One hundred years of cellotude continued:
Third part of
Chapter 1
A cello called Heinrich
Previous section: Strasbourg in the Belle Epoque
Strasbourg: Orangerie, postcard from 1902
Source
What happened in the Orangerie
After I had finished writing up the very first version of this chapter believing that we couldn’t know much about the private lives of Max Heinrich and Maria at the time they met and became engaged, a shock discovery changed everything. A small art nouveau decorated manuscript book with guilt edges turned up in a rather unexpected place, namely on the shelf between my late mother’s poetry books. (Note that she was not related to Max Heinrich and Maria and successfully divorced from their grandson.) It contains more than 150 poems, written by Max Heinrich for his beloved Maria, within just one year (November 1903 to Christmas 1904). It very nearly knocked me over.
The poems are of acceptable quality as far as I can tell as a layperson in these matters. Our musician clearly had a sense for meter and rhythm, and sometimes he also had original ideas. What I was hoping for but didn’t find, however, is usable biographical information. Among all the glowing hearts and rolling tears flooding the poems, it is rather hard to find any connections to the real world. The most interesting findings in this respect are in the meta-information, ie the dates and occasional references to places. Based on these, here’s the short lyrical guide through a very eventful year:
The earliest date linking Max Heinrich and Maria is in the above-mentioned book of novellas by W. O. von Horn, which he had signed with „musician“ behind his name back in 1900. It must have impressed him as he gave it to Maria to read in the year they met. Under his note she wrote that she read it in October 1903. We’ll come back to the content of the book later.
According to the poetry collection, significant events happened a few weeks later, on November 18 1903. So significant that Max Heinrich commemorated the day with a special poem called Jetzt und immer (now and forever) pondering the timelessness of his eternal love.
Then we get an atmospheric description of Christmas 1903, which he seems to have spent quietly gazing into her dear blue eyes. Note that her passport details list her eyes as grey.
Obstacles show up in the next poem with nameless people advising the poet to steer clear of his love interest and giving many reasons – we don’t get the specifics though.
An entry signed Strasbourg 4/2 1904 is in a different handwriting, probably Maria’s and signed Souvenir de Marie Vogel. Not sure what the bird is doing there. The poem is all about flowery metaphors for love and friendship.
On April 18th 1904, the pair became officially engaged. The occasion was celebrated in Tangermünde with a professional family portrait with Max Heinrich’s parents, sister and half-brother. The two young men in their uniforms stand there like guard posts gazing intently towards the future. Maria manages the same gaze even without a uniform. Meanwhile, the old folks sitting in the middle are looking rather grumpy. Max Heinrich’s sister is sitting as well and holds an album on her lap with a photo of a child that doesn’t appear to belong to the family. I was told the album was probably a prop from the photographer’s studio.
Max Heinrich (left) and Maria (standing) visiting his family in Tangermünde after becoming engaged.
There is also a studio portrait of the couple made in Strasbourg by the studio of F. Mehlbreuer (located in the East of the city close to many of the barracks, so they may have done lots of portraits of soldiers and their sweethearts). We don’t have a date for this one, but it appears plausible that it was also made in celebration of the engagement. As on the big family portrait, Max Heinrich wears round, frameless glasses, and his hairline has already moved upwards to the zenith of his skull. The date of the engagement was also engraved into a pair of rings, which are still in the family.
Engagement portrait, Strasbourg 1904.
In the poetry album, the date of the engagement, which was also Maria’s 23rd birthday, is linked to the Orangerie in Strasbourg, today known as Parc de l’Orangerie. It is to the Northeast of the city centre, where we now also find the European Parliament. As it happens, I have a Brockhaus Encyclopedia from 1903 from the other side of the family (to be visited in chapter 2), with a map of the Orangerie, showing: a large restaurant on the shore of a lake, a kiosque and an Alsatian farmhouse, as well as an Octroi at the edge of the park which may have something to do with raising the eponymous community tax.
The poems suggest that Max Heinrich popped the question during a visit to the Orangerie, although there is no more specific information on the precise location. The 18th was a Monday, but not Easter Monday – as our poet has left us with an Easter poem on Sunday 3rd.
There is a poem about popping the question which carries two dates, namely: „Straßburg, Orangerie, 18.4.04“ as well as the earlier date of 9.2.04. So I am assuming that he wrote the poem on the earlier date and then performed it as part of the engagement ritual.
Further poems come with notes referring back to the place and time of the engagement, so there is no doubt that the question was popped then and there, and the portraits were taken after that date.
At the end of May, there seems to have been a painful farewell, linked to the address Schwendistraße 6. This street is today known as rue Schwendi, named after a village on the other side of the Rhine. It is the easternmost of the three small streets that lead towards the front facade of the barracks.
We don’t get any further information on the significance of the address. We can admire the house on archi-wiki – like much of the Neustadt it looks quite lovely. There is no obvious indication that it was a restaurant, bar, or meeting point of any kind. A plan dated 1891 suggests that a painter/decorator called Oswald had his workshop on the ground floor.
There is the possibility that Maria lived at that address – close to the barracks but a bit far to commute to the Hopital Civil. However, we know another address where she lived at one point, but without a date. In any case, Schwendistraße 6 appears to have witnessed mutual oaths that the lovers would only kiss flowers, not people, for as long as they had to be apart. Apparently, purple coloured flowers were densely crowded around Maria’s house – not quite enough to pin down its location 120 years later – whereas Max Heinrich was the one who had to leave Strasbourg and would be restricted to kissing roses that reminded him of her. The handwriting in this poem is clearly rattled by emotion making it harder to decipher than most of the others.
After this tearful departure, the next poem is dated July 8th, so it appears the lovers may have had to survive separately for five to six weeks.
In an undated entry after July 10th, we find – finally – something about music, namely a minstrel’s song. It is mostly about the longing produced by separation, we’ll come back to its content later.
Some poems are explicitly marked as songs in their titles. Thus we have an evening song, a spring song, a lullaby and several bridal songs, a girl’s song and three love songs bundled up together. The latter are dated November 18th, the first anniversary of the date when the whole thing started. Like several other poems, the middle one of the love songs includes an example of telepathic communication between the lovers which I find touching.
We find a bonus poem on a postcard that came with the album. Unfranked and undated, the card does carry a useful address:
Fräulein Marie Pfersching
Straßburg / E.
Steinstr. No. 54
This road, today Rue du Faubourg de Pierre, leads from the city centre to the Steintor (stone gate), which is in Neustadt, between the barracks and the main station. Still on the other side of town from the Hopital Civil, but there will have been a tram going down this road, so it would have been feasible.
The poem on the card is signed with two musical notes, the first sitting underneath one ledger line, the second under two. If these ledger lines live under the treble clef, the notes would in German nomenclature spell out H G, so (Max) Heinrich Groß’s initials. One of the poems in the album also contains this musical signature, I just hadn’t understood it while I was transcribing the poems. As they weren’t normally signed with anything, I had seen the notes just as a kind of illustration.
The young poet's musical signature.
Maybe the notes also tell us something about the instruments Max Heinrich learned to play. As a cellist, one would preferably use the bass clef. A flautist uses the treble clef but can’t play those two notes under the staff. A pianist can play them of course but wouldn’t need the ledger lines, as there would be a second staff below the first ledger line. To me this looks suspiciously like the work of somebody who learned music with a violin – although a few other instruments such as clarinet would also qualify.
Read on:
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