Shooting Stars: Ten Historical Miniatures Read online

  The two men looked up in some surprise. They did not entirely understand. But then they thanked him profusely, bowed, and left to spread the good news in Dublin.

  At last, on 7th April 1742, came the final rehearsal. The only audience present consisted of a few relations of the members of the chorus from both cathedrals, and to save money the auditorium of the Music Hall in Fishamble Street was only dimly lit. A couple here, a little group there sat dispersed in isolation around the hall on the empty benches, to hear the new work of the maestro from London; the large auditorium was befogged, dark, cold. But as soon as the choruses began to crash out like great cataracts of sound a strange thing happened. The separate groups involuntarily moved closer together on the benches, gradually forming a single dark block, listening spellbound, for everyone felt as if the unheard-of force of this new music was too much for individuals, as if it would carry them away on its tide. They moved closer and closer as if to listen with a single heart, hearing the confident Word like a single devout congregation, the Word that, spoken and shaped in so many different ways, rang out to them from the intertwining voices. They all felt faint before that primeval strength, yet they were blissfully caught up by it and carried away, and a tremor of delight passed through them all as if through a single body. When the “Hallelujah!” burst out for the first time it brought one man to his feet, and all the others rose too as if at a signal; they felt you could not remain earthbound in the grip of such power, and stood to bring their voices a little nearer to God, offering their veneration in his service. Then they went out to tell the news from door to door: a work of music had been written such as was never heard on earth before. And the whole city was agog with joyful excitement, eager to hear this masterpiece.

  Six days later, on the evening of 13th April, a crowd gathered outside the doors of the hall. The ladies had come without hoops in their skirts, the gentlemen wore no swords, so that there would be room for more people; 700, an unprecedented number, crowded in, so fast had the fame of the work preceded it. But not a breath was to be heard when the music began, and the listeners fell very still. Then the choruses burst out with hurricane force, and hearts began to tremble. Handel stood by the organ. He had intended to direct and conduct his work, but it tore itself away from him, he lost himself in it, it became as strange to him as if he had never heard it before, had never made it and given it form, and once again he was carried away on his own torrent. And when the “Amen” was raised at the end his lips unconsciously opened and he sang with the choir, sang as he had never sung in his life before. But then, as soon as the acclamations of the others filled the hall with a roar of sound, he quietly went to one side to thank not the men and women who in turn wished to thank him, but the grace that had given him this work.

  The floodgates were opened. The river of music flowed on in him again year after year. From now on nothing could bow Handel, nothing could force the resurrected man to his knees again. Once again the operatic society he had founded in London went bankrupt, once again his creditors came dunning him to pay his debts; but now he stood upright and survived all his trials; undeterred, the sixty-year-old strode on his way, passing the milestones of his compositions. Obstacles stood in his path, but he gloriously overcame them. Old age gradually undermined his strength, weakened his arms, gout afflicted his legs; but undaunted he wrote on and on. At last his eyesight failed; he went blind while he was writing Jephtha. But even with blind eyes, like Beethoven with deaf ears, he still wrote on, untiring, invincible, and ever humbler towards God the greater his earthly triumphs were.

  Like all true and rigorous artists, he did not praise his own works. But there was one that he loved, Messiah, and he loved it out of gratitude because it had saved him from his own abyss, because in it he had redeemed himself. Year after year he performed the work in London, always donating the full proceeds, £500 each time, for the benefit of the Hospital: a man cured to those who were sick, a man set free to those still in bonds. And it was with the work that had brought him out of Hades that he wished to take his own leave. On 6th April 1759, severely ill and now seventy-four years old, he had himself led to the podium of Covent Garden again. There the blind man stood, a huge figure amidst his friends, among the musicians and the singers: with the light gone from his empty eyes he could not see them. But when the surging notes rolled like waves towards him with a great, rushing rhythm, when the rejoicing of certainty rang in his ears, a hurricane swelling from hundreds of voices, his weary face cleared and lit up. He swung his arms in time, he sang as gravely and devoutly with the choir as if he were standing, priest-like, at the head of his own coffin, praying with them for his salvation and the redemption of all. Only once, when the trumpets suddenly came in at the words “The trumpet shall sound”, did he start, looking up with his blind eyes as if he were ready now for the Day of Judgement; he knew he had done his work well. He could come before God with his head held high.

  Moved, his friends led the blind man home. They too felt it had been a farewell. On his bed, he was still quietly moving his lips. He would like to die on Good Friday, he murmured. The doctors were surprised and did not understand him, for they did not know that this Good Friday would be the 13th of April, the date when the heavy hand had struck him down, the date when his Messiah was first performed. On the day when all in him had died, he had risen again. Now he wanted to die on the day when he had risen again, in the certainty of another awakening to life eternal.

  And sure enough, his unique will had power over death as well as life. On 13th April Handel’s strength left him. He saw nothing now, he heard nothing, his massive body lay on the pillows motionless, a heavy, empty frame. But as the empty seashell echoes to the roaring of the sea, so inaudible music surged within him, stranger and more wonderful than any he had ever heard. Slowly, its urgent swell freed the soul from the weary body, carrying it up into the weightless empyrean, flowing in the flow, eternal music in the eternal sphere. And on the next day, before the Easter bells began to ring, all that had been mortal in George Frideric Handel died at last.

  THE GENIUS OF A NIGHT

  THE MARSEILLAISE

  25 April 1792

  1792. For two months, then three months, the National Assembly of France has been in a state of indecision: should it back war against the coalition of emperors and kings, or should it argue for peace? King Louis XVI himself cannot make up his mind; he has a presentiment of the danger if victory goes to the revolutionaries, he also fears the danger if they are defeated. The various parties are also undecided. The Girondists want war in order to stay in power, Robespierre and the Jacobins champion the cause of peace in order to use the interim period to seize power for themselves. The situation becomes increasingly tense with every passing day, the newspapers wax eloquent, the clubs discuss it all at length, rumours are wilder and wilder, inciting public opinion to become more and more agitated. When a decision does come, therefore, it feels like a kind of liberation. On 20th April, the King of France finally declares war on the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia.

  An electric, soul-destroying atmosphere has weighed down heavily over Paris during those days and weeks, but even more oppressive and threatening is the sultry mood of agitation seething all along the border. Troops have already assembled in every village, volunteers and members of the National Guard are being equipped in every town, every fortress is put into order, and in Alsace above all they know that, as usual in disputes between France and Germany, the first decision will be taken on Alsatian soil. On the banks of the Rhine the enemy, the adversary, is not such an indistinct emotional and rhetorical concept as in Paris, but part of the visible present perceived by the senses, for you can see the advancing Prussian regiments with your own eyes at the fortified bridgehead and from the cathedral tower. And by night you can hear the enemy’s artillery carriages rumbling as they roll along, you can hear weapons clinking, and trumpet signals are blown across the river, which glitters in the moonlight as it flows indif
ferently on. Everyone knows that only a single word, a single decree is necessary to bring thunder and lightning spewing from the silent mouths of the Prussian cannon, showing that the thousand-year war between France and Germany has broken out again—this time in the name of a new kind of liberty on one side, and to shore up the old order on the other.

  It is a unique day, then, that brings news of the declaration of war from Paris to Strasbourg on 25th April 1792. People immediately stream out of all the streets and houses into the open squares, the whole garrison marches off, regiment by regiment, for its final parade. In the main square Mayor Dietrich awaits them with a sash in the red, white and blue of the tricolour round his waist and the cockade on his hat, which he waves in a greeting to the soldiers. Trumpet fanfares and the beating of drums sound, calling for silence. Raising his voice, Dietrich reads the declaration of war out loud in both French and German, both here and in all the other city squares. After his last words die away, the regimental musicians strike up the first, provisional war song of the Revolution, the Ça ira, which is really a sparkling, high-spirited, mocking dance melody, but the thunderous sound of the regiments marching out with their weapons clinking lends it a martial air. Then the crowd disperses, taking the enthusiasm thus whipped up into all the alleyways and houses. Stirring speeches are made in the cafés and clubs, proclamations are made. Aux armes, citoyens! L’étendard de la guerre est déployé! Le signal est donné! They begin with these and similar cries, and everywhere, in all speeches and newspapers, on all posters, on all lips, rhythmical phrases are repeated—Aux armes, citoyens! Qu’ils tremblent donc, les despotes couronnés! Marchons, enfants de la liberté! Let the crowned despots tremble, such are their exhortations, take up arms, citizens, march on, children of liberty! And every time, the crowd repeats those fiery words with delight.

  In the streets and squares, the huge throng is still rejoicing over the declaration of war, but at such moments of public jubilation other voices are also raised, quieter voices that do not entirely agree. Such a declaration also arouses fear and anxiety, but those voices whisper secretly indoors, or keep silent, pale-lipped. There are always mothers saying to themselves: won’t the foreign soldiers murder my children? There are peasants in every country anxious for their possessions, their fields, their cottages, their cattle and the harvest. Won’t the young seedlings be trampled down, won’t their houses be plundered by the brutal hordes, won’t blood be spilt in the fields that they cultivate? But the Mayor of Strasbourg, Friedrich Baron Dietrich, who is really an aristocrat, but like the best aristocracy of France at the time is devoted with all his heart to the cause of the new freedom, will let only the loud voices of confidence prevail. He deliberately turns the day of the declaration of war into a public festival. Sash across his chest, he hastens from one assembly to the next, spurring the people on. He has food and wine served to the soldiers as they march away, and that evening, in his spacious house on the Place de Broglie, he assembles the generals, the officers and the most important civil servants for a farewell party, making their enthusiasm seem like a triumphal celebration in advance. The generals, sure of victory as generals always are, preside over the evening, the young officers who see war as the purpose of their lives speak freely. Each encourages his comrades. They brandish their swords, they embrace and drink to one another, and over the good wine they make increasingly passionate speeches. “To arms, citizens! Let us march to save our native land! Those crowned despots will soon tremble! Now that the banner of victory is unfurled, the day has come to spread the tricolour all over the world! Now may every man do his best, for the king, for the flag, for freedom!” Their belief in victory and enthusiasm for the cause of liberty, they think at such moments, will weld the whole nation, the whole country, into a single sacred unit.

  Suddenly, in the middle of all the talk and the drinking of toasts, Mayor Dietrich turns to a young captain from the corps garrisoning the fortress, Rouget by name, who is sitting beside him. He has remembered that this amiable officer—not exactly handsome, but likeable—wrote a very nice anthem six months before on the occasion of the proclamation of the constitution. The regimental director of music, Pleyel, set it to music at once. It was not a very demanding work, but had proved easy to sing; the military band had learnt it, it had been sung in choir in the open air of a square. Wouldn’t the declaration of war and the march of the departing regiments be the right occasion for a similar celebration? So Mayor Dietrich casually asks, as you might ask a favour of a good friend, whether Captain Rouget (who without the slightest justification has ennobled himself, and is now Captain Rouget de Lisle) whether the captain wouldn’t like to mark this patriotic moment by writing something for the troops as they march away, a war song for the army of the Rhine, which is to advance towards the enemy tomorrow?

  Rouget, an unassuming, insignificant man who never thought much of himself—his poems have never been printed, his operas have been turned down—knows that occasional verse flows easily from his pen. He expresses himself ready to oblige this distinguished official, who is a good friend of his. Yes, he says, he will try. “Bravo, Rouget,” says a general sitting opposite, raising his glass, and telling him to send the work straight after him to the battlefield—the army of the Rhine could do with a good, brisk marching song. Meanwhile another officer is launching into a speech. More toasts are proposed, there is more loud talk, more drinking. General enthusiasm washes like a strong wave over that minor chance exchange between Rouget and the mayor. The mood of the party is ever more ecstatic, louder, more frenetic, and it is some time after midnight when the mayor’s guests leave his house.

  The hour is late, after midnight. The 25th of April, so exciting a day for Strasbourg with the declaration of war, is over, and it is really the 26th of April now. Nocturnal darkness lies above the houses, but the darkness is illusory, for the city is still in a feverish state. In the barracks, the soldiers are getting ready to march, and behind closed shutters many cautious citizens may already be preparing for flight. A few platoons are marching down the roads, now and then you can hear clattering hooves as dispatch riders pass by, then a rumble again as a battery of heavy artillery comes up, and again and again you hear the monotonous call of the sentries communicating with each other. The enemy is too close, the mind of the city too unsure and agitated for anyone to sleep easily at such a crucial moment.

  Rouget, who has now climbed the spiral staircase to his modest little room at 126 Grande Rue, is in a curious state of excitement himself. He has not forgotten his promise to try to write a marching song, a war song for the army of the Rhine, and do it as quickly as possible. He walks restlessly up and down in his small room. How to begin? All the stirring proclamations, the speeches, the toasts are still whirling chaotically around in his mind. “To arms, citizens!… March, children of liberty… we will crush all tyranny! The flag is now unfurled…” He also remembers other words heard in passing, the voices of women trembling for their sons, the peasants’ concerns for the fields of France: will they be trampled, will blood be shed by foreign cohorts? Half unconsciously, he writes down the first two lines. They are only an echo, the repetition of the echo, and that cry:

  Allons, enfants de la patrie,

  Le jour de gloire est arrivé!

  Arise, children of this land, the glorious day is here… then he stops and thinks. Yes, that will do. He has the beginning. Now to find the right rhythm, the melody to go with the words. He takes his fiddle out of the cupboard, he tries it. Wonderful: the rhythm fits the words perfectly in the very first bars. He hastily writes on, now carried away by the power that has entered into him. And suddenly it all comes together: all the feelings that are discharged in this hour, all the words that he heard in the street and at the mayor’s banquet, hatred of tyrants, fear for his native land, love of liberty. Rouget does not have to compose poetry consciously; all he needs to do is put the words that went from mouth to mouth on this one day into rhyme, set them to the captivating rhythm
of his melody, and then he has said and sung everything that the nation felt in its inmost heart. Nor does he have to compose the music deliberately, for the rhythm of the street and the hour comes in through the closed shutters, the rhythm of pride and the challenge in the marching steps of the soldiers, the sounding of the trumpets, the rumble of the cannon. Perhaps he does not hear it himself, not with his own ears, but the genius of the hour that, for this one night, has taken over his mortal frame has heard him. And the melody, ever more obediently, goes along with the joyful rhythm that is the heartbeat of a whole nation. As if he were taking dictation from a stranger, Rouget writes down the words and the notes more and more hastily—a storm has broken over him, such a storm as he never felt before in his limited bourgeois mind. It is an exaltation, an enthusiasm that is not his own; instead, a magical force concentrated into a single explosive second carries the poor dilettante 100,000 times beyond his own abilities, and flings him like a rocket up to the stars—a light and radiant flame burning for the space of a second. For one night, it was granted to Lieutenant-Commander Rouget de Lisle to be a brother of the immortals: out of the opening of the song, taken from the street and the newspapers, creative words form at his command and rise into a verse that, in its poetic expression, is as abiding as the melody is immortal.

  Amour sacré de la patrie,

  Conduis, soutiens nos bras vengeurs!

  Liberté, liberté chérie,

  Combats avec tes défenseurs!

  Love of the fatherland, guide us, support our avenging arms… Then a sixth verse, the last, composed in emotion as a unified whole, combining the words perfectly with the melody, and the immortal song is finished before dawn. Rouget puts out his light and flings himself on the bed. Something, he does not know what, has raised him to a brilliance of the mind that he never felt before, and now something else flings him into dull exhaustion. He sleeps a sleep as deep as death. And the creative spirit, the poet, the genius in him has indeed died. But the completed work lies on the table, now released from the sleeping man, who was truly taken over by that miracle as if in a sacred frenzy. Hardly ever again in the history of all nations has a song so quickly and perfectly been made from words and music.