How The Masters Waited And Worked For Success

I am continuing my love of forgotten materials about music. These sources seem to provide much deeper insight into musical development than their contemporary counterparts. This particular article (from The Etude: Vol. 26, No. 10) on the how master musicians worked for success was written by the Brooklyn Music Teacher Former Head of State Association, Carl G Schmidt.

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How The Masters Waited And Worked For Success: Tales of Persistence and Patience that Paid in the End

One of the most frequently urged objections to the study of music is the woeful lack of financial success attending it.

Few men nowadays, however, are willing to make sacrifices for the sake of music. And, few have the strength and earnestness of purpose necessary for the accomplishment of great ends. Furthermore, fewer still have this end in view. This is the time when men of ideas, not ideals, are in demand, and yet what the world needs today in all its professional and business relationships is idealism.

The man of affairs is prone to sneer at the idealist, since this busy world of ours and the spirit of the age demand money, strenuousness and deeds accomplished, yet the men who really accomplish most along these very lines are the men whose ideal of strength of will and purpose is the highest. He who proclaims himself the apostle of right and purity and lives up to his claims must be prepared to meet every description of raillery and encounter unexpected defeat, still in the long run, he will win and the world will be better because he has lived.

What a Musician Needs

A musician needs determination and strength of character. He must not permit himself to be swerved from his purpose by any event, great or small. No one has ever yet accomplished his aim who has been influenced by the unjust criticisms of his generation. The man who is right and who knows he is right can well afford to stand the buffeting which every one is bound to receive who proclaims a hitherto unknown principle and adheres to it. Immediate success has very seldom been won, but it is equally certain that in time his work will receive recognition.

From a monetary standpoint then the outlook is not encouraging; but who are the men who have achieved eminence in any art? Are they those who sought personal financial success or those who forgot self in the great effort to give to the world something of their innermost thoughts and feelings? Those who had a message to deliver and who in spite of all opposition and the sneers of their fellow-countrymen continued to strive and work along their lines of thought until they had the satisfaction of seeing their work finished, if not universally recognized?

Influence of the Greats

The efforts of such men as Berlioz, Wagner, Dvorak, Elgar, MacDowell, Paderewski and numerous others read like impossible histories, and yet we all know that these are men who have accomplished and whose work will influence music forever. How many among us would be willing to undergo disappointment, sorrow, yes and even hunger, for the sake of an ideal? Or, how long would the average American labor at music if he had to forego food so that he could purchase music paper? How many men are willing to face defeat and ridicule, hoping against hope, watching each mail, striving, struggling, fearing, only to meet one cruel disappointment after another, until at last, like a battered ship, they lie crushed and to all appearances defeated?

Do we wonder that the men who have the mental and physical strength to overcome such obstacles really create and leave a legacy for all future? The story of their lives should prove a constant lesson for those who become disheartened and surrender their best simply because it makes life easier and adds to a temporary reputation.

How Wagner Worked For Success

Richard Wagner was ridiculed and scoffed at by almost the entire musical press. Few critics ever had a kind word for him, he was compelled to compose light music, to even spend days at the drudgery of copying, and he made a miserable pittance by poorly paid newspaper articles. He was reduced to the extremity of pawning his goods to obtain enough money to purchase food. Men whom he often befriended had no kind word for him. And all because he would not compose music that was agreeable to the masses, something they could easily understand.

He was judged an egotist and the kindest word said for him was that he idealized, was not practical. The world had no use for him, still he did not despair; for months and years he labored on, perfecting every detail of his work, writing his own poetry and dreaming of the day when his fancies would become real and the world would recognize his greatness. His, too, was a gradual growth. “The Flying Dutchman” was the first of his efforts to mark a great advance in the operatic world.

Rienzi and The Flying Dutchman

“Rienzi” was filled with scenic beauty and grand orchestral effects, although on a much larger scale than any opera heretofore attempted; it was in a line with the later successes of Weber and at once became very popular. In “The Flying Dutchman” he depicts his characters without regard to popular stage effects, the music and scenery is somber in character, the weird story of the Dutchman who was eventually saved through the redeeming power of true love called for no spectacular display, and the public stood aghast at the audacity of the man who dared to inflict anything so nearly true to life; they wished to be amused, not educated, and so the public and the critics universally condemned the work.

But Wagner did not for that reason give up his ideal; instead, he went right to work and composed other works. “Lohengrin,” “Tannhauser,” “Tristan,” “The Nibelungen Ring,” and “Parsifal” follow each other in succession, and with them came gradual recognition and success fairly wrung from the arms of an adverse world. The man who had starved and worried and then been driven from his country lived to see his ideal consummated and an enlightened public kneeling at the shrine of Bayreuth.

Dvorak’s Mission Worked For Success

Dvorak has done more than any other man to call the attention of the world to the peculiar characteristics of Bohemian music. As a young man, he was forced to abandon the study of music and work in a butcher shop and spend [his] most valuable years in all kinds of drudgery. His first compositions were ridiculed. Every assistance was denied him. He even went hungry so as to purchase music paper or to attend a concert. But he kept on trying and finally found the correct way of expressing his thoughts.

People often imagine that men like Beethoven, Schumann, Berlioz, Dvorak, MacDowell and Elgar obtained all their facility in expressing thoughts through inspiration and had comparatively little studying to do. There never was a greater mistake. Beethoven wrote hundreds of exercises. He was not satisfied with a theme until he had written and rewritten it and it had become a thing of vitality and beauty.

Imagine what time and thought he spent on his immortal symphonies. How incomplete to him his first sketch, and how brave to continue in spite of illness and continued deafness and disappointment! There is hardly a name in all the history of music which has earned a place for itself without enormous effort and untiring determination to succeed. These lives are open history anyone who wishes may read, and everyone interested in music should know of the trials and struggles of the men whose names are now familiar in the homes of culture throughout the world.

The Talent for Hard Work

The greatest talent in the world is the talent for hard work, incessant study, untiring zeal, unwavering sacrifice, and he who possesses these is in line for success.

It is not only the composer who has to struggle to obtain recognition, for few nowadays are striving for that goal, whereas many are endeavoring to attain fame through the concert stage; here again one needs untiring zeal and courage: years must be spent in serious preparation and often through failure success is eventually achieved.

It is said of Paderewski that he stopped teaching at the Strasburg Conservatory of Music and determined to try his future as a concert pianist because he was refused a raise in salary of ten dollars a month, that is from fifty to sixty dollars. Further, it happened to be the good fortune of the writer to attend Paderewski’s debut in Paris in the fall of 1889. About five hundred invitations were sent out by the firm of Erard Co. to musicians of Paris to attend a Pianoforte Recital to be given in Salle Erard by a Polish pianist named Paderewski; not more than three hundred attended that concert.

Leading to Success

I still never forget the thin, pale, almost cadaverous looking young man who stepped upon the platform of that little hall. At first he awakened only an admiring interest, although everyone recognized the beauty of his tone coloring, but when he finished, playing Beethoven’s “Appassionata Sonata” the audience rose as one man and cheered themselves hoarse. Here at last was deserved recognition, and from that moment Paderewski’s success was assured. The following week he played at one of the Lameroux concerts to an audience of three thousand people, and the same scenes of excitement followed. His success is now world history, and he is probably one of the greatest pianists the world has ever seen, and he became so because he had the courage to throw over his employment and, secure in the knowledge of his art and earnest in his convictions, he went ahead and earned success.

Lillian Nordica traveled all through Europe singing to small audiences, renting her own halls, often not meeting expenses and yet gaining experience and fame until now she is ranked as one of the world’s greatest dramatic sopranos.

The Common Thread

Every artist of note has had some great upward struggle, but would they have succeeded if they had simply folded their hands and despaired or waited until success came their way? Never! The young student should remember that nothing worth while comes without effort. It is only those men who fight on and who hold themselves erect, unabashed at failure, who succeed.

It is worthwhile to go hungry if you can enforce your ideal. Also, It is worthwhile to suffer defeat if you make that failure a stepping stone to success. It is worthwhile to be ridiculed if you are certain through years of preparation that you have a truth to proclaim, and, above all, forget the almighty dollar. Work on and on! Keep your idea! before you, and certain as night follows day just so certain will success eventually crown your efforts.

From The Etude: Vol. 26, No. 1 (October 1906)

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Chadwick Becks

I have two degrees in guitar performance and was privileged to study under Aaron Shearer, Tom Kikta, David Skantar, Ken Karsh, Tim Bedner, and currently Christopher Berg. Outside my editorial work on this blog, I teach full-time across many genres including classical, jazz, blues, rock, funk, and metal.

How The Masters Waited And Worked For Success