.... by Jeffrey Dane - © 1999 Jeffrey Dane
Fourteen years older than him, she entered his life when he was 20, and never
left it. The significance of their very special friendship can't be
understated - or, by some, even understood. She remained a creative and
personal inspiration to him until the end.
Their interaction was as deep as her relationship with her own husband, nine
years her senior and with whom she had seven children. She worshipped her
beloved spouse, and this younger man worshipped both of them. They, too,
adored him - especially the lady, who saw the young man first as would a
mother, then as a friend. "He is so masterly it seems God sent him into the
world complete," she wrote of him soon after they met. The bond among all
three of them was cemented while he lived in their home, but the personal
connection was as singular for both of them as was the nature of her own
16-year marriage, which ended only with her husband's death in an asylum.
Her younger friend was writing to her on one of his holidays even late in his
life, "It is wonderfully beautiful here and I only wish you could be with me
on one of these magical moonlit evenings..." He was very considerate of her:
he arranged to have the railway station restaurant cleared so they could dine
undisturbed during her visit. He was modest and unpretentious, even as a
celebrity. When traveling, he'd register on his arrival as "itinerant" artist.
He was also very candid. When she proposed writing a biography of her famous
husband, he told her, "What would become of all historical research and all
biographies if they were always written with consideration for people's
feelings? Such a biography as you, for example, would write about your dear
husband would surely be very beautiful to read, but would it as surely be of
historical value?"
He began his career as a miniaturist, but his works were grand in conception.
His initial success came early. At 20 his fame was given impetus through the
influence of an older, established man, who became a friend and mentor until
his death three years later.
The object of the younger man's life-long adoration was the older man's wife,
and for nearly half a century their friendship was almost unique in the
annals of human interaction. The depth of their relationship stands on its
own and needs no dramatic embellishment a-la-Hollywood. They blessed
posterity with their individual contributions, and robbed it by leaving no
photographs of the two of them together.
In a Romantic age, she was a classical performer who worked with the great
artists of her day. He was a creator, some of whose works are, effectively,
portraits of her. He never married.
Alone, he strode along on his path to greatness, which ultimately, and
inevitably, flowered in his adopted country. He became a genuine icon of his
art and was so revered even during his own lifetime, before the era of mass
media coverage. Famous and lionized throughout the civilized world, strangers
acknowledged him in the streets, and his work was experienced on distant
continents. Paradoxically, the building where he lived for the last 26 years
of his life was demolished (but at least ceremoniously) ten years to the date
after he died there. The structure now on that site is a wing of the city's
Technical University.
The incalculably important contributions he made to the world and human
history are emblematic of him. So many years after his death, what he
produced are still among the classics. His work is a near-ideal combination
of Romantic essence clothed in traditional formal garb, and his fondness for
the older forms manifested itself in the nature of his work. He has been
fittingly called The Keeper of the Flame. He didn't give the public what it
wanted: he gave it what he wanted, and they accepted it on his terms.
He was very particular about his journeys. His one youthful seagoing
experience (in a skiff) caused a life-long hatred even of the prospect of
travel on water. He once arranged to sail from Genoa to Sicily with three
friends, but already on the gangplank he suddenly "jumped ship" and opted for
the lengthy, tiring railway journey to Reggio, in sight of Messina.
His personal character is one of the most fascinating, and noble, in the
history of his art. Sometimes the great, benevolent heart would surface
through the often gruff and sarcastic (but protective) exterior. "It is
obvious that we who go on living must see many things vanish with the years -
things with which it is more difficult to part than with years of life...
No-one can be more attached or devoted to you than I am." Thus he wrote to
his beloved friend on the untimely death of her young and stunningly
beautiful daughter, Julie (whose marriage had inspired the creation of one of
his works).
During a creative summer holiday, a fire broke out in a carpenter's shop near
the great man's dwelling (which is now the only museum in the world devoted
to him). While everyone has an ego, it's the creative artist who acknowledges
it more readily than do others, but his conduct on this day, and his
subsequent deeds, are not the mark of The Egotist. Having already fled from
his quarters in his shirtsleeves to join the bucket-brigade, he was warned
that the fire's direction was threatening his rooms - and his
nearly-completed new work. After a moment's pause, he simply continued with
his firefighting. Ultimately, the ruined carpenter actually benefitted from
the fire, thanks to the artist's munificence, which was both practical and
anonymous, in keeping with his usual procedure in matters of personal
generosity with those he didn't know.
The last year of his life was a period of deep personal reflection for him.
It's conceivable the very special friendship between him and the lady may
have contributed in some measure to the psychological deterioration of her
husband, notwithstanding the known history of mental instability in his
family. What she meant to her younger friend must have been very clear to his
intimates - as clear, perhaps, as the tears that must have filled his eyes
whenever he thought of her during the last days of his life. He caught a
chill at her funeral and outlived her by less than a year. "When those dear
eyes are closed, so much will have ended for me," he wrote during her final
illness.
Characteristically, this man often spoke (and usually wrote his letters)
somewhat cryptically, as though he were trying to conceal his meaning rather
than clarify it. He ultimately destroyed many of her letters for the same
reason he did away with early sketches and studies for his own work. Many of
his missives to her have survived, allowing us only a partial and imbalanced
view of their correspondence - if not actually "equivalent" then certainly
comparable to eavesdropping on his end of phone conversations with her.
Conjecture is fruitless but still fascinating.
It's as incontrovertible as the Pythagorean theorems that Johannes Brahms and
Clara Schumann each shared an extra life, and that they were as alive then as
we are today.
Author's Biography
Jeffrey Dane is a music historian, researcher and essayist whose work is
published in the USA and abroad in several languages. This essay is the
result of an attempt to write what is operatively an effective love story but
without using the word "love" even once in the entire piece. He has written
extensively about Brahms and other composers, and his book, Beethoven's
Piano, was published by New York's Museum of the American Piano. He's been
called by some a real idealist and by others an ideal realist. Both views
have merit.
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