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Updated: June 11, 2025
Alixe Van Kuyp sat in the first-tier box presented to her husband with the accustomed heavy courtesy of the Société Harmonique. She went early to the hall that she might hear the entire music-making of the evening Van Kuyp's tone-poem, Sordello, was on the programme between a Weber overture and a Beethoven symphony, an unusual honour for a young American composer.
Her mood shifted chilly, and they bored each other immeasurably on the long promenade vibrating with gypsy music and frivolous folk. It was after seven o'clock as the sun slowly swam down the sky-line. Decidedly their little flight from the prison of stone was not offering rich recompense to Alixe Van Kuyp and her elderly companion.
Alixe recalled the interminable arguments, the snatches of poetry, the hasty rushes to the keyboard; a composer was in travail. At the end of a year, Rentgen professed his satisfaction; Van Kuyp stood on the highroad to fame. Of that there could be no doubt; Elvard Rentgen would say so in print. Alixe had been reassured
Even sculpture was rifled for analogies, and Van Kuyp to his bewilderment found himself called "The Rodin of Music"; at other times, "Richard Strauss II," or a "Tonal Browning"; finally, he was adjured to swerve not from the path he had so wonderfully hewn for himself in the virgin jungle of modern art, and begged to resist the temptations of the music-drama. Rentgen loathed the music of Wagner.
"And," he went on as if she had not spoken, "Van Kuyp is your typical countryman. He has studied in Germany. He has muddled his brain with the music of a dozen different nations; if he had had any individuality it would have been submerged. His memory has killed his imagination. He borrows his inspiration from the poets, from Liszt, Wagner, Berlioz, Richard Strauss.
I've forgotten the story, but remember the idea: 'The beautiful arts were sent into the world to overthrow nations, and, finally, life itself, sowing everywhere unlimited desires, like torches thrown into a burning city. There 'like torches thrown into a burning city! Richard Van Kuyp is one of my burning torches. In the spectacle of his impuissance I find relief from my own suffering."
"My dear friend, there will be no deception. Only encouragement, a little encouragement. As for deceiving a composer, telling him that he may not be so wonderful as he thinks that's impossible. I know these star-shouldering souls, these farmers of phantasms who exist in a world by themselves. It would be a pity to let in the cold air of reality anyhow Van Kuyp has some talent."
Richard Strauss embroiders philosophical ideas, so why should not Richard Van Kuyp go to Ireland, to the one land where there is hope of a spiritual, a poetic renascence? Ireland! The very name evoked dreams! When Rentgen called at the Van Kuyps' it was near the close of a warm afternoon. The composer would not stir, despite the invitation of the critic or the pleading of his wife.
Then the music whirled her away to Italy; the love scene of Palma and Sordello. It should have been the apex of the work. "Sounds too much like Tschaïkowsky's Francesca da Rimini," interrupted Rentgen. She was annoyed. "Why didn't you tell Van Kuyp before he scored the work?" she demanded, her long gray eyes beginning to blacken. "I did, my dear lady, I did.
Alixe Van Kuyp was a large woman, with a conscientious head and gray eyes. As she waited, she realized that it was one of her timid nights, when colour came easily and temper ran at its lowest ebb. She had begged Van Kuyp to cancel the habit of not listening to his own music except at rehearsal, and, annoyed by his stubbornness, neglected to tell him of the other invitation.
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