Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-03-22
MUSICIANS AND THEIR STRUGGLES.
Sufferings which Men of Genius Have
Had to Endure Before Their Triumph.

Archdeacon Farrar has written an interesting
article in the Youths Companion in which he
says: There is no art and no science which has
not had its martyrs. The early days of many
perhaps of the majority-of those who have
attained to eminence among ''the masters Of
those who know" have been days not only of
toll. but also of struggle and effort and painful
trial. Musicians have furnished but few ex-
ceptions to the general rule If il is true Of the
poets that
They learnt in suffering what they taught in song"
if the great god Pan hacks and slices the ex-
quisite reeds of the river out of which he makes
his melodious instruments-the musicians have
been partners in the same destiny.
MY music" said Schubert, sis the product
OF my genius and my misery; that which have
written in my deepest affection the world seems
to like best"
There have, indeed, been exceptions. Sew
eral of our English musicians-Tallis. Purcell,
Wesley Bishop. Sterndale. Bennett-were fairly
prosperous and happy men; and among the
Germans, Handel, Mozart and Mendelssohn
had no very severe and overwhelming combats
with misfortune. Handel met with the most
triu nphant success; Mozart even an infant
was regarded as a prodigy; on the beautiful
soul of Mendelssohn life seemed to smile with
radiance from the very first
tress, poverty, ill-health neglect. disappoint-
ment. perfidy, blindness, madness and deafness
which afflicted the early and later life Of Bach.
Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and
others. Handel, indeed, became blind. but
only in 1852. He died on April IA. 1859. 1t is
good thing that in the works of the great mu-
slclans the world can hear the notes struck out
of the chords of life by the soft touch of hap
plness, as well as by 1.-The mighty plectrum of
disappointment"
he .nSfo 10, ,aL ol,on
touch are mainly exhibited in the lives of Ger
mans. If the most consummate art of Greece
appeared in her sculpture. of Italy in her paint
ing. of England in her drama-G Germany has the
glory Of having produced the greatest OF all
First. however, / shall take the example of
great Italian.
Palestrina represents the elimination of that
style of music which prevailed in the four
teenth, fifteenth. and sixteenth centuries, and
is known as POlyphOnic. The musicians of that
epoch wrote for voices alone. or all but alone;
whereas the great composers of the eighteenth
century composed for instruments alone, and
for voices supported and accompanied by in
struments.
The polyphonic style first spread over Europe
from Flanders, where it was originated by Gull
laume Dufay, who died in 1920, and was a singer
in the papal choir. Arcadelt. who. in 1889, was
master OF the boys in the choir of st. Peters, at
Rome, was eminent in this style, but PalestrIna
WIS ltS greatest master.
After giving graphic sketches of the struggles
of Palestrina, Bach. Handel, Haydn. Schubert
and Schumann, in which the sufferings of each
from pecuniary distress are set forth as well as
the influence of their genius upon the music of
their time. the author concludes as follows:
These are but some instances of the struggles
of musicians. 1t may be said that their diff
culties were, in some instances due to them
selves; that Schubert for instance. was capri
clous and improvident and, at times. lived
life of such irregularity as would have suficed
to injure the most robust constitution and that
Schumann yielded to a morbid apprehension of
emotions and had IAN ingenuity in clinging to
unhappy IDEAS
No doubt this is true. and it is true also that
struggle, in some form or other is the lot of
most who are born into the world But men
who have been gifted with exceptional genius
are liable to special trials and temptations. and
those who have received but one talent may
find some consolation in the truth SO touch
ingly expressed by George Eliot. that
We can only have the highest happiness,
such as goes along with being a great man, by
having wide thoughts. and much feeling for the
rest of the world as well as ourselves; and this
sort of happiness often brings so mnch pain
with it that we can only tell 1t from pain by its
being what we should choose before everything
else, because our souls see it is good