Barnard Charles
Camilla: A Tale of a Violin
They could not find the place. The stores were all closed and it seemed very stupid and gloomy. They would return to their hotel. It was down this street No. It was that way. Which way was it? The streets were so very crooked that really they were quite lost.
They stopped a gentleman and said as best they could – “Unated Statis Hotel?” He did not seem to understand and passed on. Then they tried a lady and repeated the words “Unated Statis Hotel?” The lady talked about something but they could not understand a single word. Again and again they stopped people on the walk and repeated the strange words. Every one shook his head or talked rapidly about things they could not understand and not one could show the way to the “Unated Statis Hotel.”
Poor Camilla began to cry with the cold and they were having a sorry time of it. They met an Irish servant girl going home from church. They repeated the words to her and the quick witted girl soon led them back a few steps and showed them the great brick block with its gilded sign “United States Hotel.”
Now it was that we became familiar with Camilla’s face in our streets. Her black felt hat and long dark green plume that was at once so singular and so very becoming, her big blue eyes with the sly twinkle in them, the smiling mouth and sweet tempered expression of her face won unusual attention and admiration. Children in the streets said “there goes Camilla Urso,” and ran after her to see the pretty French girl who had come to live among us. Traditions of her girlhood days are still treasured up in many Boston families and pleasant stories are told of this part of her life. She here grew in mind and stature and she was no longer little Camilla but Mademoiselle Camilla Urso.
The first concert with the Germanias was given on the evening of December 11th, and from that time there was a brief space of financial happiness for our young Mademoiselle. For several months she had more leisure than she had ever known in her short life. Their headquarters were in Boston and the tours were short and easy.
There seemed to be no immediate prospect of returning to France and something must be done about Mademoiselle’s English education. The family made their home at the United States Hotel and during the intervals between the short concert trips a private tutor came to their rooms to instruct her young ladyship in the language of the country. Nothing had been done even in French and she found herself woefully ignorant for a ten year old girl. It made very little difference for she took up the matter with enthusiasm and learned to read in an incredibly short time. Within three months she could express herself with tolerable ease in English and learned to read almost anything that was put before her either in French or English. How it happened she could hardly explain. It must have been the intuitive grasping of a mind prematurely active and retentive. She could read music as easily as a Boston girl of her age could read the daily papers, and it did not seem to her in any sense difficult to understand the much more simple alphabet of spoken language. She had only one objection to her tutor. He helped her over the hard words and all that and was not cross but as she confided to her aunt, “he was very disagreeable – she didn’t like him for he chewed – and it wasn’t pleasant.”
At the same time such a demure puss, with such proper notions about manners was not above joining some of the other girls in grand romps in the corridors of the hotel, nor afraid to join them in the glorious mischief of changing all the boots put out at the doors of the rooms and then listen at the top of the stairs at the fine uproar caused by their pranks.
It was during this residence in Boston that Camilla was confirmed at Church and she passed the allotted weeks of preparation at the Convent of Notre Dame at Roxbury. Her father thought it a sad loss of time on account of her violin practice, but for Camilla it was a period of unalloyed happiness. She was the pet of the school, and her simple, childlike nature bloomed out freely in the quiet atmosphere of the place. Here for the first time she learned to use her needle. Pen, needles, pen-knife and scissors had been carefully kept out of her hands for fear of possible injury to her fingers and yet she learned to sew quite well in a very few lessons. It was merely a mechanical operation and it came to her in a flash. She astonished the good sisters with her feats of embroidery and fine sewing and they could not understand how such an one could learn so quickly. The manual skill of playing and the quick eye in reading music had probably much to do with it. The weeks at the convent were like a charming oasis in the dry and dusty plain of her public life and she came out of the school blooming with health and happiness.
On the 4th of April, 1853, the Germanias started out on an extended tour through the Western States and with them went Mademoiselle Camilla, her father and aunt. It was upon this trip that Camilla Urso’s face became familiar to the people of this country. She had visited nearly every important city and town in New England and now she played in every large city through the Northern and Western States. She went as far west as St. Louis and as far south as the Ohio. It was a stirring, eventful life. Traveling constantly, playing four or five times a week, meeting new friends every day, practicing steadily and growing in mind and stature she seemed to have found the desire of her young heart. Finally the trip ended at Rochester, New York, on the 11th of June, and the company separated. The Germanias went to Newport for their summer campaign and the Ursos returned to New York.
Madam Henrietta Sontag was at this time traveling in this country. She had given a series of very successful operatic performances in Boston and New York during the Winter and Spring, and proposed to make a concert tour through the West and South during the Fall and Winter. M. Urso while in New York received a letter from her agent inviting Camilla to join the troupe. Accordingly she set out with her father and met Madam Sontag’s party at Cincinnati. Aunt Caroline traveled with them as far as Louisville, Ky. Madam Sontag, who was greatly pleased with Camilla here offered to have a motherly eye over her and accordingly her aunt returned to New York and only M. Urso remained to be guide and helper to our young Mademoiselle.
For Camilla this trip was a season of great happiness. She was earning money rapidly, her mother in far away Paris could share in the golden store and her father was pleased and satisfied.
Madam Sontag became a second mother to Camilla and treated her with the utmost kindness. Every day Camilla must come to her room to practice and receive instructions in singing. Camilla’s instrument was the violin. She could sing with more than ordinary skill and in perfecting her phrasing and in improving her style in vocal music Madam Sontag insensibly improved her violin music. All of Camilla’s music was examined by the great singer and in those stray hours picked up between the demand of concerts and travel much of art and happiness was enjoyed.
Camilla was the favorite of the entire company. There was Pozzolini, the tenor, fat Badially, the bass, jolly Rocco the buffo singer and Alfred Jael the rising young pianist, merriest of them all. With each Camilla was a pet. Every one seemed ready to please the young girl and in their society life passed happily. Freed from anxiety and the excessive and wearisome practice her nature expanded and she began to show that sweet and amiable character that so brightens her maturer years.
Giving concerts at every city the party took their triumphant way down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans. The brilliant concerts, the strange people, the mighty river, the life on the palatial steamboats, the perpetual change of scene awoke Camilla’s fancy and imagination and developed her character rapidly. The publicity, the glare and the excitement only brought out her intellectual and artistic power. Most young people would have been upset and spoiled by vanity. Her young days in the orchestra at Nantes had accustomed her to public life, and the poverty and trial she had gone through served as good ballast to keep her steady when riding on the topmost wave of success.
The tour ended at New Orleans with even greater triumphs. Camilla appeared eighteen times in company with Madam Sontag and each concert was a perfect success in every sense.
Then in a moment the bright dream came to an end. Madam Sontag and her opera company set out for Mexico, leaving Camilla and her father in New Orleans. She would return soon and in the mean time Camilla could wait and by study and practice prepare for a new tour through the Northern States in the Spring.
In a few weeks came the dreadful news that the good and amiable woman, and the great artist was dead. She had died after a brief illness in the city of Mexico and all of Camilla’s hopes were destroyed. Again she was without employment and without money. Her father was not distinguished for sound financial ability. He was too generous and liberal, and in spite of the large sums of gold that had been paid to him on Camilla’s account he found himself in actual distress at the breaking up of the Sontag combination. With reasonable prudence they could have saved enough to enable them to retreat to the more prosperous field in the Northern States. As it was Camilla was obliged to begin again, and slowly, and painfully win her way back alone to the North and to happier days. An agent was found to take her through the Southern cities and thence by the way of the seaboard to New York. It was not a happy trip. There was no longer a great singer to attract attention, there was no obedient and skillful business man traveling ahead to prepare the way and secure hotel comforts and financial success.
Camilla’s violin was the only attraction, and to fill out the programme they were obliged to call in the aid of such local talent as they could find in the various cities they visited. Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, and other places were visited and after a slow and disagreeable journey they arrived in Baltimore in the Spring of 1855 almost without a cent.
Here came a singular episode in Camilla’s life that will illustrate the perfection of her schooling at the Conservatory of music at Paris. A gentleman and a public singer heard of Camilla’s difficulties and arranged a concert for her benefit. At this concert Camilla for the first and only time laid aside her violin and appeared as a singer. No one had thought of her in this character and her duet from the opera of L’elisir d’Amore, by Donizetti, was a great surprise. She exhibited a fine, clear voice almost as well trained as her fingers. The performance only showed how thorough had been her instruction in solfeggio at the Conservatory. Every true artist is a singer. No matter what his or her instrument may be, no matter how skillful their fingers may be with bow or keys, singing must form a part of their education. This is the theory of Camilla’s study in music. The practice of solfeggio gives clearness and accuracy to the ear, and teaches the eye to read with certainty and speed. Much of her understanding of music has come from such practice and it should form a part of every musician’s education.
Finally father and daughter reached New York after an absence of nearly nine months, and almost as poor as when they started. The Summer season was at hand and there was very little opportunity for concerts. In company with her father she then went to Canada and there traveled from place to place giving occasional concerts and everywhere winning many friends. Invitations to visit the homes of private families came to them freely and for Camilla the trip was a very happy one. So happy indeed that she was unwilling to leave her new friends even when the news of her mother’s arrival in New York was received. M. Urso went on to receive his wife, but Camilla persisted in staying where she was. She was the admired and sought after young girl. Every one seemed ready to offer her every pleasure and attention and she was far from willing to return to the life of concert giving and practice.
Concerning the music that Mademoiselle Urso played at this time, we may mention a few of the pieces usually given at her concerts. They give us not only an idea of her musical ability, but serve to illustrate the character of the concert pieces in vogue at that time. No musical life would be complete, even if it is that of a “wonder-child” without some information concerning the actual work performed. Mademoiselle Urso was not in any sense limited in her range of pieces. She did not have a mere stock set that she always played. She could and did play everything that had been printed for the violin. In her girlhood’s concerts she chose those most popular without much regard to their actual position in the art. She had not then reached her true artist-life and was not, as now, in a position to lead the public taste into the higher fields of classic music. She played then such pieces as the Violin Concerto, by Viotti, Alard’s Souvenir the Daughter of the Regiment, Souvenir de Gretry, Souvenir de Mozart, by Leonard, and the Tremolo, by De Beriot. She also gave at times the Witches’ Dance, by Paganini and La Melancholie, by Prune.
After some delay Camilla joined her father and mother at New York, and the family were once more reunited. It was at this time that they had the misfortune to have their rooms entered, and all the presents, including the pearl cross that Camilla had received on that almost forgotten German tour, were stolen.
The family were not united long. In the Fall Mrs. Macready, the reader, invited Camilla to join her troupe on a tour through the West. As mother and daughter had been separated for a long time Madam Urso traveled with Camilla a portion of this journey. Unfortunately Madam Urso was taken sick at Cincinnati and for a while Camilla traveled alone with Mrs. Macready. This tour was quite a successful one for Camilla and it finally ended in Nashville, Tenn., where the party separated.
PART II
CHAPTER I.
INTO EACH LIFE SOME RAIN MUST FALL
At the close of her tour with Mrs. Macready in 1855 Mademoiselle Urso left the concert stage, gave up playing in public and retired to private life in Nashville, Tenn., only appearing at occasional charity concerts. Seven years later, in the Autumn of 1862, she returned to New York prepared to resume her artist-life. The musical world remembered with respect and admiration the Camilla Urso of her brilliant girlhood. The wonderful child-life had ended. The new artist-life now begins. Once more the swift fingers might fly over the mystic strings. Again the bow arm wield its magic wand.
Could they? Would the art come back after seven years of almost total neglect? Would the woman fulfill the promise of the child? She could not tell. It seemed a life-time since she had played in public. It was a doubtful experiment. She would not hesitate nor be afraid. She would try again.
“Father, I have come home.”
Father, mother, daughter and dear aunt once more reunited. It was an humble home in the midst of the great city. It was home and that was enough.
“What now, my daughter?”
“Music, father. My violin. Give it me once more.”
Once more the violin is placed on the young shoulder and the bow is laid with caressing touch upon the beloved strings. Ten and often fifteen hours a day incessant practice. No rigid Massart to watch every note. No father to sit by to guide and help. Alone with her violin. She would have no master now. She would be her own master. Her genius should be her guide.
Again the long, slow notes. Again the patient finger exercises. From the almost forgotten years she recalled the lessons of the Conservatory and the instructions of dear old Felix Simon, at sunny Nantes. He was at hand and lived in New York. He might help her. No, she did not wish it. She refused even her father’s aid. She knew herself now. Times had changed since those old days in Nantes. Music had changed. Violin playing had changed. She could not tell exactly how or why, but she felt sure it must be so. If she was to succeed she must come up with the level of the age. The standard of musical taste had changed during the seven years of blank in her artist life. The playing of the “wonder-child” would no longer please the public, much less herself. If her music was then remarkable for a child it must now be equally remarkable for a woman. No half way halting, no inferior work. She had no longer the excuse of being a child. She must win her own place alone and unaided.
Thus thinking, hoping and toiling incessantly she spent the weeks, and then the toil become a pleasure and the hope fruition. To her surprise and joy it all came back. And with it came something else. A new discovery in her art. Her violin had a new voice. A wonderful something was in its every tone. What was it? The brilliant sparkle and fire of her girlhood-music was all there. Everything had returned and with it had come a lovely spirit born of love and sorrow. She love her violin. She had known grief. Both lived in her music.
Three months of hard study and then she felt ready to once more try her fortune. The fame of her return had quickly spread, and early in 1863 a letter arrived from Carl Zerrahn the conductor of the Philharmonic Society in Boston, inviting her to play before the Society in our city. She accepted the invitation and once more stood before us, violin in hand, and surrounded by hosts of kind and true friends ready to welcome her back again.
Here begins the new artist-life in our own city and at her childhood’s second home where she had won such honors as a girl. Her first appearance was at the Music Hall on the 14th of February, and on this occasion she played the Fantasie Caprice by Vieuxtemps and the Andante et Rondo Russe by De Beriot.
On the 21st she played again and gave the Souvenir de Mozart by Alard and the Cappicco on themes from Fille du Regiment.
On the 2d of March she played a Fantasie sur Lucrezia Borgia by Stanton, the Souvenir des Pyrenees by Alard, a Duet from William Tell, for violin and piano and repeated the Vieuxtemps Fantasie caprice.
Immediately after this she was called to New York to play at the Philharmonic concerts in that city. At one of these concerts the pianist Gottschalk, who happened to be present, became so excited over her playing that he jumped upon the seat and proposed cheers for Madam Urso, and at the close of the performance introduced himself to her in the ante-room and fairly overwhelmed her with congratulations and praise. It was a great surprise and pleasure to her, as the opinion of such a musician was of real value. She now grew more confident. The promise of her girlhood might yet be fulfilled. She would take new courage and go on with the work. She would practice and study every available moment. In time she would become indeed a great artist. She would not now stop to dream of future success. She must work and work hard.
Success and triumph were near at hand and almost before she was ready to receive them, engagements to play flowed in upon her from every direction. The days of poverty and trial were over. A steadily increasing financial success followed her efforts and, taught by the sorrowful experience of her childhood, she managed her affairs with wisdom and laid the foundation of her present independence. In May she gave a concert in Boston on her own behalf at Chickering hall and played Grand duo brilliant for piano and violin, La Mucette de Portici by Wolff and De Beriot, Reverie by Vieuxtemps, Elegie by Ernst, and the William Tell Duo by De Beriot.
These were the most popular pieces of the day. They all belong to the transcription or fantasie style. Enormously difficult and well calculated to please the fancy and amuse the ear, they give a hint of Madam Urso’s ability at that time and show just about how far American culture had risen. It is interesting to notice them as we shall see how rapid and how great have been the changes in violin music in the last ten years that are included in this part of the story of a musical life.
In June she made a short tour through the Provinces and then returned to New York and spent the Summer quietly among friends and in practice upon her violin.
Nothing satisfied her in music. The true artist never is satisfied, but is ever urged onward by a noble discontent. The concert pieces demanded by the public, were not to her taste. She could do better work. She knew and played finer works than these. The people would not listen to them. She would wait. In time they would grow up to something better. In all this she was ever urged on higher and higher, trying new feats of technical skill, drawing forth even finer tones and continually advancing towards the higher standard of excellence she had set for herself. In all this she met with obstacles and difficulties. She could not have instruction from others. There were none in the country who could teach her anything and her concerts broke in upon her time seriously. She was studying for public appearance and appearing in public at the same time.
On the opening of the musical season in the fall of 1863 Madam Urso was engaged by Mr. P. S. Gilmore to play at his concerts in Boston. The summer of apparent idleness had been well spent. Her study and practice bore splendid fruit and her genius bloomed out into new and wonderful music that seemed to exhale a perfume as ethereal and delicate as it was peculiar and original. The woman’s hand and heart lived in the music. To all the brilliancy and technical skill of a man she added a feminine lightness of touch, that in airy lightness, and grace, melting tenderness and sweetness is past description. Her violin now seemed to breathe and sigh. The tears would come to the listener’s eyes he knew not why. The tears were in the tones. The sorrow of her life exhaled in chastened sweetness from the strings. Her heart ran out on her finger tips and lived in her music.
It is not surprising that at one of these concerts the musicians of Boston should have united in presenting a testimonial of respect and admiration and personal regard to her as an artist and a woman. The letter was signed by the musical people of note resident in Boston and was accompanied by a handsome gold watch.
However interesting the details of these events may seem it is impossible to dwell upon them all. We must take the more salient points in Madam Urso’s artist life, choosing such events as best illustrate her character and best explain the secret of her success that we may learn the true artistic lesson of her life and works. After traveling under Mr. Gilmore’s direction through all the principal towns of New England, Madam Urso left his company and spent the summer months in traveling in her private carriage with a small party of her own, and giving occasional concerts by the way.
She reached New York late in the fall and at once organized a new company, and visited Canada. This trip was a remarkably successful one, and extended till January, 1865. She then appeared at the Philharmonic concerts at New York and Brooklyn, and on reorganizing her company visited Northern and Central New York. She was at Syracuse at the time of the assassination of Lincoln and moved by the event composed an elegy for the violin that was afterwards performed with great success at Rochester.
The early summer of this year was spent among friends and in retirement and was entirely devoted to incessant and long continued practice. Practice upon her violin is the one thing that is never neglected. If it is not reported on every page it is because it is always present, never forgotten. This is the one price every great artist must pay for his or her position. What a commentary on our American haste to reach results does Madam Urso’s life-work present? She has genius. Genius without labor is worse than vain.
In June Madam Urso sailed in the China from Boston and passing through London returned once more to France her native land. Returned to live in dear old Paris but not in the Rue Lamartine. The city of her childhood sorrows and trials now became the city of her triumph. Her reputation both as a wonder-child and an artist had been almost wholly American. Now she was to take a bolder flight and win a European reputation. The opinions of our musical people were to be more than confirmed at Paris.
Her first appearance in Paris was at the invitation of the Count of Niewerkerke, then Minister of fine arts. The concert was a private one given at the Louvre before a select audience of artists, authors, musicians, officers and members of the government, diplomatic corps, etc. Every one appeared in uniform or decorated with medals or other insignia of rank, “and the young woman from America” whom nobody knew, and nobody ever heard, whose name even, was hardly known quietly took a seat in a corner as if she was only some stray person who had wandered into the grand assembly by some mistake. No little surprise was manifested when the Count sought her out and offered his arm to the young stranger to escort her to the seat of honor. Her violin case. It laid at her feet on the floor. If he would kindly ask a servant to bring it? Servant, indeed! No, he would be proud to carry it himself. And he did while the interest and curiosity was roused to unusual excitement, and every one asked who the young American could be that she should receive such attention. A prophet is always without honor in his own country, and the poor flute player’s daughter who had struggled through their own famous Conservatory as a child was almost unknown as a young woman. Rumors of an American reputation had invaded Paris, but who were the Americans that they should venture to hold opinions concerning Art. What did they know about music? Nothing, of course. How could such a wild, barbarous country know anything at all?
The violin was taken out and with a few strokes of her bow the almost unknown young woman was admitted to be a peer among them all. Never was an artist received with greater honors and distinction. One performance and her reputation was established. They suddenly found she was, as it were, one of themselves. France was her native land, Paris her home and so no honor they could bestow upon her would be too great. Pasdeloup, the orchestral director, was present and then and there invited her to play with his famous orchestra. So it was that the doors of fashionable and artistic Europe were thrown open at one wave of the magic bow. Our artist played the great Concerto in E by Mendelssohn with Pasdeloup’s magnificent orchestra at the hall of the Conservatory and won a splendid triumph on the very spot where in the days of her poverty-tinted childhood she first drew her bow before her severe old masters who had tried so hard to bar the young feet out of the paths of art.
For a year Madam Urso remained in France studying, listening to the best music to be heard, mingling with players of her own artistic stature and, as it were, renewing her musical youth by drinking deep at the fountains that flow from one of the great art centres of the world. Dear, sleepy old Nantes was visited and once more she played in the same old place where she first drew her bow in those almost forgotten days of her childhood. Not a thing had changed. It seemed as if even the same cats sat on the sunny walls and as if the same old women filled their water jars at the fountains and toiled up and down the steep streets. There were the geraniums in the windows just as she had seen them in her childhood. Her father’s organ stood in the dusty organ loft at the church of the Holy Cross, and even the same grey cobwebs festooned the arches above the seat where she used to sit and listen to the music. All her father’s old friends came to see her and brought their grandchildren. The Town Hall would not contain the hundreds that besieged the doors to see the Rose of Montholon, the woman who had made their town famous.
Many places in France were visited, and many concerts were given in Paris and other cities. It was a life of success, honors and happiness. More than all, it was home. For all that, another home claimed her, she must return to her adopted home, and in September 1866, Madam Urso returned to this country with renewed musical strength, increased ability and her talents brought to even higher culture than ever.
Every life has its dull spots – its period of uneventful living. Even public life with its exciting experiences, perpetual change and scenes, its endless procession of new faces may in time become monotonous. The artist life of Camilla Urso has been active and varied to a remarkable degree, but to repeat the details of such a succession of concert tours would be simply wearisome. Events are of small consequence except as illustrative of character and we must only select such as serve to show the woman and the artist in her true character. On returning from Europe Madam Urso at once resumed her concerts and appeared in New York and others cities. In January, 1867, she was engaged to play the Mendelssohn Concerto at one of the concerts of the Harvard Musical Association in Boston, and in order to be present in good season for rehearsal started two days before from New York by the way of Springfield. On the road she encountered a severe snow storm and was blockaded thirty-six hours between Worcester and Boston. Determined to keep her engagement with the Harvards she pushed on as long as the train would move. Again and again they were stopped, in gigantic drifts that came up to the tops of the cars. The train people resolutely shoveled their way through and pushed on again The day of the concert came and still they were twenty miles or more from Boston. The fires gave out and not a thing could be obtained to eat or drink. Still she would not give it up. Perhaps the train would yet reach the city in time for the concert. Finally the city came in sight. The wind had blown the the snow away from the track on the marshes behind the city and the last mile was made in good time and then the train plunged into another drift just beyond the junction of the Providence Railroad and where the Dartmouth street bridge now stands. It only lacked 60 minutes of the concert hour. She would leave the cars and walk into the city. Perhaps she might be in time yet. One of the gentlemen of the party took her violin case and they set out to reach the houses on Boylston street that were in plain sight not twenty rods away. It was a desperate undertaking but she resolved to try it. She must get to the Music Hall if possible. The snow might be overcome but she had not reckoned on the temperature, and before she had gone twenty yards down the track she found her hands were rapidly freezing and she seemed ready to faint and fall in the terrible cold. The gentlemen at once took her up and after a tremendous effort succeeded in carrying her as far as the signal house. She must get into shelter or perish almost in our streets. The burly signal man saw the party and opened the door of his round house and took them in. Madam Urso’s hands were stiff and bloodless and in their fright her friends thought they were forever lost. Even Madam Urso’s strong, brave spirit was utterly broken down over the appalling disaster. Of what use was her life if the cunning of her fingers was to be thus rudely destroyed. It is small wonder that the disaster almost crushed her and brought the bitterest tears to her eyes. The grimy signal man took in the situation at once and resorted to measures that were at once as effectual as they were grotesque and amusing. Kneeling down on the floor and taking off his cap he bid the gentlemen rub her hands in his tangled and matted hair. It was a most ludicrous remedy but it worked to a charm. The gentle heat brought the blood slowly back and after half an hour’s rubbing on the man’s big head she entirely recovered.