Musical Memories | Page 4

back with him and perfected. He made it a wonderful
tool with which to get to the depths of music--a light for the darkest
corners. In this system the chords are not considered in and for
themselves--as fifths, sixths, sevenths--but in relation to the pitch of the
scale on which they appear. The chords acquire different characteristics
according to the place they occupy, and, as a result, certain things are
explained which are, otherwise, inexplicable. This method is taught in
the Ecole Niedermeuer, but I don't know that it is taught elsewhere.

Maleden was extremely anxious to become a professor at the
Conservatoire. As the result of powerful influence, Auber was about to
sign Maleden's appointment, when, in his scrupulous honesty, he
thought he ought to write and warn him that his method differed
entirely from that taught in the institution. Auber was frightened and
Maleden was not admitted.
Our lessons were often very stormy. From time to time certain
questions came up on which I could not agree with him. He would then
take me quietly by the ear, bend my head and hold my ear to the table
for a minute or two. Then, he would ask whether I had changed my
mind. As I had not, he would think it over and very often he would
confess that I was right.
"Your childhood," Gounod once told me, "wasn't musical." He was
wrong, for he did not know the many tokens of my childhood. Many of
my attempts are unfinished--to say nothing of those I destroyed--but
among them are songs, choruses, cantatas, and overtures, none of
which will ever see the light. Oblivion will enshroud these gropings
after effect, for they are of no interest to the public. Among these
scribblings I have found some notes written in pencil when I was four.
The date on them leaves no doubt about the time of their production.
CHAPTER II
THE OLD CONSERVATOIRE
I cannot let the old Conservatoire in the Rue Bergère go without paying
it a last farewell, for I loved it deeply as we all love the things of our
youth. I loved its antiquity, the utter absence of any modern note, and
its atmosphere of other days. I loved that absurd court with the wailing
notes of sopranos and tenors, the rattling of pianos, the blasts of
trumpets and trombones, the arpeggios of clarinets, all uniting to form
that ultra-polyphone which some of our composers have tried to
attain--but without success. Above all I loved the memories of my
education in music which I obtained in that ridiculous and venerable
palace, long since too small for the pupils who thronged there from all

parts of the world.
I was fourteen when Stamaty, my piano teacher, introduced me to
Benoist, the teacher of the organ, an excellent and charming man,
familiarly known as "Father Benoist." They put me in front of the
keyboard, but I was badly frightened, and the sounds I made were so
extraordinary that all the pupils shouted with laughter. I was received at
the Conservatoire as an "auditor."
So there I was only admitted to the honor of listening to others. I was
extremely painstaking, however, and I never lost a note or one of the
teacher's words. I worked and thought at home, studying hard on
Sebastian Bach's Wohltemperirte Klavier. All of the pupils, however,
were not so industrious. One day, when they had all failed and Benoist,
as a result, had nothing to do, he put me at the organ. This time no one
laughed and I at once became a regular pupil. At the end of the year I
won the second prize. I would have had the first except for my youth
and the inconvenience of having me leave a class where I needed to
stay longer.
That same year Madeleine Brohan won the first prize in comedy. She
competed with a selection from Misanthrope, and Mlle. Jouassin gave
the other part of the dialogue. Mlle. Jouassin's technique was the better,
but Madeleine Brohan was so wonderful in beauty and voice that she
carried off the prize. The award made a great uproar. To-day, in such a
case, the prize would be divided. Mlle. Jouassin won her prize the
following year. After leaving school, she accepted and held for a long
time an important place at the Comédie-Française.
Benoist was a very ordinary organist, but an admirable teacher. A
veritable galaxy of talent came from his class. He had little to say, but
as his taste was refined and his judgment sure, nothing he said lacked
weight or authority. He collaborated in several ballets for the Opéra and
that gave him a good deal of work to do. It sounds incredible, but he
used to bring his "work" to class and