose, then, as a preparatory step, he would test the capabilities of the singers for their parts. Such a lover of pleasure was he that it was rarely till within two or three weeks of the public appearance of the opera that he set himself to write a single note of the score. While other great mastei - s were men of abnormal activity and particularly early risers, Beethoven always commencing work at daybreak, winter and summer, Rossini was, by nature, one of the most indolent cf men. Ib is even related of him that when writing a duet in bed, and dropping the roll of paper on the fiooi - , he chose to re-write the whole rather than rise to pick up the fallen manuscript. It is said also that he tried to convince various managers of the utter uselessness of overtures to operas, to save himself the trouble of writing them. So distasteful was work to him after having made a naine, that be occasionally resorted to the dishonest expedient of patching together fragments of the amateur work of his early years, passing them off as recent productions.

A few days before the repi'esentation of an opeia the director apologised for the poverty of the text. *Be comforted,’ said Rossini, coolly, ' I have perceived it, and I have made my music worse still ! ’ A few days after the first production of * Guillaume Tell/ the coixxposer threw down his pen, as he hoped, for ever, with the haughty remark, ‘ One success more would add nothing to my renown ; one failure might impair it. I have no need of the one ; I will not expose myself to the othex-.’

It was this composer, who though possessed of a palace at Bologna in which were collected treasures of art, beautiful porcelain, and magnificent silver plate, chose, during a lawsuit in which he was engaged, to withdraw to a garret reached by a ladder at the top of the Italian Theatre, Paris; and during his assumption of wretchedness he here received his distinguished patrons, including the exEmperor of Brazil, apologising for his condition by the economy he w«s in the necessity of practising. While Mozart and Mendelssohn were sweet-tempered men, both Beethoven and Handel were particularly excitable, even music itself not always possessing the necessary charm to soothe their ‘ savage breast?.’ Both numerous and lively are the anecdotes related of Handel’s furious contests with tenors and prime donne. When an Italian singer declined to render a particular air, the enraged Hanoverian shook the music in his face, shouting, * You tog, don’t 1 know better as yourself vat you shall sing ?’ while on another occasion he seized a rebellious prwut, donna by the arm, and, after administering a severe shaking, threatened to dispense with her services for ever by pitching her out of an open window. Honest and over-blunt as Handel naturally was, however, the adroitness of his reply to the Prince of Wales, his pupil, regarding his progress, is remarkable: ‘ Your Royal Highness plays like a prince,’ said the astute master. Beethoven’s absent-mindedness was so great that he even forgot his Royal pupils for weeks at a time. Another conspicuous instance is of his having received the gift of a horse, which, after riding a few times, he so completely forgot that his servant hired it out for his own profit. Through his forgetfulness, a portion of one ot hi 3 celebrated masses was nearly lost to the world ; for, during one of his numerous removals from one lodging to another, the score was missing, and was ultimately found amid the waste - paper used for wrapping round old hoots and greasy kitchen utensils.

It seems somewhat strange that a man of Beethoven’s serious nature should cherish a love of practical joking in any form ; yet even in middle age he was one party to an unkind hoax upon a lady who wished for a lock of the great composer’s hair, by sending her a portion of a goat’s grey beard. He, however, afterwards tendered a frank apology, together with the coveted genuine lock. Handel’s father, a barber-surgeon, strongly opposed his passion for music, intending him for a doctor and never a ‘ beggarly musician ’; but the coming composer contrived to hide a spinet or some other instrument in a garret, where he clandestinely taught himself to play. i The experience of Thomas Arne (the author of ‘Rule Britannia’) was exactly similar ; he procured a spinet and muffled the strings with a handkerchief, teaching himself at night while the family were sleeping. His love of music induced him to disguise himself in the livery of a manservant to obtain free admission nightly to the gallery of the Opera House.