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But tell me, what do you sing of mine?" Auber had told me to take "Sombre Foret," of "William Tell," in case I should be asked. Therefore I said that I had brought "Sombre Foret," and if he liked I would sing that. "Bene! bene!" he replied. "I will accompany you." I was dreadfully nervous to sing before him, but when I had finished he stretched out both hands to me and said: "Merci!
Boïeldieu and Auber are by far the most brilliant representatives of the French school of Opéra Comique. The work of the former which shows his genius at its best is "La Dame Blanche." It possesses in a remarkable degree dramatic verve, piquancy of rhythm, and beauty of structure. Mr.
Auber, after hearing her sing Norina, in Donizetti's "Don Pasquale," offered her a bouquet of roses from Normandy, and in answer to her questions about her diamonds, said, "The diamonds you wear are beautiful indeed, but those you place in our ears are a thousand times better."
Auber began his career as a musician comparatively late in life, but en revanche age seemed powerless to check his unflagging industry. His last work, 'Le Rêve d'Amour, was produced in the composer's eighty-eighth year. Auber is a superficial Rossini. He borrowed from the Italian master his wit and gaiety; he could not catch an echo of his tenderness and passion.
Each had an inkstand and pen and paper and every one had a look of severe dignity that was positively appalling. There was the little Auber, the Director, Rossini the great composer looking fat and grand in his impressive wig, Carraffa the celebrated composer, Allard the violinist and four others looking equally wise and solemn.
The spell of this incomparable sorcerer was upon her imagination; the sluggish, lurid tarn of Usher; the pale, gigantic water lilies, nodding their ghastly, everlasting heads over the dreary Zaire; the shrouding shadow of Helusion; the ashen skies, and sere, crisped leaves in the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir, hard by the dim lake of Auber all lay with grim distinctness before her; and from the red bars of the grate the wild, lustrous, appalling eyes of Ligeia looked out at her, while the unearthly tones of Morella whispered from every corner of the room.
He is very musical, and knows Liszt intimately, and told me a quantity of anecdotes about him. He was interested in what I told him about Liszt's going to the Conservatoire with Auber and me, and about the "Tannhaeuser" overture incident. It was six o'clock when we drove back to London. We saw the milk-carts on their morning rounds and the street-sweepers at work.
Gluck today, Donizetti tomorrow, Weber today, Rossini or Auber tomorrow, serious today, frivolous tomorrow what is the result? That the people can do neither Gluck nor Donizetti, neither the serious nor the frivolous. How terrible also are the translations!
Thomas was an older man than Gounod, and had already written much for the stage without achieving any very decisive success. He was a man of plastic mind, and was too apt to reproduce in his own music the form and even the ideas which happened to be popular at the time he wrote. Most of his early works are redolent of Auber or Halévy.
On that occasion I ventured, by way of encouraging the French school, to point to the peculiar significance of Auber, and particularly to his Stumme von Portici, drawing attention, on the other hand, to the overloaded melodies of Rossini, which often resembled sol-fa exercises.
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