To be a teacher is to have a great responsibility. The teacher helps shape and give direction to the lives of other human beings. What is more important, graver, than that? Children and young people are our greatest treasure; when we think of them we think of the future of the world. Then consider the significance of nurturing their minds, of helping form their outlook on the world, of training and preparing them for the work that they will do. I can think of no profession more important than that of teaching. A good teacher, a true teacher, can be like a second father to his pupil. And this was the role that the Count de Morphy was to assume in my life. His influence was second only to that of my mother.
The Count Guillermo de Morphy was like many men in one; he had so many talents, abilities and skills. His mind encompassed a vast area of knowledge. He had, you might say, the versatility and Weltanschauung of a Renaissance man. He was a scholar and a historian, an author and a musician, a counselor to royalty and a composer, a patron of the arts and a poet. His interests embraced art and literature, politics and philosophy, science and society, and, above all, music. He was especially interested in the work of young musicians and befriended many of them-Albeniz, Granados, Tomas Breton and others were among his proteges. Together with the great Catalan musicologist, Felipe Pedrell, he helped bring about a rebirth in Spanish music. His great love was the opera. He was the founder of the modern Spanish opera; he sought to free it from the Italian influence, and restore the true national character to its music. How he loved the music of Spain and how much he knew about it! He wrote a magnificent book about the history of Spanish music, dealing with great composers from the fifteenth through the nineteenth century-the book still serves as a text for students of Spanish music. He pioneered in the study of the history of the lute in Spain; in fact, he devoted twenty-five years to the study of old Spanish lute tablatures; and he wrote a monumental classic work entitled Les Luthistes Espagnols du XVI Siecle-it was, sadly enough, not published until after his death.
The count had been the private tutor of King Alfonso XII. When I met him he was an aide and personal secretary to the Queen Regent Maria Cristina. At court the grandees referred to him, somewhat contemptuously, as el musico, "the musician." Their attitude was of course a commentary on their limitations, not his.
There was a curious sidelight to the background of this splendid man who knew so much about the national music of Spain and exerted such an influence on its reassertion: he himself was not of Spanish ancestry. He was the grandson of an Irishman who had been exiled from Ireland for his political activities. The name of the Count de Morphy derived from Murphy!
On a wall in my house at San Salvador-in a room I call the "Room of Sentiment"-there hangs a treasured possession of mine. It is a photograph of the Count de Morphy. Inscribed on it, in verse, are these words:
I ask the Lord to testify
To Pablito that I do not lie
But stand in Heaven's grace
When now I do contend
The features of this ugly face
Are those of his best friend.
Yes, he was more than my teacher, patron and guide. He was my best friend.
When my mother and I-with my two young brothers, Luis and Enrique-arrived in Madrid on that fateful day in 1894, I was seventeen years old. We went immediately to see the Count de Morphy at his house in the suburb Barrio de Arguello. It was the home of a man of true distinction-that is, a man distinguished in culture and taste. Every piece of furniture in that house, every antique, rug and painting, had been selected with care and affection. When you entered his drawing room and saw his beautiful piano and musical scores, you felt the music in the man. His library was marvelous, with hundreds of books-old and new-on every imaginable subject. He was a rather small man in his late fifties, immaculately groomed, with a neatly trimmed beard, high forehead and thinning hair. He had a gracious, unpretentious, very gentle manner. he welcomed us with great warmth, and as soon as he had read Albeniz's letter, he asked if I had brought any of my compositions to Madrid with me. I had brought along a bundle of them, including a string quartet I had written when I was fourteen or fifteen. "Will you play for me?" he asked. I did. When I had finished, he said, "Yes, you are an artist, Pablito."
The count made an appointment for me to play at the Royal Palace for the Infanta Isabel. She was the sister of King AlfonsoXII, and she had a great interest in music. It was an unforgettable occasion for me, not only because it was the first time I had ever played-or, for that matter, been-in a palace. My mother had nowhere to leave my two small brothers, and so she brought them along. Enrique was still an infant, and while I was playing one of my compositions for the infanta, he began to cry. That is, of course, a natural thing for a hungry infant to do, even when he is in a palace. Enrique was a lusty little boy and his crying made quite a noise, which contended with my music. Quietly, without any fuss or the slightest show of embarrassment, my mother unfastened her dress and proceeded to nurse Enrique. I continued playing....I do not kown whether such an episode had ever happened before during a musical performance at the palace, or whether it was comme il faut with court protocol. But this was a question that made no difference to my mother. She would have fed Enrique anywhere else-so why not in the Palace with the infanta seated nearby? She was not at all impressed by the fact that she was in the presence of royalty. The infanta to her was no different from ant other person. That was the way my mother was.
Shortly afterwards, the count presented my mother and me to the queen regent. She received us very graciously and arranged for me to play in a concert at the palace. I appeared at that concert as both a performer and a composer. One of the works performed was my first string quartet, and I played the cello part.
The next morning the count had important and exciting news for my mother and me. The queen, he told us, had decided to give me a scholarship. It amounted to 250 pesetas-about $50.00-a month. That was not such a small amount then-in fact, it was quite a handsome sum in those days. Even so, it was not a great deal when it came to meeting the needs of a family of four. We lived very poorly.
My mother found us a room-it was really a garret on the top floor of a house on the Calle San Quintin opposite the palace. Our room overlooked the palace gardens with their old statues of kings. There were four other apartments on the floor, and our neighbors on the landing were all working people, fine people, boisterous and companionable.They took a special interest in the fact that a young man who played the cello had arrived in their midst, and they quickly became friends with my mother, who was always ready to go out of her way to help anyone. One of our neighbors was a hall porter at the palace; he was expecially proud of his uniform, and he used to wear it all the time-sometimes I wondered if he slept in it! Also, there were a shoemaker and his family-the poor man had two mentally retarded children. And there were several women who worked at the trade of making cigars. The place was in a constant hubbub, with youngsters running about, children crying and mothers scolding them, husbands and wives quarreling, shouts and songs and arguments that went on into the early morning hours. What confusion! What a din! But I didn't let it interfere with my work. I must, in fact, admit that I added to the many sounds, because I was constantly practicing on my cello....
I began a program of intensive study under the tutelage of the Count de Morphy. He saw that there were many gaps in my education and that I had much to learn if I was to go out into the world as an artist. Each morning I would go to his house at nine o'clock and work steadily with him for the next three hours. That period was devoted to what one might call general education. Then we would lunch together with his wife and his stepdaughter. The countess-a lovely woman and a talented musician herself who had been a pupil of Liszt-gave me lessons in German. After lunch the count would have me improvise at the piano and would criticize my improvisations. One comment of his stays with me always. When I indulged in some particularly intricate harmony, for which I then had a certain fondness, he would put his arm about my shoulders-he always sat beside me on the piano stool-and say, gently, "Pablito, in the language of everybody-yes?" In the language of everybody! Of course, what more profound utterance could there be on the purpose of art in general? What purpose, indeed, can music-or any form of art-serve if it does not speak in a language that all can understand?
The count's teachings, as I have indicated, were by no means confined to musical subjects. he undertook to teach me everything he could abourt life and the world in which I lived-language and literature; art and geography; philosophy and mathematics; the history of music, yes, but also the history of man. The count contended that in order to be a fully developed artist, one had to have a full understanding of life. he regarded art and life as intimately interrelated. They cannot be separated, he would say. He was not only a man of rare gifts but a philosopher of high intelligence.
He had me visit the Prado museum regularly. Before I went, he would tell me, "Pablito, today you should study one of Velasquez's paintings." Or it might be a painting by Murillo, Ririan or Goya. In the corridors and halls of that massive imposing building, I would stand before the paintings, examining the artist's technique, musing on the meaning of his work. "What is he saying?" I would ask myself. "How has he managed to achieve the effect?" Then I would submit to the count an essay on the painting, and we would discuss what I had written.
Once a week he sent me to the Cortes to listen in the Senate or the Chamber of Deputies to the speeches and the debates of the leading politicians and orators of the day. Then I would write for him a report on what I had heard and observed.
My mother studied too while I was studying. She studied not only foreign languages but other subjects as well. She did this not only to help me with my work but also to keep any gap from developing between us in our education.
Many of the textbooks that the count used with me were the same ones he had used with King AlfonsoXII. In the margins of these books I would frequently come upon the king's notations. The count used to say, "I have had two sons-Alfonso and Pablito." I came to address him as "Papa."
How understanding and tender he was with me! Sometimes at lunch, when he saw I was preoccupied or sad-during the early part of my stay in Madrid I was still recovering from the depression that had afflicted me in Barcelona-he would tell humorous stories and witty jokes to amuse me, with his bright eyes twinkling. And often he managed to make me laugh.
The count carried on my private instruction for two and a half years. He was not appointed to do this. He had made the decision entirely on his own. What a debt I owe to that great and good man!
During the time the count was tutoring me, I was studying also at the Madrid Conservatory of Music. The count had arranged for me to study composition with Tomas Breton, then one of the most important composers in Spain. His operas were very much in vogue at the time-the count took me to hear the first performance of his famous work, La Verbena de la Paloma.
Jesus de Monasterio, the director of the conservatory, was my teacher in chamber music. Monasterio was a brilliant violinist, a prodigy who had received royal patronage at the age of seven. He was a magnificent teacher. I could not have had a better teacher at this formative stage of my career. I would say that next to my father he was the greatest musical influence upon my life. How much he did to open my eyes and ears to the true inner meaning of music and to teach me about style! I had already developed a compulsion for accurate intonation-it was something that musicians paid little attention to at the time; but Monasterio reinforced my convictions in the matter. He also encouraged my work on musical accentuation, to which I attached great improtance. His approach toward music was a profoundly serious one. It was the fin-de-siecle period-artists with flowing hair, flowing ties and flowing words! Elaborate flourishes, mannerisms and melodramatics were the fashion of the hour. But not with Monasterio. He placed great emphasis on the underlying principles of music-he never regarded music as a toy, a whim. For him music was an expression of man's dignity and nobility.
When I became his pupil, Monasterio was about sixty years old. A deeply considerate man, he treated me with great affection. Sometimes in class when he would talk about the laws of music-for him, music was a language, with similar laws of accent and values and constant variety-or when he would give examples on his violin, he would look at me out of the corner of his eye, as if to say, "You understand me!"
One day he told the class we must all be sure to come the following day. He said, "We have a pupil who has so distinguished himself that the queen is conferring an honor upon him. Tomorrow you will know his name." The next day I learned he had been referring to me. It was from his hand that I received my first decoration from Queen Maria Cristina, my protector. It was the Medal of the Order of Isabel la Catgolica. I was eighteen at the time.
I was a frequent visitor at the palace. I would go there two or three times a week to play the cello, improvise at the piano or perform in concerts. I came to be treated as if I were a member of the royal family. Queen Maria Cristina, who was a good pianist, often played duets with me. We sat at the same piano and played together, four hands. She was a gracious, sensitive woman; and she was immensely kind to me. I grew greatly attached to her. She became not only my patron but a second mother to me.
It was then too that I first came to know King Alfonso XIII. He was seven years old, a dear boy! We became very fond of each other, and he liked me to tell him stories. He had a passion for toy soldiers and we used to play with them together-lining up his little troops in marches and maneuvers. I would bring him stamps and he would sit on my knee. I have never lost my affection for the royal family or forgotten my indebtedness to them.
But this, of course, was a personal matter. It had nothing to do with my feelings about the monarchy or about court life in general. That was a world to which I felt I did not belong and which I did not like. There was much affectation among the nobility, with their airs and pretensions; and there was constant court intrigue. I had grown up among the common people, and I continued to identify myself with them. I was by upbringing and inclination a Republican. Then, too, I was a Catalan and deeply proud of the fact; and Castilian aristocrats tended to look down upon the Catalans.
Years later when Alfonso was the ruling monarch, I once told him, "You are the king, and I love you, but I am a Republican." He said, "Of course, you are. I know that. It is your right." And how could it be otherwise? True, I am an artist, but in the practice of my art I am also a manual worker. This I have been all my life. And so, when there would finally come a choice between the monarchy and the Republic, it was inevitable my sympathies would be with the Republic....
My association with the members of the royal family of Spain, however, would continue over the years. Indeed, my most recent contact took place more than seventy years after my first visit to the palace in Madrid. It occurred in the summer of 1966 when I went to Greece to conduct a performance of my peace oratorio, El Pessebre. There, in Athens, I saw Juan Carlos, the grandson of Alfonso XIII. I congratulated him for not accepting the crown under Franco. I told him, "I have known five generations of Spanish royalty, beginning with Isabel II." Juan Carlos, who had married the Greek princess, Sophia, came the following day with his wife to my hotel. They brought with them their two-year-old daughter. And so I came to know the sixth generation.
How regrettable it is that Juan Carlos has recently pledged to carry on as France's heir in Spain! And how different was the attitude of the exiled king, his grandfather, to this regime!
I had been in Madrid for almost three years when my mother said she thought that I had spent enough time on my studies there and the time had come for a change. I whould now concentrate on playing the cello, she said. I agreed with her. She suggested the possibility of our returning to Barcelona. When the count heard this proposal, he was very much opposed to it. He wanted me to remain in Madrid and work with him. He wanted me to become a composer. I would be a protege of his in the opera. My mother's view were different. "I believe," she told the count, "that with Pablo the cello comes before everything else. If his future is to be that of a composer, it can always come later, and his work on the cello won't interfere. But if he fails to concentrate on the instrument now, it will prove a serious disadvantage later." The disagreement became intense. The debate between them went on for weeks, and the situation became very strained. The queen too was against my leaving. And my father was greatly disturbed by these developments. "What do you have in mind?" he wrote my mother. "What on earth will come of this?" But my mother was adamant.
Finally a compromise solution was reached. The count agreed to my leaving Madrid on one condition-that I go to study music at the Conservatory of Music in Brussels. It was then the best music conservatory in Europe and offered excellent instruction not only in composition but also in stringed instruments. The count said that I could study composition there under Francois Gevaert, the director of the conservatory, a renowned figue in the musical world who was an old friend of his. The count told my mother and me that he would make arrangements with the queen for my pension of 250 pesetas a month to continue while I was at the conservatory. The matter was settled, and we left for Brussels. Enrique and Luis went with us. Before our departure, the count gave us a letter of introduction to Gevaert.
I have spent many happy hours of my life in Brussels, but my first visit there was not among them. It was not an auspicious occasion. The trip across France in the crowded third-class compartment of the train seemed endless, and when we finally arrived in Brussels-it was the first time I had ever set foot in a foreign land-what I saw depressed me. How different it was from sunny Catalonia! The time was winter. I hate the cold, and it was cold, damp and miserable. A fog hung over the city.
We went straightway to the Conservatory of Music to see Francois Gevaert. He was a noted musicologist and historian with a very interesting career. He came of humber origins-his father was a baker and wanted him to follow the trade, but his musical talents soon asserted themselves. As a young man, he won a wide reputation for his compositions-church music and operas. He traveled in Spain and became an authority on Spanish music. For a while he was director of music at the Paris Opera, and then he began devoting his attention to the history of music. He was a great scholar. He wrote many works. One of them was the classic Histoire et Theorie de la Musique de l'Antiquite. He had a great influence on the Count de Morphy's career and encouraged his study of the history of the lute in Spain. Shortly before Gevaert's death, this baker's son was made a baron by the Belgian king to honor him for his composition of a national hymn for the Congo.
I gave Gevaert the letter from the Count de Morphy. He was an elderly man, quite frail, with a long white beard. He read the letter slowly and carefully. We talked about the count, Madrid and music. He asked to see some of my compositions. I had brought with me a mass that I had composed, a symphonic poem, and a string quartet. He expressed surprise at my technique. "But I am sorry," he said, "I am very sorry. I am really too old now to give lessons in composition, and from what I see here, I don't think I could teach you very much." He said, "What you need most of all is to hear music, to hear all the music you can, to attend musical performances of all sorts. Brussels is not the place for that. The center of music today is Paris. That is where you must go. There you will hear the best symmphony orchestras in the world-there are four orchestras there, Lamoureux, Colonne, Padelou, and the Conservatory of Music. You will hear everything. And that is what you need." He added that the count's letter had mentioned my abilities as a cellist. "I'd like our cello professor here at the conservatory to hear you play," he said. "Could you come tomorrow morning?"
The next day I appeared at the class. I was very nervous because of the conservatory's reputation as the best school in the world for stringed instruments. I sat in the back of the class, listening to the students play. I must say I was not too greatly impressed, and I began to feel less nervous. When the class had finished, the professor-who until then had given no sign he had noticed my presence-beckoned to me. "So," he said, "I gather you're the little Spaniard that the director spoke to me about." I did not like his tone.
I said yes, that I was the one.
"Well, little Spaniard," he said, "it seems you play the cello. Do you wish to play?"
I said I would be glad to.
"And what compositions do you play?"
I said I played quite a few.
He rattled off a number of works, asking me each time if I could play the one he named, and each time I said yes-because I could. Then he turned th the class and said, "Well now, isn't that remarkable! It seems that our young Spaniard plays everything. He must be really quite amazing."
The students laughed. AT first I had been upset by the professor's manner-this was, after all, my second day in a strange country-but by now I was angry with the man and his ridicule of me. I didn't say anything.
"Perhaps," he said, "you will honor us by playing the Souvinir de Spa?" It was a flashy piece that was trotted out regularly in the Belgian school.
I said I would play it.
"I'm sure we'll hear something astonishing from this young man who plays everything," he said. "But what will you use for an instrument?"
There was more laughter from the students.
I was so furious I almost left then and there. But I thought, all right, whether he wants to hear me play or not, he'll hear me. I snatched a cello from the student nearest to me, and I began to play. The room fell silent. When I had finished, there wasn't a sound.
The professor stared at me. His face had a strange expression. "Will you please come to my office?" he said. His tone was very different than before. We walked from the room together. The students sat without moving.
The professor closed the door to his office and sat down behind his desk. "Young man," he said, "I can tell you that you have a great talent. If you study here, and if you consent to be in my class, I can promise you that you will be awarded the First Prize of the conservatory. Mind you, it's not exactly according to regulations for me to tell you this at this time, but I can give you my word."
I was almost too angry to speak. I told him, "You were rude to me, sir. You ridiculed me in front of your pupils. I do not want to remain here one second longer."
He stood up-his face was white-and he opened the door for me.
The very next day we left for Paris. As soon as we arrived there, I wrote the Count de Morphy and told him exactly what had happened in Brussels and why we had come to Paris. His reply showed his annoyance. I had disobeyed him, he said-our understanding had been that I was to go not to Paris but to study at the Brussels conservatory. "Your pension from the queen," he said, "was extended on that understanding. That is what the queen wants. And unless you return to Brussels, your pension will be discontinued." I wrote back saying that Brussels simply was not the place for me, and that, although I did not want to go against his wishes, I planned to stay in Paris. His answer indicated he was convinced I had come to Paris because of my mother's influence; but it was not so. I myself knew there was no purpose in returning to Brussels.
My pension from the queen was promptly cut off.
Those were trying days in Paris! We had counted on the pension, and without it we were virtually stranded-my mother, my two young brothers and I. We had no means of support. What were we to do? My father, who now of course worried more than ever about us, could afford to send us practically nothing.
My mother found us living quarters in what was little more than a hovel near the Porte St.-Denis. It was a very depressing neighborhood-poverty was all about us. My mother began going out every day to try to earn some money. Where she went I don't know; she used to come back with things to sew. There was barely enough for the little ones to eat.
I too of course was trying desperately to find work. Finally I got a job as a second cellist at a music hall called the Folies-Marigny on the Champs-Elysees. It was the time when Toulouse-Lautrec was painting in Paris; and now, when I look at his paintings, I think of that music hall and of the dancers doing the cancan, which was then very much the fashion. I earned four francs a day. I walked to and from the Folies-Marigny carrying my cello-it was far from where we lived but the tramway fare was fifteen centimes, and we did not have a sou to spare.
It was a bitterly cold winter. At last the strain of the work and the lack of food proved too much. I became very ill and had to stay home. My mother worked harder than ever, to feed us and buy the medicines I needed. She sewed late into the nights. She was always cheerful and did everything to keep up my spirits.
Then one day, when she came home and I was lying sick in bed, I hardly recognized her; I realized something extraordinary had happened to her. Looking at her in astonishment and dismay, I saw that she no longer had her beautiful, long, black hair. Her hair was now ragged and short. She had sold her hair to get a few extra frands for us.
She laughed about it. "Never mind," she said. "Don't think about it. It is only hair, and hair grows back."
But I was sick at heart.
Our ordeal continued. Finally I said, "Mother, how can we go on this way? Why don't we go back to Barcelona?"
"All right," she said, "let us go back to Barcelona."
And so we returned.
My father-he had been able to visit us only once during our prolonged absence in Madrid-was overjoyed to have us back. However, he was dismayed at the turn in our fortunes. The family's small savings had vanished.
But I did not feel discouraged. I had my mother's example before me.