Edvard Grieg—Sir Frederick H. Cowen—Dr Hans Richter—Sir Thomas Beecham—Sir Charles Santley—Landon Ronald—Frederic Austin

Very many years have passed since, one cold winter’s afternoon, I met Edvard Grieg on Adolph Brodsky’s doorstep. A little figure buried, very deeply buried, in an overcoat at least six inches thick, came down the damp street, paused a minute at the gate, and then, rather hesitatingly, walked up the pathway. He saluted me as he reached the door and we waited together until my summons to those within was answered.

I found him very homely, completely without affectation, childlike, and a little melancholy. He was at that time in indifferent health, and it was at once made evident to me that both Grieg himself and those around him—especially Mrs Brodsky—were very anxious that he should be restored to complete fitness. He said nothing in the least degree noteworthy, but when he did speak he had such a gentle air, a manner so ingratiating and simple, that one found his conversation most unusually pleasant.

Ernest Newman once called Grieg “Griegkin,” a most admirable name for this quite first-rate of third-rate composers. His music is diminutive. He could not think largely. He loved country dances, country scenes, the rhythm of homely life, the bounded horizon. Even so extended a work as his Pianoforte Concerto is a series of miniatures. And Grieg the man was precisely like 227Grieg the artist. He was Griegkin in his appearance, his manner, his way of speaking: a little man: a gracious little man. His attitude towards his host and hostess was that of an affectionate child. Such dear simplicity is, I think, in the artist found only among men of northern races.

Some years later, in an intimate little circle, I was to hear his widow sing and play many of her husband’s songs. She was the feminine counterpart of himself—spirited, a little sad, simple yet wise, frank, and an artist through and through.
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A great deal of comedy is lost to the world through lack of historians. It is almost impossible to conceive that Sir F. H. Cowen should ever have been in serious competition with Hans Richter: impossible to conceive that half the musical inhabitants of a large city should have been ranged fiercely on Sir Frederick’s side, and the other half ranged on the side of Richter: impossible to conceive that both Cowen and Richter were candidates for the same post. Yet so it was.

Sir Charles Hallé, who had founded and conducted for about half-a-century the famous orchestral concerts in Manchester still known by his name, died and left no successor. Literally, there was no one to appoint in his place, no one quite good enough. Month after month went by, a good many distinguished and semi-distinguished musicians came to Manchester and conducted an odd concert or two, but it was very widely felt that no British musician would do. Sir Frederick Cowen, always an earnest and accomplished composer, came for a season or two and did some admirable work, but Cowen was not Hallé. Then the German element in Manchester discovered that Richter would come, if invited. The salary was large, the work not heavy, the climate awful, the people devoted, the position unusually powerful. All 228things considered, it was one of the few really good vacant musical posts in Europe.

All this is ancient history now, and I will record only briefly that ultimately Sir Frederick Cowen was, in effect, told (what, no doubt, he already knew) that Richter was the better man and that he (Cowen) must go. But before this decision was made a most severe fight was waged in the city. Cowen conducted, and thousands of partisans came and cheered him to the echo. Richter conducted, and thousands of partisans came and cheered him to the echo. People wrote to the newspapers. Leader writers solemnly summed up the situation from day to day. Protests were made, meetings were organised and held, votes of confidence were passed. London caught the infection, and passed its opinion, its opinions....

Sir F. H. Cowen (he was “Mr” then) received me in his rooms at the Manchester Grand Hotel. It was impossible not to like him, for, if he had no great positive qualities that seized upon you at once, he had a good many negative ones. He had no “side,” no self-importance, no eccentricities. He had neither long hair nor a foreign accent. He did not use a cigarette-holder. He did not loll when he sat down, or posture when he stood up. And he had not just discovered a new composer of Dutch extraction.... These are small things, you say. But are they?...

I remember looking at him and wondering if he really had written The Better Land. It seemed so unlikely. Faultlessly dressed, immaculately groomed, how could he have written The Better Land—that luteous land that is so sloppy, so thickly covered with untidy debris?

He would not talk of the musical situation in Manchester, and I could see that he was very sensitive about his uncomfortable position.

“If I am wanted, I shall stay,” was all he would give me.

229“And are you going to write about me in the paper?” asked he, at the end of our interview; “how interesting that will be!” And he smiled with gentle satire.

“I shall make it as interesting as I can,” I assured him, “but, you see, you have said so little.”

“Does that matter?” he returned. “I have always heard that you gentlemen of the Press can at least—shall we say embroider?”

“But may I?” I asked.

“How can I prevent you? Do tell me how I can, and I will.”

“Well, you can insist upon seeing the article before it appears in print.”

“Oh, ‘insist’ is not a nice word, is it? But if you would be kind enough to send me the article before your Editor has it....”
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Hans Richter was an autocrat, a tyrant. During the years he conducted in Manchester, he did much splendid work, but it may well be questioned if, on the whole, his influence was beneficial to Manchester citizens. He was so tremendously German! So tremendously German indeed, that he refused to recognise that there was any other than Teutonic music in the world. His intellect had stopped at Wagner. At middle age his mind had suddenly become set, and he looked with contempt at all Italian and French music, refusing also to see any merit in most of the very fine music that, during the last twenty years, has been written by British composers.

He irked the younger and more turbulent spirits in Manchester, and we were constantly attacking him in the Press. But with no effect. Richter was like that. He ignored attacks. He was arrogant and spoiled and bad-tempered.

“Why don’t you occasionally give us some French music at your concerts?” he was asked.

230“French music?” he roared; “there is no French music.”

And, certainly, whenever he tried to play even Berlioz one could see that he did not regard his work as music. And he conducted Debussy, so to speak, with his fists. And as for Dukas...!

Young British musicians used to send him their compositions to read, but the parcels would come back, weeks later, unread and unopened. His mind never inquired. His intellect lay indolent and half-asleep on a bed of spiritual down. And the thousands of musical Germans in Manchester treated him so like a god that in course of time he came to believe he was a god. His manners were execrable. On one occasion, he bore down upon me in a corridor at the back of the platform in the Free Trade Hall. I stood on one side to allow him to pass, but Richter was very wide and the corridor very narrow. Breathing heavily, he kept his place in the middle of the passage.... I felt the impact of a mountain of fat and heard a snort as he brushed past me.

Everyone was afraid of him. Even famous musicians trembled in his presence. I remember dining with one of the most eminent of living pianists at a restaurant where, at a table close at hand, Richter also was dining. The previous evening Richter had conducted at a concert at which the pianist had played, and the great conductor had praised my friend in enthusiastic terms; moreover, they had met before on several occasions.

“I’ll go and have a word with the Old Man, if you’ll excuse me,” said my friend.

I watched him go. Smiling a little, ingratiatingly, he bowed to Richter, and then bent slightly over the table at which the famous musician was dining alone. Richter took not the slightest notice. My friend, embarrassed, waited a minute or so, and I saw him speaking. But the diner continued dining. Again my friend spoke, and at 231length Richter looked up and barked three times. Hastily the pianist retreated, and when he had rejoined me I noticed that he was a little pale and breathless.

“The old pig!” he exclaimed.

“Why, what happened?”

“Didn’t you see? First of all, he wouldn’t take the slightest notice of me or even acknowledge my existence. I spoke to him in English three times before he would answer, and then, like the mannerless brute he is, he replied in German.”

“What did he say?”

“How do I know? I don’t speak his rotten language. But it sounded like: ‘Zuzu westeben hab! Zuzu westeben hab! Zuzu westeben hab!’ I only know that he was very angry. He was eating slabs of liver sausage. And he spoke right down in his chest.”

He was, indeed, unapproachable.

Of course, he was a marvellous conductor, a conductor of genius; but long before he left Manchester his powers had begun to fail.

For two or three years I made a practice of attending his rehearsals. Nothing will persuade me that in the whole world there is a more depressing spot than the Manchester Free Trade Hall on a winter’s morning. I used to sit shivering with my overcoat collar buttoned up. Richter always wore a round black-silk cap, which made him look like a Greek priest. He would walk ponderously to the conductor’s desk, seize his baton, rattle it against the desk, and begin without a moment’s loss of time. Perhaps it was an innocent work like Weber’s Der Freischütz Overture. This would proceed swimmingly enough for a minute or so, when suddenly one would hear a bark and the music would stop. One could not say that Richter spoke or shouted: he merely made a disagreeable noise. Then, in English most broken, in English utterly smashed, he would correct the mistake 232that had been made, and recommence conducting without loss of a second.

He had no “secret.” Great conductors never do have “secrets.” Only charlatans “mesmerise” their orchestras. Simply, he knew his job, he was a great economiser of time, and he was a stern disciplinarian.

He could lose his temper easily. He hated those of us who were privileged to attend his rehearsals. He declared, quite unwarrantably, that we talked and disturbed him. But he never appeared to be in the least disturbed by the handful of weary women who, with long brushes, swept the seats and the floor of the hall, raising whirlpools of dust fantastically here and there, and banging doors in beautiful disregard of the Venusberg music and in protest against the exquisite Allegretto from the Seventh Symphony.
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Sir Thomas Beecham (he was then plain “Mr”) brought a ti............