October 7 Friday – In Kaltenleutgeben, Austria, Sam wrote to James B. Pond, asking when he saw the editor of Forum to ask about Sam’s article “About Play-Acting.” Sam had not heard back from Forum (the piece ran in the Oct. issue). He expressed hope that they would return home “just a year from now— everything promises well for that.” He also noted the passing of another old, wandering lecturer:
“I see that ‘Jeems Pipes’ is dead. This is a surprise. He was a most cheerful & even gay gray-headed man when I knew him in San Francisco 33 years ago, & I counted him indestructible. It is a warning. You & I are docketed to follow” [MTP]. Note: Stephen C. Massett (1820-1898) died on Aug. 19. See Sept 2, 1869 entry and others, Vol I.
About this time Clara Clemens decided to give up the piano and take up voice lessons. The reason usually given was that she discovered her hands were too small to do the needed performances on the piano. There are various months cited in various secondary sources for Clara’s decision, but the best primary evidence is Livy’s letter to Mary B. Cheney of this date: “Her father and I are both glad & sorry” about the decision to drop piano and take up voice aiming at a concert career.
Note: On Mar. 5 1899 Sam would write to James Ross Clemens, “Clara forsook the piano four months ago…”
which puts her decision to Dec. 1898. Clara’s reminiscence for Harnsberger gives an even later time, “Suddenly one day early in 1899” [183]. A. Hoffman gives a far earlier month, June of 1898 [423]. Why so many different times given? The mind often does not remember exact dates or even months—Sam gave four months for six months; Clara, decades later, was three months off; Hoffman gives no citation for June of 1898, except that the decision did come while the family was at Kaltenleutgeben (May – Oct.
1898). Dolmetsch illuminates the backstory in Clara’s decision:
She had apparently been persuaded to this switch by Alice Barbi, an American singer with whom she became friends. Barbi had heard Clara sing that summer at a soiree at the home of one of the aristocrats in Leschetizky’s circle who had summer houses near the Clemenses in Dr. Winternitz’s hydrotherapy resort.
Barbi was a protégé of a retired Kammersangerin (privileged diva) of the Court Opera, Marianne Brandt (stage name Marie Bischoff), one of the most acclaimed contraltos of the late nineteenth century, and Barbi somhow persuaded Frau Brandt to take Clara as a pupil during the following winter (1898-99) [106].