BELLINI

Of Bellini, that great treasurer for the hand-organists, a story has been told as his first romance.  According to this, when he was a conservatory student at Naples, he called upon a fellow student and took up a pair of opera glasses, proceeding to take that interest in the neighbours that one is prone to take with a telescope.  On the balcony of the opposite house he saw a beautiful girl; the opera-glasses seemed to bring her very near, but not near enough to reach.  So, after much elaborate management he became her teacher of singing, and managed to teach her at least to love him.  But the family growing suspicious that Bellini was instructing her in certain elective studies outside the regular musical curriculum, his school was closed.

Then a little opera of his had some success, and he asked for her hand.  His proposal was received with Neapolitan ice, and the lovers were separated, to their deep gloom.  When he was twenty-four, another opera of his made a great local triumph, and he applied again, only to be told that “the daughter of Judge Fumaroli will never be allowed to marry a poor cymbal player.”  Later his success grew beyond the bounds of Italy, and now the composer of “La Sonnambula” and “Norma” was worthy of the daughter of even a judge; so the parents, it is said, reminded him that he could now have the honour of marrying into their family.  But he was by this time calm enough to reply that he was wedded to his art.

This conclusion of the romance reminds one of Handel—­a thing which Bellini very rarely does.  He died when he was only thirty-three years of age, and at that age Handel had not written a single one of the oratorios by which he is remembered.  In fact, he did not begin until he was fifty-five with the success which made him immortal.  It was the irony of fate that Bellini should have died so young, while a brother of his who was a fourth-rate church composer lived for eighty-two years.

VERDI’S MISERERE

The virtues of senescence are seen in the case of Verdi, who did some of his greatest work at the age when most musicians are ready for the old ladies’ home.  His first love affair has been the subject of an opera, like Stradella’s.  In fact it has much of the garish misery of the Punchinello story.  Verdi was very poor as a child, and was educated by a charitable institution.  He was greatly befriended by his teacher, Barezzi, in whose house he lived, and like Robert Schumann, he showed his gratitude by falling in love with the daughter; Margarita was her name.  But Barezzi interpreted the role of father-in-law in a manner unlike that of Wieck, and to the youth to whom he had given not only instruction, but funds for his study and board and lodging while in Milan, he gave also his daughter, when the time came in 1836, Verdi being then twenty-three years old.  Two years later, the composer left his home town of Busseto with one wife, two children, and three or four MSS.  He settled in Milan.  He was a long time getting his first opera produced, and it was not until 1839 that it made its little success, and he was engaged to write three more.  He chose a comic libretto for the first, and then troubles began not to rain but to pour upon him.  But let Verdi tell his own story: