The man nodded gravely and slid back the bolts. He allowed M. de Tignonville to enter, then with care he secured the door. and led the way across a small square court, paved with red tiles and enclosed by the house, but open above to the sunshine and the blue sky. A gallery which ran round the upper floor looked on this court, in which a great quiet reigned, broken only by the music of a fountain. A vine climbed on the wooden pillars which supported the gallery, and, aspiring higher, embraced the wide carved eaves, and even tapestried with green the three ▾ gables that on each side of the court broke the sky-line. The grapes hung nearly ripe, and amid their clusters and the green lattice of their foliage Tignonville's gaze sought eagerly but in vain the laughing eyes and piquant face of his new mistress. For with the closing of the door, and the passing from him of the horrors of the streets, he had entered, as by magic, a new and smiling world; a world of tennis and roses, of tinkling voices and women's wiles, a world which smacked of Florence and the South, and love and life; a world which his late experiences had set so far away from him, his memory of it seemed a dream. Now, as he drank in its stillness and its fragrance, as he felt its safety and its luxury lap him round once more, he sighed. And with that breath he rid himself of much.

The servant led him to a parlour, a cool shady room on the farther side of the tiny quadrangle, and, muttering something inaudible, withdrew. A moment later a frolicsome laugh, and the light flutter of a woman's skirt as she tripped across the court, brought the blood to his cheeks. He went a step nearer to the door, and his eyes grew bright.

(To be continued.)

THE

CORNHILL MAGAZINE.

APRIL 1901.

BLACKSTICK PAPERS. NO. 4.1

BY MRS. RICHMOND RITCHIE.

CONCERNING JOSEPH JOACHIM.

BEFORE life was experience-when it was curiosity, hope, speculation, all those desires with which existence begins-the writer was sent by her father to some musical meetings, which are now so long over that the very rooms in which they first originated do not exist any more. They were Willis's Rooms, out of St. James's Street. The Musical Union was the name given to the concerts, which were an admirable invention of Mr. Ella's to try to raise the standard of music from certain shallow depths to which it seemed to be gradually sinking. There used to be an encouraging picture of a lyre on the programme, and a pretty little sentence-'Il più gran omaggio alla musica sta nel silenzio '-printed in coloured letters at the end of it. This, alas! is not yet the universal opinion; promiscuous clap-trap applause and boisterous encores, often before the last notes have died away, being still in fashion.

I believe the Musical Union eventually migrated to St. James's Hall, but it was in Willis's cool and stately halls, with the faded velvet seats, that the writer for the first time heard those familiar and delightful strains of Joachim's violin, which have so happily sounded on through the latter half of a century of change and perplexity, ever bringing truth and strength and tranquillity along with them.

1

Copyright, 1900, by Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, in the United States of America. VOL. X.-NO. 58, N.S.

19

For those of us who are not blessed with the Fairy Blackstick's length of life and her five-and-twenty thousand years or so of active interest, it is no little good fortune to have lived in our generation, alongside the people whom we can understand more or less; who express what is best in us, and who have added so widely to our limited experience, just because we can sympathise with them and follow their well-loved lead. One is sorry for those who are born too late or too soon for their journey through life-who are fighting against the tide instead of going along with it-or perhaps trying to stem their unknown ways alone, ahead of their natural companions. And so I repeat it is an inestimable privilege to have lived at the same time with certain expressions of consummate beauty, which contain the best ideals, the best realisations of which we are capable; and it has been the present writer's fortune to be able to count upon more than one certain and unfailing music through life— noble guiding strains which have led the way along many chances and changes, only growing more familiar, more real as time has passed on. It is quite certain that people are not made happy by remembering tours-de-force or wonderful exploits in execution-indeed some of us are even too ignorant to appreciate them-but mere listeners, ignorant though they may be, are certainly made happier (and better so far as they are more happy) by the remembrance of an unfailing flow of beauty, sometimes quite beyond description, one of the revelations upon earth of some law reaching far beyond it.

All this has been specially brought home to the writer by a book which has lately appeared, an English version of Andreas Moser's Life of Joseph Joachim,' now translated by Lilla Durham. It will be found full of interesting things to those who can go back for years to the revelations of this master's noble art. In this satisfying history both the writer and the translator seem touched by something of Dr. Joachim's own sincerity and thoroughness. The first sentence of Mr. Fuller Maitland's introduction strikes the keynote of it all: Few biographers,' he says, have had to tell the story of a life so full of dignity, usefulness, and beauty. The story flows on from the very first with steady advance.

Blackstick herself might have presided at Joachim's birth. We read of the usual fairy seventh child, the son of Julius and Fanny Joachim, born near Presburg in Hungary in 1831; of the

grave, reserved father, devoted to his home; of the loving, capable mother; of the family in modest circumstances, not rich people, but placed beyond the struggle for daily bread. We do not learn that this was in any way a specially musical family; but one of the sisters, called Regina, could sing, and little Pepi could listen, and with all his might.

The writer has heard Dr. Joachim say that he first learnt to play on a little toy fiddle, which someone brought him from a fair. Happy friend to have given such a gift to such a 'Pepi'! The little fiddle is written of in the memoir, and we read that a friend of the family first taught the child to play upon it; then the father, recognising 'Pepi's' great natural gifts, determined to have him seriously taught the violin, and, being a sensible man, took him to the best violinist in all Pesth. He was Serwaczynski, Konzertmeister there, and we have his portrait in the book, an anxiouslooking man in a black satin stock and an old-fashioned coat with a high collar. There is also a picture of little Joseph himself, with rows of beautiful stiff curls, and, notwithstanding his tender years, the same calm expression that we are accustomed to. A pretty story is told how, after thirty years, Joachim somewhere recognised the tones of his first master's violin which he had heard as a child, and was able to buy it for his own. It was an Amati and a valuable instrument.

At the opera at Pesth very good music was to be heard. Beethoven's Ruinen von Athen' was given there, and the overture to König Stephan.' It was at Pesth, in the Casino, that Pepi made his first appearance, by his master's wish. The picture of the little fair-haired boy, with his stiff curls, was taken at this time, and the delighted audience seems to have applauded as loudly sixty years ago as it does to-day, Dr. Joachim's only recollection, however, is of the sky-blue coat and the mother-of pearl buttons which he wore for the occasion. A delightful spirited lady now appears upon the scene; this is a relative, Fräulein Fanny Figdor, who entreats that her charming little cousin Pepi should be sent to Vienna, where music is more vibrating and alive than at sleepy Pesth-she is like a character out of Goethe, so confident and full of resource and conviction. Her persuasions and those of his teacher prevail, and the father and Fanny and Pepi all set out together for the capital.

The first master to whom they applied was Helmesberger, a distinguished teacher, whose two young sons were also admirable

performers. He declared that nothing could ever be made of little Joachim because of the stiffness of his bowing. Joachim's father, who hated half measures, though bitterly disappointed, at once resolved to take his boy away and bring him up to some other profession. Happily for the whole world, Ernst happened to come to Vienna about this time, and immediately recognised Joachim's rare gifts; he advised the parents to continue his musical education, and to put Pepi under Joseph Böhm, from whom he himself had learned wisdom and music.

This kind, austere teacher took Joachim to his own home and treated him as a son. He had no children, but he loved his pupil and he loved true art.

At the time when Joachim first went to Vienna, the great traditions of the past were somewhat waning. Beethoven and Schubert had been dead some twelve years; the cheerful and homely melodies of slighter composers were better suited to display the brilliant powers of those who rather wished to show their capabilities than to play great music. Paris was supposed to be the centre of all art and of all success, and there was consequently some talk of sending Joachim, after his studies with Böhm, to Paris. Again the spirited Fanny, now Frau Witgenstein, with a home and husband of her own in Leipzig, interfered for Joseph's benefit. She declared that Leipzig was the only place for Joachim, and the only school where he had anything to learn.

Mendelssohn was at Leipzig, the director of the concerts there, and he brought many musicians round about him, he was successful and popular, respected and greatly loved. Moser says that among others' Robert Schumann looked up to Mendelssohn as to a high mountain. Some master pen, a Carlyle's, a Jean Paul's, should paint for us this charming centre, all these brilliant and delightful people, coming and going in the streets of the ancient town, and dwelling in their special atmosphere of music, of good fellowship, of high endeavour.

Mendelssohn was greatly interested in the young student. His first recommendation was that Joachim should have a tutor, not for the violin-in his art the boy wanted but little teaching -but for Latin, for geography, for history, for divinity, for all the education befitting a superior man; but at the same time Félicien David, the great violinist, who was then at Leipzig, gave Joachim many hints which afterwards he knew how to make useful.

What, notwithstanding every drawback, would not any of us