Among the Great Masters of Music

the Great Masters of Music, by
Walter Rowlands

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Title: Among the Great Masters of Music Scenes in the Lives of
Famous Musicians
Author: Walter Rowlands
Release Date: April 13, 2007 [EBook #21056]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMONG
THE GREAT MASTERS OF MUSIC ***

Produced by Al Haines

[Frontispiece: The Tone Masters. Haydn, Mozart, Handel, Beethoven.
From painting by Hans Temple.]

Among the Great
Masters of Music
Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians

Thirty-two Reproductions of Famous Paintings
with Text by
Walter Rowlands

London
E. Grant Richards
1906

TO
Miss Jane Rowlands

CONTENTS.
ST. CECILIA PALESTRINA LULLI STRADIVARIUS TARTINI
BACH HANDEL GLUCK MOZART LINLEY HAYDN WEBER
BEETHOVEN SCHUBERT ROUGET DE LISLE PAGANINI
MENDELSSOHN CHOPIN MEYERBEER WAGNER LISZT

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE TONE MASTERS . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece ST. CECILIA

PALESTRINA THE YOUNG LULLI STRADIVARIUS TARTINI'S
DREAM BACH'S PRELUDES MORNING DEVOTIONS IN THE
FAMILY OF BACH FREDERICK THE GREAT AND BACH THE
CHILD HANDEL HANDEL AND GEORGE I. GLUCK AT THE
TRIANON MOZART AND HIS SISTER BEFORE MARIA
THERESA MOZART AND MADAME DE POMPADOUR MOZART
AT THE ORGAN THE LAST DAYS OF MOZART SHERIDAN AT
THE LINLEYS' HAYDN CROSSING THE ENGLISH CHANNEL
THE "LAST THOUGHTS" OF VON WEBER BEETHOVEN AT
BONN BEETHOVEN IN HIS STUDY A SYMPHONY BY
BEETHOVEN BEETHOVEN'S DREAM SCHUBERT AT THE
PIANO ROUGET DE LISLE SINGING THE MARSEILLAISE
PAGANINI IN PRISON SONG WITHOUT WORDS CHOPIN AT
PRINCE RADZIWILL'S THE DEATH OF CHOPIN MEYERBEER
WAGNER AT HOME A MORNING WITH LISZT

PREFACE.
The compiler's thanks are due to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., and
to Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, for permission to use a selection
from "The Silent Partner."

Music is the link between spiritual and sensual life.--Beethoven.
And while we hear The tides of Music's golden sea Setting toward
eternity, Uplifted high in heart and hope are we. --Tennyson.
Music in the best sense has little need of novelty, on the contrary, the
older it is, the more one is accustomed to it, the greater is the effect it
produces.--Goethe.
Music is a kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads us to
the edge of the infinite, and lets us for moments gaze into
that.--Carlyle.

AMONG THE GREAT MASTERS OF MUSIC.
ST. CECILIA.
One of the most ancient legends handed down to us by the early
Church is that of St. Cecilia, the patroness of music and musicians. She
is known to have been honoured by Christians as far back as the third
century, in which she is supposed to have lived.
Doubtless much of fancy has been added, in all the ensuing years, to
the facts of Cecilia's life and death. Let us, however, take the legend as
it stands. It says that St. Cecilia was a noble Roman lady, who lived in
the reign of the Emperor Alexander Severus. Her parents, who secretly
professed Christianity, brought her up in their own faith, and from her
earliest childhood she was remarkable for her enthusiastic piety: she
carried night and day a copy of the Gospel concealed within the folds
of her robe; and she made a secret but solemn vow to preserve her
chastity, devoting herself to heavenly things, and shunning the
pleasures and vanities of the world. As she excelled in music, she
turned her good gift to the glory of God, and composed hymns, which
she sang herself with such ravishing sweetness, that even the angels
descended from heaven to listen to her, or to join their voices with hers.
She played on all instruments, but none sufficed to breathe forth that
flood of harmony with which her whole soul was filled; therefore she
invented the organ, consecrating it to the service of God. When she was
about sixteen, her parents married her to a young Roman, virtuous, rich,
and of noble birth, named Valerian. He was, however, still in the
darkness of the old religion. Cecilia, in obedience to her parents,
accepted the husband they had ordained for her; but beneath her bridal
robes she put on a coarse garment of penance, and, as she walked to the
temple, renewed her vow of chastity, praying to God that she might
have strength to keep it. And it so fell out; for, by her fervent eloquence,
she not only persuaded her husband, Valerian, to respect her vow, but
converted him to the true faith. She told him