One hundred years of cellotude continued:
Fourth part of
Chapter 1
A cello called Heinrich
Previous section: What happened in the Orangerie
Frontispiece of Max Heinrich's poetry album.
Music in poetry
All in all the album contains 16,000 words, in 160 texts (some of them are aphorisms rather than poems). I believe this size is comparable to the known work of Walther von der Vogelweide (c. 1170 – c. 1230). After reading this work, one wouldn’t necessarily conclude that Max Heinrich identified as a musician. In terms of musical instruments, we have the minstrel’s fiddle, some jubilating violins at a festivity which our protagonist promptly leaves, and then, in the girl’s song the harp as a metaphor for sensitivity.
„Kann’s die Harfe meiden, daß, berührt, sie klingt?“
Keeping the instrument’s grammatical gender:
“Can the harp avoid to sound when she is touched?”
All other musical accompaniment is left to bells, birds, and roaring streams. The only composer referenced is Chopin. One of his songs floats through the silence at one point.
One interesting musical aspect is the emotional power and long-distance effect of music, typically in the shape of songs. This is especially powerful in the ballad of a soldier who deserts his post after accidentally hearing a passing tradesman singing a song that reminded him of home.
Variations of this story were widespread. One version, „Zu Straßburg auf der Schantz“, was set to music by Gustav Mahler in 1887. In that version, it is a Swiss soldier in the German army, at Strasbourg, who deserts after hearing the sound of an alphorn.
Whereas the musically inspired deserters were executed in those songs, the consequences are less dramatic in the song of the minstrel with the fiddle. Remarkably, it is written from the pespective of a woman who is touched by the music of a passing musician and reminded of another who is far away.
Plants are much more abundant than musical instruments, including roses following the clichés of love poetry, but also a few species that I hadn’t heard of before, such as saltbush (Atriplex). There is a lot about walking around in the green environment, with forests and streams and wild flowers. Which may have the advantage that an as yet unmarried couple can secretly share a kiss.
Although the secrets have a life of their own, as one of the funnier poems elaborates. It outlines the lengths to which young lovers went to keep their relationship secret, with the punch line being that at the time of the carefully planned revelation, all their friends already knew.
Overall, I feel that the poems are a little bit limited in their subject matter, but otherwise quite presentable. Many things that we today would regard as cliché would have been less so 120 years ago, before sound recordings and radio. The notorious example of rhyming the words Herz and Schmerz (heart and pain) is completely unacceptable today as it has been used in too many Schlager songs that have been heard too often, but back in 1904 I imagine that would have been just another rhyme between two words that, given the subject matter, were bound to come up from time to time.
Even though the Romantic period in literature is already a thing of the past, our poet openly confesses that he is a belated Romantic, when he dedicates a whole poem to the mythical blue flower made famous by Novalis (1772-1801). The centuries-old quest for this romantic ideal finally comes to fruition. Our poet discovers the mythical treasure in the eyes of his beloved.
The beginning of the poem "Die blaue Blume" (The blue flower).
One could argue that the Romantic period in classical music was still ongoing when Max Heinrich wrote this, even though romanticism in poetry was obsolete. So I think we can forgive him this delay on the grounds that he was a musician as well as a poet.
The poet presents himself as a good-hearted, maybe slightly dull character. Djingoism and testosterone-poisoned boasting are entirely alien to his personality. He writes several poems from a female perspective (perhaps in collaboration with Maria?) or from changing perspectives. He often pontificates on a morally irreproachable way of life. Several texts carry the title “Mahnung” (admonition). This general moralising may remind us of his Strasbourg contemporary Albert Schweitzer.
The highest form of happiness our poet can imagine is an evening with his beloved at the home fire. A rare poem contributed by Maria describes the scene with both reading from the same book, hand in hand and cheek to cheek. No words were spoken and the desires have been put asleep. But what were they reading?
An old book tells its story
Here we are very grateful for the book which both lovers have signed and dated, giving us some insight into their minds. As mentioned above, Max Heinrich signed it presumably upon receipt, thus:
Heinrich Groß Musiker 1. Oktober 1900 Bielefeld
What first drew my attention to this inscription was the fact that it is the earliest evidence of Max Heinrich being a musician, just three weeks after his 18th birthday.
His second notice tells us that he read the book within two months:
Gelesen 30. November 1900 Bad Warmbrunn Im Rosenheim
In Strasbourg, he must have passed it on to Maria pretty swiftly after meeting her, as she signed it:
Gelesen Ende Oktober 1903 M. Pfersching
The book in question is volume 3 of the „Selected stories“ of W. O. von Horn (1798-1867), published posthumously in 1892 by J. D. Sauerländer’s Verlag at Frankfurt. The author’s real name was Wilhelm Oertel, a protestant vicar who hailed from the village of Horn in the Hunsrück mountains and used its name as his pseudonym. In a crazy coincidence, this puts the author within touching distance of some of my grandmother’s ancestors in the area. His ancestors may well have conducted the weddings of some of mine. While these links to their future daughter-in-law have no relevance to Max Heinrich and Maria’s lives in 1903, they may explain why my grandparents kept the book on their shelves.
Moving on to the contents of the book: 1. Soneck. Historisch-romantische Erzählung aus dem dreizehnten Jahrhundert 2. Aus dem Leben eines Vogelsbergers in Krieg und Frieden 3. Das Original. Ein Stücklein 4. Das Mühlchen in der Morgenbach. Eine Begebenheit aus dem Jahre 1716 5. Der Apostelhof. Eine Geschichte aus der Vorzeit Bacharachs. (12 Teile) 6. Die Elzer. Eine Geschichte aus dem Nassauer Land
Three of the stories, namely 1., 4. and 5. are clearly classifiable as Rhine romanticism. All three are love stories against a backdrop of robbers, corrupt clerics and castles on the banks of the Middle Rhine. All three are written with an exquisite sense of place. It shows that the author, who worked at Bacharach for a time, knew his way around the ruined castles and wild rocky hills of the area.
Steel engraving from "Views of the Rhine" by William Tombleson (around 1840): Ruins of Sooneck Castle
source: Wikipedia
One may wonder what all of this meant to a young musician born in Thuringia of Silesian descent. The castles on the Rhine must have been an exotic subject to him when he first read the book in 1900. But maybe an interest in these faraway lands moved him to sign up with an Alsatian infantry regiment in romantic Strasbourg?
An alternative interpretation is provided by the one and only page that has come loose in the book. It is the first page of the last story, and the following pages also show some signs of wear. This last story is about the people from the town of Elz. Allegedly many of the residents of this town responded to the wave of mass poverty triggered by the Industrial Revolution by earning their living as travelling musicians. To this day, there is the tradition of Elzer Musikanten.
According to von Horn’s novella, the musical history of the town started with a resident named Steffen who got drunk on the eve of his planned wedding and ended up being drafted into the war against the Turks. In the first of two love stories in this novella, his bride-to-be, Mariechen, patiently waited for him until he hobbled back home on one leg and married her. He had funded his return journey as a travelling organ player and remained in the music business after his marriage. This allegedly inspired other people from Elz to do the same, setting avalanche of Elzer Musikanten going.
Love story number two still in the same text concerns Mechthild, the daughter of Steffen and Mariechen, who grows up to become a gifted singer and harp player. Her love interest is an aristocrat with a precious Amati violin who wanted to join the French Revolution and narrowly escaped the guillotine. Returning from France, he took on a false name and made his living as a violin teacher, until he saw young Mechthild performing and fell in love with her. I am getting the impression that female harpists had a bad reputation at that time (around 1800), as every mention of the instrument is backed up with a justification against prejudice.
In this novella there’s music and musically induced romantic entanglements aplenty, so it is easy to imagine that our young couple enjoyed reading this, quite possibly more than once.
Read on:
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