The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Mentor: Famous Composers, Vol. 1, Num. 41, Serial No. 41
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: The Mentor: Famous Composers, Vol. 1, Num. 41, Serial No. 41
Author: Henry T. Finck
Release date: September 9, 2015 [eBook #49921]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MENTOR: FAMOUS COMPOSERS, VOL. 1, NUM. 41, SERIAL NO. 41 ***
The Mentor, No. 41, Famous Composers
FAMOUS COMPOSERS
By HENRY T. FINCK
_Author of “Wagner and His Works,” “Success in Music,” “Chopin,” “Grieg
and His Music,” etc._
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE MENTOR
SERIAL No. 41
DEPARTMENT OF FINE ARTS
MENTOR GRAVURES
FRÉDÉRIC FRANÇOIS CHOPIN 1810-1849
FELIX MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY 1809-1847
FRANZ PETER SCHUBERT 1797-1828
ROBERT SCHUMANN 1810-1856
FRANZ LISZT 1811-1886
JOHANNES BRAHMS 1833-1897
While it is generally understood that the three great musical countries
are Italy, Germany, and France, it must not be forgotten that Poland
revolutionized the music of the pianoforte, the most popular and
universal of all instruments. That small country looms up very big
indeed in the history of the piano. Paderewski, the greatest pianist of
our time, and one of the best composers (although his day as such has
not yet come), is a Pole, and so is the pianist who ranks next to him,
Josef Hofmann. Karl Tausig, in his day, was a piano giant; while three
other Poles are well known to all music-lovers of our time,--Moszkowski
and the Scharwenka brothers, all of them composers for the same
instrument.
CHOPIN, THE SOUL OF THE PIANO
[Illustration: FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN
From a portrait made by Stattler, after original by Ary Scheffer.]
Greatest of all the Poles, however, is Frédéric François Chopin. While
his name is usually printed with the French accents, and the French
are inclined to claim him as their own because his father emigrated
from France to Poland, he himself was as thoroughly Polish in all
his sympathies as his mother, and there is reason to believe that
his paternal ancestors also came originally from Poland. Some of the
traits that have endeared his music to all players and listeners--its
elegance, its charm, its polished style--make it seem French; but the
Poles also are noted for these same qualities; and in other respects
Chopin’s music is as thoroughly and unmistakably Polish as it is an
expression of his unique genius.
This is true particularly of his polonaises and his mazurkas.
Polonaises seem to have been played originally at the coronation of
Polish kings when the aristocrats were marching past the throne; while
the mazurkas were quaint old folk dances. In Chopin’s pieces the
aristocratic and the folk elements are artistically blended, and that
is one of their principal charms. Like Luther Burbank’s wonderful new
fruits, they unite the raciness of the soil with the qualities of his
own creative genius.
[Illustration: THE CHOPIN MONUMENT]
Why does an audience invariably applaud a Chopin _valse_
enthusiastically, provided it is well played? Because the Chopin
_valse_ is both popular and artistic. No one thinks of the ballroom
while it is heard: it is enjoyed because of its enchanting melody,
its rhythmic swing, its elegance, and its exquisite harmonic changes.
Why are his _études_ applauded with no less fervor? Because, though
modestly called studies, they are dazzling displays of skill and at
the same time lofty flights of poetic fancy, astonishing in their
originality, like most of his works. “Preludes,” he called more than
two dozen of his short pieces; but they are so many precious stones,
every facet polished by a master hand.
His splendid sonatas were for a long time underrated, because he
refused to cut them according to traditional patterns; but in these
days of musical free thinking we laugh at such objections and applaud
his sonatas as much as his short pieces.
While the public loves Chopin for the reasons hinted at, experts hold
him in highest honor also because he discovered the true language of
the piano, which all the composers who came after him had to learn
to speak. By his ingenious use of the pedal to combine “scattered”
tones into chords he revealed an entirely new world of ravishing tone
colors of extraordinary richness and variety. Quite new, too, were the
dainty ornamental notes that here and there bedew his melodies like an
iridescent spray. He created not only a new style of playing, but also
pieces of new patterns, or forms; whereas most of even the greatest
masters had contented themselves with accepted traditional forms and
simply enlarging or improving them.
[Illustration: CHOPIN PLAYING IN THE SALON OF PRINCE RADZIWILL (1829)]
When Paderewski plays a Chopin mazurka, he varies the pace incessantly,
with most enchanting, poetic effect. This is called “tempo rubato.” It
was used before Chopin, notably by opera singers; but it was through
him that it became the accepted mode of interpreting all poetic music,
not only for the piano, but for the orchestra. Thanks to Chopin’s
influence, combined with that of Wagner and Liszt, no good pianist
or orchestral conductor of our time performs a piece of music in
monotonous metronomic time, except in a ballroom.
MENDELSSOHN’S MUSICAL SUNSHINE
[Illustration: THE MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY HOUSE IN HAMBURG
Moses Mendelssohn, the father of Felix, was a banker. He added
Bartholdy to the family name.]
When Mendelssohn’s parents called him Felix they chose the right name
for him; for Felix means happy, and throughout his life few things
occurred to cast on him shadows of dark clouds like those which
occasioned the gloomy moods of Chopin, Beethoven, Schumann, and Liszt.
While Chopin also had his happy moments, a vein of sadness twines
through most of his pieces. It is significant that of these pieces the
one most often heard is the funeral march from one of his sonatas;
whereas of Mendelssohn’s pieces the one most in vogue is the jubilant
wedding march from his music to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Evidently
there dwells in most souls a love of both the sad and the cheerful in
art.
There was a time when Mendelssohn’s popularity was second to that of
no other composer. His short piano pieces known as “Songs without
Words” in particular enjoyed unbounded popularity, thanks to their
tunefulness, which all could appreciate. The thing was overdone, and
as in all such cases the inevitable reaction came, these pieces being
looked on now as mere sentimental trifles. Paderewski, however, has
shown that if played in the modern way they appeal as much as ever to
music lovers. He has the audacity to use the _tempo rubato_, which
Mendelssohn would have none of; but there is reason to think he would
like it as used by Paderewski.
MENDELSSOHN’S SONGS AND CHORAL WORKS
[Illustration: MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY MONUMENT, LEIPSIC]
While the songs of Mendelssohn enjoyed for a generation as wide popular
favor as his “Songs without Words,” it is not likely that they will
ever recover their lost ground,--ground which they lost because, though
tuneful, most of them are superficial. There is no doubt a good deal
of “small talk” in many of Mendelssohn’s works, and small talk has no
enduring value. But while the songs of this master are now neglected,
his choral works, “St. Paul” and “Elijah,” still awe and thrill modern
audiences, because in them, as in the oratorios of Handel and Bach,
religious fervor is expressed in terms of noble music.
[Illustration: FELIX MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY
From a portrait painted by Horace Vernet. This is considered an
excellent likeness of the composer. The face reflects his sunny
disposition.]
It is a curious and somewhat paradoxical fact that, while Mendelssohn’s
personal sympathies were on the whole rather with the conservative
classicists in the matter of form than with the modern progressives, by
far the greatest of his works, particularly for orchestra, are those
in which he heeds the modern craving for realism and program music, as
illustrated in his “Fingal’s Cave” overture, the “Scotch” symphony, and
the “Midsummer Night’s Dream” music. The overture to this is one of
the marvels of music; for it is amazingly original from every point of
view, though written by him when he was only seventeen years old.
It is commonly assumed that Italy is the land of melody; but Theodore
Thomas used to maintain, and rightly, that the prince of melodists
was the Austrian, Franz Schubert. Tunes flowed from his brain as
spontaneously as water flows from a gushing well. He slept with his
spectacles on, so as to lose no time when he jumped out of bed to jot
down the melodies that came to him like inspirations from above. While
he read a poem, the music suitable for it often sprang from his brain,
Minerva-like.
SCHUBERT, GREATEST OF MELODISTS
[Illustration: THE SCHUBERT MEMORIAL, VIENNA]
It is this spontaneity of Schubert’s melodies that explains their
vogue, their universal popularity. Strange to say, during his life
(which, to be sure, was pathetically short) his wonderful songs were,
with a few exceptions, neglected, partly because with his melodies
there were associated harmonies and modulations which to us are
ravishing, but which to his contemporaries were “music of the future.”
The shrill dissonance of the child’s cry when he thinks the Erlking is
seizing him in the death-grip was as revolutionary and as far ahead of
the times as anything Wagner or Liszt ever wrote. It was Liszt, by the
way, who directed the world’s attention to the marvels of Schubert’s
songs by playing them in his matchless way on the piano. Seeing how
they moved audiences, the singers then took them up, and more and more
convinced the world that among song writers Schubert was indeed king.
[Illustration: SCHUBERT’S BIRTHPLACE, VIENNA
The composer was born here in 1797.]
It is one of the strangest facts in musical history that the great
masters who came before Schubert--while some of them (Haydn, Mozart,
Beethoven) wrote a considerable number of songs--reserved their best
inspirations for their operas, symphonies, and sonatas. Schubert was
the first who was willing to put his best into a “mere song,” and that
helps to explain his appeal to all music lovers.
[Illustration: FRANZ SCHUBERT
From a portrait sketch made in 1825, by W. A. Rieder.]
SCHUBERT’S INSTRUMENTAL PIECES
While he put of his best into his songs, there was plenty of it left
for his instrumental pieces. Rubinstein considered his short pieces for
piano even more marvelous than his songs, and among his symphonies
there are two (the “Unfinished,” in two movements, and the ninth) that
are as popular with high-class audiences as the best of Beethoven’s,
which they even surpass in richness and novelty of orchestral coloring
and in variety and novelty of modulation, while their melodic charm is
as great as that of his songs.
SCHUMANN, CHIEF OF ROMANTICISTS
While Schubert belongs to the romantic school, he did not follow all
of its principal methods. In so far as he wrote chiefly short pieces
and allowed them to crystallize into forms of their own (the variety of
form in his songs is astonishing), he is a romanticist; but in writing
instrumental pieces he did not associate poetic titles or stories with
them. In this respect Schumann went far beyond him in the direction of
realism and program music, and for this reason he is considered the
most thoroughly romantic of the German masters.
[Illustration: ROBERT SCHUMANN]
[Illustration: THE SCHUMANN MEMORIAL, BONN]
In his early period, in particular, he seldom wrote a piece without
suggesting in the title a poetic basis for it. It was his custom
to issue his pieces in groups, with a general title for the group,
like “Papillons” (Butterflies), “Kinderscenen,” “Faschingsschwank,”
“Kreisleriana,” and a special title for each piece in the group,
suggesting its message.
To many lovers of Schumann these early pieces are still the dearest. He
was more thoroughly romantic when he wrote them than he was in later
years, when he came too much under the influence of Mendelssohn and
the classical masters, and at the same time grew less original and
spontaneous.
It is not difficult for those who have read the romantic and pathetic
story of his life to connect the waning of his originality with the
gradual coming on of the mental disease to which he finally succumbed.
Fortunately the bulk of his works, including four admirable symphonies
and some excellent chamber music,[A] notably the glorious quintet for
piano and strings, was written before his creative power was weakened.
[A] Chamber music is the term used for pieces played by a group
(“ensemble”) of instrumentalists too small to be called an
orchestra. Most frequently these pieces are for a few players
of string instruments (quartets, quintets, etc.), with or
without piano. Program music is music that seeks to depict
or suggest a thunderstorm, the babbling of a brook, or any
incident, scene, or poetic fancy associated with it by the
composer.
It has been said that Mendelssohn would have made five pieces with the
material Schumann used for one. This highly concentrated quality of
his music makes it more difficult to understand, and explains why his
contemporaries did not appreciate him as they did Mendelssohn. It also
helps to explain the better “keeping qualities” of Schumann’s music.
[Illustration: ROBERT AND CLARA SCHUMANN]
While Mendelssohn’s songs, for instance, have, as just stated,
virtually disappeared from recital programs, Schumann’s are more
popular than ever, and seldom today is a program printed without one or
a group of them. The best, by far, of his songs are among the hundred
he wrote during the year when he married Clara Wieck, after a long
contest with her father for the possession of her heart, though it had
belonged to him for years. The popularity of Schumann’s songs is due
largely to their being the expression of this ardent love. Women have
not yet written immortal songs; but they have inspired many of them.
LISZT, THE MANY-SIDED
Richard Wagner called Liszt “the greatest musician of all the ages.”
He certainly was the greatest pianist of them all, unequaled to this
day; but he was very much more than that. In all departments of music,
except the opera and chamber music, he created a new epoch or opened
new and glorious vistas; and his influence on the musicians of his time
and those who came after him was as great as Wagner’s.
[Illustration: LISZT PLAYING AT THE HOME OF MADAME MUNKACSY
This picture, by the artist Frédéric Régamey, represents one of the
brilliant assemblages in the salon of Madame Munkacsy, in Paris. In
the picture are many portraits. Beside Liszt stands Madame Munkacsy,
next to her Gounod, and grouped in the front are Saint-Saëns, Portales,
Daudet and other notables. Munkacsy, the celebrated painter, stands at
the back on the extreme left.]
The strangest thing in Liszt’s extraordinary career is that when he was
at the height of his fame as a pianist, and fabulous sums were offered
him for recitals, he renounced his instrument, so far as concerts
were concerned. For charity he would play occasionally, and for his
friends and his pupils; but not for the paying public. This happened
thirty-nine years before he died.
[Illustration: LISZT’S HOME IN WEIMAR
It was in this house that he spent his latter years.]
Various motives prompted this action, one of them being that he
preferred creative work. Thus it came about that the loss of his
contemporaries in not hearing him play was our gain in enabling
us to hear his songs, his piano pieces, his choral and orchestral
compositions. Many of these are still “music of the future”; but their
day is dawning.
At piano recitals, in America as in Europe, no composer’s pieces are
now more favored than Liszt’s. Pianists usually place them at the end
of the program; not only because they make a brilliant close, but
because they prevent the audience from leaving before the end, as few
or none want to miss these pieces.
THE DYNAMIC EFFECTS OF LISZT
[Illustration: FRANZ LISZT
From a portrait of him in his youth painted by Ary Scheffer.]
[Illustration: LISZT AT THE PIANO
From a photograph made late in life.]
The reasons why the public is so enamoured of Liszt are not far to
seek. While Chopin is, as Rubinstein called him, “the soul of the
pianoforte,” because he makes it speak its own language as no one had
made it speak before, Liszt’s piano music is no less idiomatic, and
at the same time it is even richer in color and more varied in tonal
power, or what musicians call “dynamic effects.” Not satisfied with the
piano as such, Liszt converted it into a miniature orchestra, enabling
the pianist to thunder or to whisper in tones not previously heard from
that instrument.
Much of Liszt’s music, for both piano and orchestra, is program music:
it tells its story in tones. In “St. Francis Walking on the Waves” one
actually hears the waters, as in the orchestral “Mazeppa” one hears
the galloping of the wild steed and the groans of the man tied on
its back. The public likes music with such pictorial associations;
but it would never have taken to Liszt’s program music as it has were
it not at the same time good as music pure and simple,--interesting
melodically, rhythmically, and harmonically.
Musicians, as well as the public, admire in Liszt’s orchestral works
the same variety of new colors that enrich his piano music. They honor
him for having created new forms of music in his symphonic poems,
differing from symphonies as Wagner’s music-dramas differ from opera.
[Illustration: LISZT MONUMENT, WEIMAR]
What the public likes best of all in Liszt’s works, however, is his
Hungarian rhapsodies, in which the gipsy songs of love and war and
every phase of life are “pianized” with marvelous art, one of the
greatest charms of which is that it is absolutely unfettered and
unconventional,--a real improvisation, like the playing of gipsies
themselves.
BRAHMS, THE CONSERVATIVE
[Illustration: THE BRAHMS MEMORIAL, VIENNA]
Admirers of Liszt, and full-blooded Wagnerites, rarely care much for
Brahms; while, conversely, the Brahmites look somewhat haughtily on
those two composers, and all the other “progressives,” except Schumann,
who is exempted, not only because there is a certain affinity between
his music and that of their idol, but because he discovered Brahms,
proclaiming him the “musical Messiah.” Brahms himself once signed a
“protest” aimed against the Wagner-Liszt school; yet his bark was worse
than his bite, for his works here and there show the influence of
Wagner, and he liked some of Wagner’s operas.
Johannes Brahms is the god of the conservatives. He aimed,
half-consciously, to carry on the traditions of Beethoven, and he had
no use for modern realism and program music. His symphonies--the most
delightful of which is the second--are marked simply numbers one, two,
three, and four; and for his piano pieces he has no poetic titles after
the manner of Schumann: they make their appeal by their own beauty,
unadorned--and they have won a large audience of admirers.
Some of his songs everybody likes. They are on most programs, and are
often redemanded. The music goes well with the words, and they are
usually written most effectively for the voice, which makes the singers
favor them too. But it is in his chamber music--trios, quartets, or
sextets, for strings, with or without piano--that Brahms’ genius is
most convincing. In this department he has composed many masterworks.
In general, it may be said that, while Brahms is melodically less
spontaneous than some of the other masters, he excels most of them in
the variety and originality of his rhythms.
[Illustration: JOHANNES BRAHMS
From a special photograph by Maria Fetlinger.]
SUPPLEMENTARY READING--“Chopin: The Man and His Music,” James
Huneker; “The Life of Chopin,” Frederick Niecks; Article in
Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, “Mendelssohn,” S. S.
Stratton; “Romantic Composers,” S. G. Mason; “Songs and Song
Writers,” H. T. Finck; “Life of Schumann Told in His Letters,”
May Herbert; “Franz Liszt,” James Huneker; “Life of Johannes
Brahms,” Florence May; Articles on the Composers in Grove’s
Dictionary.
THE MENTOR
ISSUED SEMI-MONTHLY BY
The Mentor Association, Inc.
381 Fourth Ave., New York, N. Y.
Volume 1 Number 41
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, FOUR DOLLARS. SINGLE COPIES TWENTY CENTS.
FOREIGN POSTAGE, 75 CENTS EXTRA. CANADIAN POSTAGE, 50 CENTS EXTRA.
ENTERED AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y., AS SECOND-CLASS
MATTER. COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC., PRESIDENT
AND TREASURER, R. M. DONALDSON; VICE-PRESIDENT, W. M. SANFORD;
SECRETARY, L. D. GARDNER.
_Editorial_
A favorite phrase of ours has just come home to us in an oddly altered
form. Its character has been completely reversed, and yet its value
remains much the same. The phrase that we used referred to one of the
advantages offered by The Mentor Association. We stated that The Mentor
gives the facts that people ought to know and want to know about a
subject, and we pointed out that a reader of The Mentor would find
himself in a position to talk intelligently about many subjects that
he had not understood before. Most people like to talk about things
that they have come to know. We reckoned without one thoughtful reader,
however, for he has come back at us with this: “I like The Mentor and
it helps me. The more I read it the more I realize the value of having
knowledge ready at hand. But it does not make me feel like talking
_more_ on various subjects, rather like talking _less_ and listening
more.”
* * * * *
And so our phrase, completely changed in color, returns to us. We are
satisfied--let our reader be assured of that--for the phrase is just as
valuable in the form in which it returns as in that in which we sent
it out. We congratulate our reader. He is on the way to the greater
benefits in the field of knowledge. He wants to know in order to _grow_
rather than to _show_.
* * * * *
It is a great satisfaction to us to have readers bring home a phrase,
especially when they amplify the idea themselves. Some time ago we
called attention to the value of the odd moment, and we cited the
case of a French woman who had employed so profitably her odd moments
that in the course of a few years she had read during those moments
an astonishing number of standard works. This has brought to mind
several other striking illustrations of industry in cultivating the odd
moment. Madame de Staël was a keen minded woman, actively interested
in the public affairs of her time--and withal a very cultivated woman.
In the midst of troublous social and political conditions she was a
vigorous, energetic figure, and during all her activities she managed
to accumulate a fund of information that was a source of amazement
to her friends. “How do you gather all this knowledge?” she was once
asked. “What time do you find to read? You seem to us to be busily
engaged through all your working hours.” “You forget my sedan chair,”
was Madame de Staël’s answer. While being carried in her chair she had
as a companion a book or some bit of profitable reading, with which she
mentally capitalized those brief intervals in her busy day.
* * * * *
We have been informed that a very eminent American preacher read no
less than one hundred books in the course of three years, at his dining
table. During that period of time he had always a book beside him at
the table, and, whenever delays occurred, he would advance a few pages.
The inference from this is that the divine was either a very fast
reader, or that his table service was very slow; but in either case the
results accomplished are an impressive demonstration of the value of
the odd moment.
* * * * *
Suppose, now, that the essential information from lengthy books
should be put into an article of not over 2,500 words, by a competent
authority, and this material be put before you in a simple, readable
manner, accompanied by illustrations. Would not that be the best
possible mental fare for the odd moment? That is what The Mentor does.
In the course of a year a reader of The Mentor gets the substance of
the contents of many books. And it takes _only a few minutes_ to read a
single number of The Mentor.
[Illustration: FRANZ LISZT]
FAMOUS COMPOSERS
FRANZ LISZT
Monograph Number One in The Mentor Reading Course
In Franz Liszt the lamp of genius burned brightly, and it lighted
many halls in the Temple of Music. He was the most versatile of great
musicians. He was the supreme pianoforte virtuoso. He was a conductor
and champion of Wagner’s “music of the future,” teacher of great
pianists, writer on music and musicians, and a composer of pianoforte
pieces, songs, symphonic orchestral pieces, cantatas, masses, psalms,
and oratorios.
He was born in Raiding, Hungary, October 22, 1811. At an early age,
through the financial aid of a Hungarian magnate, he began a life of
study. He first played in public at the age of eleven, and at thirteen
made a tour through Switzerland, Paris, and the French provinces. He
also went to England. At fifteen he was teaching and spending much
of his time reading the religious, political, and literary works of
his time. He was especially interested in the Saint Simonists and the
romantic mysticism of Enfantin and the teachings of Abbe Lamennais.
Defying public censure, he played compositions of Beethoven and Weber,
a daring thing in those days.
His development as a virtuoso began in 1831, when Paganini, the famous
violinist, first went to Paris. The success of Chopin, together with
Paganini’s art, inspired him to practise. He transcribed many pieces,
with a view to getting the effect of Paganini’s violin caprices on the
piano, and perfect his own technic. He transcribed Berlioz’s “Symphonic
Fantastique,” which ultimately led to the composition of his Symphonic
Poems.
A few years later (1835) he met Comtesse d’Agoult, whose pen name
was Daniel Stern, a friend and would-be rival to George Sand. Their
friendship was world famous, and it exerted a great influence on the
life and art of Liszt.
A patent of nobility was conferred upon him by the Emperor of Austria,
and a sword of honor, from the magnates of Hungary, was presented to
him in the name of the nation in 1840.
He then made a concert tour of all the leading cities in Europe, and
made a great deal of money, much of which he gave to charity. In 1845
he completed the Beethoven Statue at Bonn, at his own expense, as the
funds for this memorial had been accumulating very slowly.
Immediately following this period he began an active writing career,
during which he wrote articles of permanent value on the early
operas of Wagner and the work of Berlioz. He was one of the earliest
supporters of Wagner, and remained loyal to him through life. He wanted
to found a school of composers as well as pianists, and started a
movement at Weimar which resulted in a private production of Wagner’s
“Lohengrin” and “Tannhäuser,” as well as many pieces of Schumann,
Weber, Schubert, Berlioz, and others.
Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein was collaborating with him at this time on
many works. She was desirous of marrying the musician, who did not
care to be joined to her, and to escape the match he retired to Rome,
where he was ordained in 1865 by Cardinal Hohenlohe, and joined the
Franciscan order. He received pupils gratis, and taught for several
months of each year at the Hungarian Conservatory, Budapest. The last
ten years of his life were spent at Bayreuth, where he died July 31,
1886.
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 1, No. 41, SERIAL No. 41
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
[Illustration: FELIX MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY]
FAMOUS COMPOSERS
FELIX MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY
Monograph Number Two in The Mentor Reading Course
The life of Felix Mendelssohn strikes one because of its remarkable
activity, begun at a very early age. The son of a wealthy banker, he
was born at Hamburg on February 3, 1809. As the French occupied Hamburg
in 1811, it was necessary for the Mendelssohn family to move to Berlin,
where Felix received his first training from his mother.
At the age of eleven Felix was composing with extraordinary rapidity,
producing sixty pieces during the first year of composition, and the
next year he was writing opera.
The Mendelssohn family had established the custom of holding musical
festivals in the dining room of their home on alternate Sunday
mornings. The music was rendered by a small orchestra under the
direction of Felix. For each of these festivals the boy had some new
composition. Thus, at the festival on his fifteenth birthday a private
performance of his first three-act opera was held.
At the age of sixteen his father took him to Paris, where he met
Rossini and Meyerbeer and other well known composers. With these men he
worked and discoursed on music as if he were their equal in experience.
When only a little over seventeen he completed “A Midsummer Night’s
Dream,” which made an immediate success. During 1829 the composer made
his first of ten trips to England, where “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”
was produced. On this occasion the director of the performance left the
entire score in a coach on his return from the theater; but Mendelssohn
wrote another from memory without a single error.
The next few years were full of activity. Mendelssohn produced many
compositions, and filled the position of director of music, first at
Düsseldorf, then at the Gewandhaus, Leipsic. The latter position was
the highest honor in the German music world.
In 1837 he was married to Cécile Charlotte Sophie Jeanrenaud, whom he
took on his concert tours, and it was during a tour in England with her
that he received a call to Berlin from the king of Prussia. He left
Berlin with the title of Kapellmeister.
The worry of his Berlin duties, a number of which he frankly told the
king he could not fill, on account of the work at the Gewandhaus, began
to wear on his health. Despite his weakened condition, he continued to
do things. In 1843 he opened a college of music. Three years later he
introduced Jenny Lind at the Gewandhaus, and then made a tour with her
in England.
His activity was telling on his failing health, and when he reached
Frankfort in 1847, returning from England, the news of his sister
Fanny’s death caused him to collapse in the street. Five weeks later
he had sufficiently recovered to take a trip with his family to
Interlaken, where he remained until September, when he returned to
Leipsic and lived in privacy.
On October 9 he asked Madam Frege to sing his latest songs. She left
the room to get some lights, and on her return found him insensible. He
lingered until November 4, when he died in the presence of his wife,
his brother Paul, and three friends. A cross marks the site of his
grave in Berlin.
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 1, No. 41, SERIAL No. 41
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
[Illustration: FRANZ PETER SCHUBERT]
FAMOUS COMPOSERS
FRANZ SCHUBERT
Monograph Number Three in The Mentor Reading Course
Of all the great masters of music, Franz Schubert had the least
instruction of any. His life was full of the gloom and sorrow that
surrounded so many of the earlier composers.
He was born in Vienna, January 31, 1797, one of a family of fourteen,
nine of whom died in infancy. His first music lessons were given by his
father on the violin and by his brother on the pianoforte. In 1808 he
was sent to preparatory school; but could not stay after 1813, as he
had failed in examinations. Although the Emperor of Austria offered him
a scholarship, he refused it.
He began composing at the age of sixteen, and at twenty-five had
written over 600 pieces. He had much difficulty with the publication
of his works; but finally succeeded in making a commission arrangement
with a publishing house.
Just how he lived from 1813 to 1818 no one knows. His music was not
published until after that time, and he never appeared in public. It
was not until the middle of 1818 that he was engaged as teacher for
the family of Johann Esterházy. He called on Beethoven with some songs
that he had dedicated to that great master. Beethoven was so deaf that
all conversation had to be carried on by pencil and paper. Schubert was
so bashful that Beethoven’s first remark about some of the variations
caused him to lose his head. He rushed from the house in terror. This
was in 1822.
The next two years were full of disappointment; for he met with failure
at the first production of “Alfonso and Estrella.” This broke down his
health. He left Vienna with the Esterházys for six months, and returned
in somewhat better health.
By 1826 there was some demand for his songs, but an almost total
ignoring of his larger works. His application for Kapellmeister was
rejected, and also that for director in the Haftheater. Just before
Beethoven’s death he paid a second visit, and found the great master
favorably inclined toward his work. Three weeks later he was pallbearer
at Beethoven’s funeral.
March 26, 1828, was the date of his first public concert of his own
compositions. This netted him one hundred and sixty dollars. In the
fall of the same year he fell ill, and died November 19. He was buried
in Währing, “three places higher up than Beethoven.” A marble tomb with
a bust of the composer placed between two columns marks his grave.
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 1, No. 41, SERIAL No. 41
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
[Illustration: ROBERT SCHUMANN]
FAMOUS COMPOSERS
ROBERT SCHUMANN
Monograph Number Four in The Mentor Reading Course
Although Schumann had begun to take a hand at composition before he was
seven years old, he did not begin a real study of music until he was
twenty. He was born at Zwickau, June 8, 1810, and lived there until
1826, when he began the study of law at the University of Leipsic.
He wrote verse when at the university, and read more poetry and
literature than law. In 1830, he took up the study of music under two
masters. Herr Wieck was his teacher of pianoforte, and Heinrich Donn of
composition.
Although he had already composed a great deal, it was not until after
1840 that he studied harmony. Friends calling on him and his wife
one evening said that they found the master and his wife “studying
Cherubini’s counterpoint for the first time.”
His opportunity to become a virtuoso was lost when he lamed the fourth
finger of his right hand while trying a stunt in practising. Schumann
believed that he could train himself to reach beyond an octave by the
use of his fourth finger, and it was in an attempt to do this that he
disabled his hand.
With his pianoforte master Wieck, he founded a music journal, which
he edited alone from 1835 to 1844. He attempted concerts in Vienna
in 1838; but failed and returned to Leipsic. In 1840 he received the
degree of Ph. D. from the University of Jena. He married Clara Wieck
in the same year; although her father objected strongly to the match.
His wife, under the name of Clara Schumann, became one of the most
famous pianists and teachers in Europe. So the musician’s fame went
to his wife; while Schumann made fame for himself as a composer. He
became teacher of score reading in the college that Mendelssohn founded
at Leipsic in 1843, and in 1847 conducted the Liedertafel. In 1850 he
succeeded Ferdinand Hiller as general music director of Düsseldorf.
Owing to insanity, which threatened him as early as 1833, he had to
resign in 1853, and in 1854 he jumped into the Rhine. He was committed
to an asylum at Endenish, where he died July 29, 1856. He was buried in
Bonn. A simple headstone marks his grave.
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 1, No. 41, SERIAL No. 41
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
[Illustration: FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN]
FAMOUS COMPOSERS
FRÉDÉRIC FRANÇOIS CHOPIN
Monograph Number Five in The Mentor Reading Course
“Imagine a delicate man of extreme refinement of mien and manner,
sitting at the piano and playing with no sway of body and scarcely any
movement of the arms, depending entirely upon his narrow, feminine
hands and slender fingers!”
This is the picture of Chopin as seen by an amateur pupil. This great
pianist, the inspiration of Liszt and the expounder of Polish dance
music and national songs, was born at Zela Zowa Wola, near Warsaw,
March 1, 1809. He was supported at college at Warsaw by an annuity of
one hundred and twenty dollars, the gift of Prince Antoine Radziwill,
who had written music for Goethe’s “Faust.”
The friendship of the prince is what brought Chopin into the circle of
the most graceful and refined society of the early nineteenth century,
that of Poland.
At nineteen Chopin made his début as a pianist in Vienna. Robert
Schumann heard him play his first piece, “Don Giovanni Fantasie,”
which led him to remark that the pianist was “the boldest and proudest
spirit of the times.” Just after this same concert the leading German
musical journal said, “M. Chopin has placed himself in the first rank
of pianists,” and praised “his delicacy of touch, his rare mechanical
dexterity, and the splendid clearness of his phrasing.”
In 1831 he stopped at Paris when on his way for an intended tour in
England. He stayed there and made that city his permanent home. It was
at this time that he met Madame Dudevant, better known by her literary
pseudonym, George Sand, who was destined to have a great influence on
his life.
Six years later, in failing health, he went to Majorca, where he
recovered for a time, due to the constant attention and tender care of
George Sand. However, in 1840 the pulmonary disease attacked him again,
and the last years of his life were a constant struggle against ill
health.
Chopin brought a new spirit into music, a new feeling and a new technic
into piano playing. He was regarded with admiration not unmixed
with awe. As his life drew near its end the music world watched and
worshiped him as it might a divine spirit. He died October 17, 1849.
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 1, No. 41, SERIAL No. 41
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
[Illustration: JOHANNES BRAHMS]
FAMOUS COMPOSERS
JOHANNES BRAHMS
Monograph Number Six in The Mentor Reading Course
The life of Johannes Brahms was an unsettled and wandering one. It was
not until his later years that he chose a definite city for his home.
He was born in Hamburg, May 7, 1833, the son of a double-bass player in
a theater, who was his first teacher. His life was uneventful until the
age of twenty, when he began his public career with a concert tour in
company with Remenyi, the Hungarian violinist.
Joachim, the famous student of Mendelssohn, attended the concert at
Göttingen, where Brahms was to play the “Kreutzer” sonata of Beethoven.
The piano turned out to be a semitone below the required pitch. Brahms
played the piece from memory, transposing it from A to B flat. Joachim
discerned what the feat implied, and after the concert introduced
himself to the pianist, laying the foundation of a lifelong friendship,
through which Brahms met Liszt and Schumann. The latter, after hearing
but a few of his compositions, pronounced him “the master of the music
of the future.”
The Prince of Lippe-Detmold engaged him as choir director and music
master in 1854. He kept the position a few years and then resigned. He
then wandered about, giving occasional concerts at Hamburg and Zurich.
In 1863 he was appointed director of the Singakademie; but resigned
within a year.
He seems to have had no public activity or settled work for the next
four years, when he went on a concert tour with Joachim, and later
with Stockhausen. In 1871 he began to direct the concerts of the
“Gesellschaft der Musik-freunde,” which he continued to do until 1874.
He spent the remainder of his life in Vienna, whence he took journeys
to Italy in the spring and Switzerland in the summer.
He refused to go to England to take an honorary degree, Doctor of
Music, offered by Cambridge University. In 1881 the University of
Breslau conferred an honorary Ph. D. on him. Before his death he was
granted two more honors. He was created a knight of the Prussian order,
“Pour le Mérité,” in 1886, and he gained the freedom of his town in
1889. He died at Vienna, April 3, 1897.
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 1, No. 41, SERIAL No. 41
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MENTOR: FAMOUS COMPOSERS, VOL. 1, NUM. 41, SERIAL NO. 41 ***
Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.
Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.
START: FULL LICENSE
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:
• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation.”
• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
works.
• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.
Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.
This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.