Introduction
The correspondence between Franz Liszt
and Espérance von Schwartz
and Espérance von Schwartz
|
by Lodewijk Muns |
| The Netherlands Music Institute has 47 letters by Liszt in its keeping, formerly in the possession of the Swiss collector and Liszt-biographer Robert Bory (1891-1960)[1]. A special part of this collection are four unpublished letters to Baroness Marie Espérance von Schwartz (1818-1899), known as a writer under her graecisized pen name Elpis Melena ("Black Hope"). |
| Liszt and Von Schwartz maintained friendly contact during many years: from 1862 till at least 1885[2]. After 1865, when the writer settled on Crete, they met incidentally (and sometimes they just missed each other: see the third letter in this presentation). In between, their correspondence kept the friendship alive. Since none of the major Liszt-biographies makes any mention of Von Schwartz, it may be useful to provide a biographical sketch. An adventurous life Regrettably, the extant literature contains many contradictions and inaccuracies. Confusion starts with her year of birth: probably 1818, but according to some sources 1821. She was born in Southgate, Hertfordshire, as Mary-Espérance Kalm Brandt, daughter of banker Emanuel Heinrich (Henry) Brandt. All her life she kept British nationality, but since her early youth she lived alternately in England and on the continent. Thus she learned French, German and English during childhood; later she commanded eight languages. The little information we have suggests that her childhood was rather gloomy. Her elder brother died thirteen years of age; after that, her younger brother attempted suicide.[3] After having been given in marriage to a nephew when she was fifteen or sixteen, she became a widow just a year (or two years) later; the husband too died of his own hand. Her education was in the hands of an aunt and governess in Geneva, Espérance von Sylvestre. In 1842 she married a second time. Her second husband, Baron Ferdinand von Schwartz, was a businessman with a "not negligible talent for painting".[4] Together they made, largely on horseback, a long and adventurous journey through North Africa and Asia Minor. An account of this is Von Schwartz' first literary work, Blätter aus dem afrikanischen Reisetagebuch einer Dame (1849). Most of her later works are travelogues, journalism, memoirs and essays in cultural history. The couple chooses Rome as residence shortly before the city turns into a war scene. After the assassination of an unpopular minister by a republican radical in November 1848, crowds of demonstrators fill the streets, clamouring for reform. Pope Pius IX flees across the border. Following elections in February 1849, the Republic of Rome is proclaimed. In April the city is besieged by French troops, sent by President Louis Napoléon (the later emperor Napoleon III) to re-establish the papal government. The Baroness is witness to the great enthusiasm created by the charismatic leader of the republican forces, Giuseppe Garibaldi.[5] In this turbulent year 1849 her son Ernst Franz is born in Sorrento. In 1854 Espérance divorces Ferdinand von Schwartz. Between 1850 and 1865 she hosts the diplomatic, intellectual and artistic elite in her soirees in Rome; among the guests are historian Ferdinand Gregorovius and the writers couple Adolf Stahr and Fanny Lewald. The latter writes in 1867: "Livelier are the soirees with Frau Von Schwartz, who has tried to carve a niche in literature under the pen name Elpis Melena. [...] she is broadly educated, musical, sophisticated, has extensive knowledge of languages, and is a woman who can do the honours of her house in grand style, just like it used to be in her parents' beautiful and hospitable house on Cornwall Terrace, London. The colourful flock frequenting her salon shows that her many travels have created a large circle of acquaintance. Foreigners of all nationalities, scholars, artists, musicians, the most prominent among them Franz Liszt; intimate friends of Garibaldi, Roman patriots, but also high clerics gather in her handsome apartment in the inner court of Palazzo Lovatti on Piazza del Popolo [...]".[6] Religion and politics When Liszt arrives in Rome in 1861, the object of his visit is his intended marriage to Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, née Iwanowska (1819-1887). Requisite is the annulment of her marriage to Prince Niklaus; the Pope however at the last moment withholds his approval. The sequel to this episode has attracted much sniggering comment. Staying in Rome, the composer nestles more deeply into the bosom of the church (he receives minor orders in 1865 and is hence known as "Abbé Liszt"). His "très chère Ecclésiaste" spends six years studying the works of Thomas Aquinas, fortifying herself for a lonely and tenacious polemic against the "inner causes of the exterior weakness" of this same church. Of the twenty-four volumes of this rare opus two have been placed on the Index.[7] What Liszt and Von Schwartz have in common is their cosmopolitan culture, social engagement and indomitable wanderlust. Apart from this, their affinities are different. Liszt maintains excellent relations with Pope Pius IX and with Napoleon III, for whom he has a near-blind admiration.[8] Von Schwartz on the contrary sides with Garibaldi and his supporters, who fight for a unified Italy and against the worldly power of the Pope. In 1857 she visits her hero at home on the island Caprera, hoping to be able to assist him in the completion of his memoirs. During the following years she is helpful in many capacities: as secretary, translator, messenger and mistress. Apart form the German edition of his memoirs (Garibaldi's Denkwürdigkeiten, 1860) she publishes Garibaldi, Mittheilungen aus seinem Leben, nebst Briefen des Generals an die Verfasserin (1884) and several other writings partly devoted to Garibaldi. The Mittheilungen contain the story of her own heroic deeds and her intimate relation with the General. The reliability of her story is contested.[9] On the island of Crete Near the end of 1865 the Baroness for the first time sets foot ashore on the island of Crete, which has fascinated her since childhood. Before her travel, Liszt has presented her with an ornamented dagger.[10] Concern for one's safety is not exaggerated; soon a revolt breaks out against the Ottoman rulers. By publicity and diplomatic action the writer attempts (unsuccessfully) to interest the European superpowers in the fate of the Greek-Christian inhabitants: "Every moment of my life is devoted to this interesting people".[11] In October 1867 she asks Garibaldi to send five hundred volunteers.[12] In the correspondence with Liszt her political-erotic liaison and his religious-political affiliation are hinted at by a few lightly ironic allusions. On 6 October 1866 for instance she writes in a lengthy and passionate letter about the situation on Crete: "One does not have to be a Garibaldienne (pardon this stain on a paper addressed to a friend of the Vatican) nor liberal or even constitutionalist, just simply one degree above the cannibals and gifted with the tiniest spark of humanity, to be exasperated seeing where the Turcophilia of Mrs Consuls of Great Britain and France has brought this poor population of Crete".[13] Liszt writes on March 15 1870 about Garibaldi's novel Clelia: "You probably know the novel by your great historical friend, which is being published by the Gaulois [...]".[14] She certainly does: Garibaldi has sent her a copy in view of a German translation. In spite of reservations she has offered the work to nineteen publishers, who refused it for (in her own words) "well justified reasons".[15] A more domestic tragedy was her guardianship over Garibaldi's sixteen your old and unruly daughter Anita (daughter of his housekeeper Battistina Ravello, not of his legendary first wife Anita). "Speranza's" attempt to have her raised in a Swiss boarding school was unsuccessful; hard to understand is her subsequent decision to take the girl with her to Crete. Anita was unwilling to submit herself to her mentor, and appealed to her family to take her away. Shortly afterwards she died of malaria.[16] This tragedy ended the friendship between the General and Von Schwartz. In a letter dating from September or October 1875 Liszt alludes somewhat cryptically to the troubles with Anita, amid all sorts of other mishaps: "What an excess of pain, sorrow and vexation! A broken leg, a fractured arm, a new dislocation, two assaults, and to top all these tribulations the overly pathetic ‘cantatrice' Anita G.!"[17] Philanthropy With interruptions the Baroness has spent more than twenty years on Crete, where she dedicated herself to the well-being of both the human and the animal population. In this she must have probed the limits of what seems to have been an immense fortune. Still, this may have been more modest than some sources make it appear. The often repeated phrase that she founded "hospitals, schools and animal shelters" seems with its multiple plurals exaggerated. From her own remarks and the Liszt correspondence we gather that she has founded a women's hospital in Jena; on Crete she dedicated herself (according to her summary remarks in the Erlebnisse und Beobachtungen) to writing and translating schoolbooks, "care and nursing of the poor, the sick and children, to the foundation and management of an animal protection society, and participation in the humanistic endeavours of the present age [...]".[18] The last category includes her literary efforts on behalf of the antivivisection movement, such as the story Gemma, oder Tugend und Laster (1877). Liszt has characterized her life as "a grand symphony of generosities, munificences, alms, charities, gifts and favours, as delicate as they are costly."[19] It seems that she looked back on this life with some bitterness. Not only did she accuse Garibaldi of ungratefulness; the Cretans too have disappointed her: "I add the observation that my twenty-four years of residence on Crete have considerably tuned down my opinion of its inhabitants. When I made my excursion to Sphakia in 1869, my heart was glowing with Philhellenism; many things which seemed perfectly true at the time I could no longer affirm now."[20] The last months of her life were spent in hotel Adler in the Swiss town of Ermatingen. This hotel still takes pride in the many celebrities among its guests; its designation Auberge de Napoléon derives - with an ironical twist - from one of them: Garibaldi's arch-enemy, Napoleon III.[21] Lioness, nun or matron? The lack of a critical biography of Espérance-Speranza has left room for strange misrepresentations and distortions of her person (and appearance) in the literature. Garibaldi biographer Jasper Ridley introduces her as a typical vamp: Tall and handsome, with golden hair, born in England, she was the daughter of a Hamburg banker, but claimed to be English because she had been born in England, and had spent much of her life in England and Italy. Her first husband had committed suicide, and her second husband, the Baron von Schwartz, had divorced her. She travelled all over Europe in search of sexual and other adventures, and wrote about them in entertaining travel books which she published under the name of Elpis Melena.[22] A more lifelike portrait has been sketched by her colleague Fanny Lewald: She is a perpetuum mobile, driven by a lively imagination and true goodheartedness, as well as a fair portion of inborn restlessness. [...] She cannot live without some project, an adventurous plan; for anything to capture her lively interest there will have to be an adventurous aspect. [...] It always makes me laugh (as serious as I am wont to be) when she broaches the large political issues, preparing tea like a good housewife, with her steady companions, two whippets, playing at her feet. In her innermost being she is such a manipulable and impressionable person that for me there is something amiably funny about her speaking seriously of things which need the management of a cold and determinate mind and of a steady, energetic hand.[23] Lina Ramann describes her in 1877 as "of medium stature, round - a notable face, the type of which escapes memory - notable in its changeability: sometimes lioness, sometimes nun, sometimes a reverend and good-natured matron".[24] |
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| [1] | See the inventory. |
| [2] |
FLB Bd. 6 nr. 7 (1862). Outside Rome, they met at least in Karlsruhe, 1864 (FLA p. 234, 235; LAM p. 273; Cosima refers to this in her postscript in GSA 59/75,3 [2]), and in Eisenach, 1877 (FLM p. 282, RL p. 120). |
| [3] |
SZA p. 66 |
| [4] |
EMD p. 52 |
| [5] |
EMD p. 90-91, EMH p. 269. |
| [6] |
"Lebhafter und bewegter sind die Gesellschaftsabende bei Frau von Schwarz [sic], die sich unter dem Namen Elpis Melena eine Stelle in der Litteratur gesucht hat. [...] Dabei ist sie mannigfach unterrichtet, musikalisch, weltgewandt, im Besitz reicher Sprachkenntnisse, und eine Frau, die die Honneurs ihres Hauses in großem Styl zu machen weiß, wie dies eben so in dem schönen gastlichen Hause ihrer Eltern auf Cornwall Terrace in London üblich war. Ihr Salon ist denn auch so vielfarbig in seinen Gästen, wie eine ausgebreitete Reisebekanntschaft ihn werden läßt. Fremde von allen Nationen, Gelehrte, Künstler, Musiker, und unter diesen Franz Liszt als der überall erste; vertraute Freunde Garibaldi's, römische Patrioten und daneben hohe Geistliche, kommen als Gäste in ihre hübsche Wohnung im Hofe des Palastes Lovatti auf der Piazza di [sic] Popolo [...]". STA p. 441-442. |
| [7] |
Causes intérieures de la faiblesse extérieure de l'Église en 1870 (1872-1887), WALF p. 323, 554; RFL p. 437 (Aquinas). |
| [8] |
See e.g. FLA, letter 138 and the commentary with letters 1 and 4 in this presentation. |
| [9] |
EMG p. XXI |
| [10] |
Picture in EME p. 11 |
| [11] |
"Ogni istante della mia vita è consacrata a questa interessante nazione. [...] Se poteste mandare in aiuto ai Cretesi 500 uomini, salvereste forse questo disgraziato paese." (GAR p. 73) |
| [12] |
SZA p. 51; GAR p. 109, 110 (n.); LAM p. 279. Many Garibaldini perished on Crete. About a conversation of Von Schwartz with British Prime Minister Gladstone, see EME p. 159, 160. |
| [13] |
"Il ne faut être ni Garibaldienne (excusez cette tache sur un papier adressé à un ami du Vatican) ni libérale ni même constitutionnelle, mais simplement un degré au-dessus des anthropophages et fourni de la plus faible lueur d'humanité pour être exaspéré en voyant où le Turcophilisme de M. M. les Consuls de l'Angleterre et de la France a conduit cette pauvre population crétoise." BHZ nr. 198, p. 313 (6-10-1866) |
| [14] |
"Vous connaissez sans doute le roman de votre grand ami historique, publié maintenant par le ‘Gaulois' [...]". FLB Bd. 2 nr 101, p. 159. |
| [15] |
GAR p. 12; cf. the different account in RID p. 594 |
| [16] |
RID p. 628; GAR p. 55-142. Anita died in August 1875. |
| [17] |
"Quel excès de souffrances, douleurs et tourments! Jambe cassée, fracture du bras, nonvelle luxation, deux attentats, et, pour comble de tribulations, la trop pathétique ‘cantatrice' Anita G.!" FLB Bd. 8 nr. 274, p. 297; also in FLW p. 787. |
| [18] |
"[...] der Versorgung der Armen, der Pflege von Kranken und Kindern, der Gründung und Verwaltung eines Tierschutzvereins und eines auf meinem Grundstück befindlichen Tierasyls sowie der Beteiligung an humanistischen Bestrebungen der Jetztzeit [...]." EME p. 303. Liszt's unpublished letter GSA 59/458 (1884) specifies the investment in the Jena Frauenhospital as 30.000 Marks. |
| [19] |
"Votre vie me semble une vaste symhonie de générosités, munificences, aumônes, charités, dons et attentions aussi délicates que coûteuses. À commencer par Garibaldi et les siens et à continuer indéfiniment avec les pauvres hères d'allemands, malades à Rome, et enterrés là à vos frais: et puis, les belliqueux Crétois, les infirmes de votre hospice de Jena, les associations pour la protection des animaux, etc. etc." FLB Bd. 2 nr. 329 (1883), p. 350-351 |
| [20] |
"Hieran schließe ich die Bemerkung, daß ein 24-jähriger Aufenthalt auf Kreta meine Meinung über seine Bewohner sehr herabgestimmt hat; als ich 1869 den Ausflug nach Sphakia machte, erglühte mein Herz in Philhellenismus, und vieles, was ich damals für lauter Wahrheit hielt, könnte ich jetzt nicht unterschreiben." EME p. 19; RID p. 628. |
| [21] |
EMG p. xx; see also http://www.adler-ermatingen.ch/ |
| [22] |
RID p. 394, 395 |
| [23] |
"Sie ist ein Perpetuum mobile, bei dem eine lebhafte Einbildungskraft und ein ganz vortreffliches Herz nebst einem guten Theil angeborner Rastlosigkeit die treibenden Kräfte sind. [...] Sie kann nicht leben ohne irgend einen Plan, ohne einen abenteuerlichen Plan; denn es muß eben an Allem, woran sie lebhaft Theil nehmen soll, eine gewisse abenteuerliche Ader sein. [...] Sie bringt mich - und ich bin doch sonst ernsthaft genug - immer zum Lachen, wenn Sie sich auf die großen politischen Fragen verlegt, während Sie hausfraulich den Thee bereitet und ihre beständigen Begleiter, zwei Windspiele, zu ihren Füßen spielen. Sie ist ihrem eigensten Wesen nach eine so ganz und gar lenksame und bestimmbare Natur, daß sie für mich etwas liebenswürdig Komisches bekommt, wenn sie ersthaft von den Dingen redet, die einen kalten, festen Sinn und eine sichere und energische Hand verlangen." (STA p. 441, 442). According to SZA (p. 74) she was of small stature. |
| [24] |
"[...] mittelgroß, rund - ein merkwürdiges Gesicht, dessen Typus sich nicht festhalten läßt - merkwürdig in seinem Wechsel: bald Löwin, bald Nonne, bald ehrwürdige, gutmüthige Matrone" (RL p. 120). |
