Albert stared at his soup while he collected his thoughts. Was his aunt serious? Just two years before she’d been constantly nagging him because he didn’t like to read anything. Now that he was reading the newspapers daily, she continued to complain. “Aunt Sophie,” Albert began, “I’ve learned so many interesting things from the newspapers. It’s like reading history, only when it’s happening instead of twenty years afterward.”
Aunt Sophie huffed. “I doubt you’re reading current events,” she replied. “I’ve watched the way you follow that awful story about the man murdering women in England.”
Albert turned to his uncle. “Uncle Louis, surely you can see it’s good for a young man to know what’s going on in the world?”
Uncle Louis looked uncomfortable. Albert knew he rarely contradicted his wife. “Well . . . ” he began after thinking a minute. “Let’s put the boy to the test and see whether or not he’s just reading the sensational parts of the newspapers. Albert, who are the princes of Greece?”
“Constantine, George, Nicholas, and Andrew,” Albert replied.
“Quite right,” Uncle Louis said with a nod. He went on to quiz Albert about the current ruler of the Balkans, the members of the French cabinet, and several other questions before he turned back to his wife. “Well, Sophie, I think the boy reads more than the gossip pages. He seems to have a firm grasp on what’s happening in the world. I think he’s making good use of the newspapers.”
Aunt Sophie nodded, and Albert smiled to himself. He had impressed his uncle with his knowledge—something not easily done. From then on Albert was completely free to read the newspapers as he chose, and often during dinner he had long, interesting conversations with Uncle Louis about current events.
Aunt Sophie was still determined, however, to “improve” Albert’s reading. The next thing she picked on was the way he read books. Aunt Sophie read a book slowly and methodically from cover to cover. Albert, on the other hand, read through a book haphazardly, skipping parts that didn’t interest him and jumping from one part to another. If he liked what he read, he would go back and read the entire book. If he didn’t like what he read, he quickly moved on to another book.
By now, judging from his aunt’s frowning glances, Albert was aware that she didn’t approve of his reading style. One evening as the two sat reading at the table, Aunt Sophie tackled the issue. “Albert, you must slow down when you read,” she began. “You don’t give yourself time to appreciate a book’s style. That’s the most important thing to consider and enjoy as you read. What you do is ‘sniff’ through a book as fast as you can, completely missing its style.”
Albert took a deep breath, ready to reply, and then he thought better of it. Aunt Sophie considered herself an expert on the proper way to read a book, and he knew it was pointless to challenge her on it. “Yes, Aunt. Thank you for the advice,” was all he said. But inside Albert knew exactly how to judge a book and its style. If, as he sniffed through it, he skipped over many sentences, paragraphs, or even whole pages, obviously the book’s style was bad, and he didn’t want to continue reading it. If he found himself not wanting to skip sentences and paragraphs, the book exhibited good style. It was simple to Albert, and he wondered why his aunt worried so much.
After church one Sunday morning, as they walked back to the apartment, Aunt Sophie brought up the topic of the new church organist. “He’s very good, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” Albert replied. “I very much enjoyed listening to him play.”
“His name is Herr Eugène Munch,” Aunt Sophie continued. “He’s come to St. Stephen’s after studying music in Berlin. He is now accepting piano students. You will start lessons with him next Wednesday after school.”
Albert was shocked. He could tell that Eugène Munch was a gifted organist. Perhaps one day, he told himself, Herr Munch would let him try playing St. Stephen’s beautiful organ.
While Albert was glad to be free of Aunt Sophie’s rigid music lessons, things didn’t start out particularly well with Herr Munch. Albert’s new teacher would assign him a piece of music to practice and play at their next class. But when Albert sat down at the piano at his uncle and aunt’s apartment to practice, his mind wandered. He would find himself improvising and playing the music the way he wanted it to sound instead of how his teacher wanted it played.
One week, Albert was given a Mozart sonata to learn for his next lesson. As usual, his mind drifted off as he tried to learn the music. At the next music class as he played the sonata, Albert could tell by the way Herr Munch paced the floor and scowled that he wasn’t happy with his playing. Finally, the music teacher let out a roar. “You have ruined my beautiful Mozart. Such wonderful music, and you play it like you are playing a barrel organ.” With that, Herr Munch snatched the music from the piano so quickly that it looked like the pince-nez eye glasses perched precariously on the bridge of his nose might fly off.
“What can I do with you?” the teacher grumbled as he sorted through a pile of music. “Learn this for next week,” he said, shoving at Albert the music for Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words, opened to no. 1 “Andante con moto in E Major.” “I have no doubt you will spoil it for me as you have just done with Mozart. If you have no feeling for music, I cannot put it in you.”
Walking home after the lesson, Albert was stung by Herr Munch’s words. “If you have no feeling for music . . . !” For most of Albert’s life, music had been one of his greatest pleasures. There and then Albert decided to show his music teacher that his assessment of him was wrong. He had a deep feeling for music, Eugène Munch would see. Throughout the week Albert diligently practiced. Over and over he worked on it until he knew he was playing with feeling and passion. His efforts paid off.
As Albert sat down at the piano to play, Herr Munch asked him, “Are you about to spoil Mendelssohn for me?” His words rolled off Albert, who placed his hands on the piano keys and began playing. When Albert had finished, Herr Munch walked over to him, placed his hands on Albert’s shoulders, and simply said, “Thank you.” Albert felt a chill run down his spine. He’d done it. He had proved he did have a feeling for music. From then on Albert focused hard on playing music with feeling, and he and Herr Munch became close friends.
In 1890 Albert turned fifteen, the age at which all Lutheran children were confirmed into the Lutheran Church. Albert found the confirmation classes conducted by Pastor Wennagel difficult to relate to. He felt the pastor gave simplistic answers to difficult questions regarding faith. Nonetheless, on Palm Sunday Albert joined the group of young people walking in a processional from the church vestry to the altar. The morning sun beamed through the vivid stained-glass windows, and Albert’s heart was full as he heard the sound of the organ grow louder. Herr Munch was playing one of his favorite hymns, “Lift Up Your Heads, O Ye Gates.” It was a stirring moment that Albert knew he would always remember.
Many things changed following confirmation. One of the most important, as far as Albert was concerned, was that Herr Munch suggested it was time for him to begin playing the church organ. Excitement pulsed through Albert the first time he climbed the stairs into the organ loft of St. Stephen’s Church. The organ was magnificent. Albert slid onto the bench in front of the manuals and stared at them. What sounds those keys made in the hands of a gifted organist like Herr Munch! Before long, his teacher assured him, Albert would be playing Bach’s stirring music on the organ. Albert could hardly wait.
Things also were looking up back in Gunsbach. Albert’s family moved into a new, much larger manse, a gift from the son of the church’s previous pastor. Sunlight streamed in through the many windows. With all the sunlight, Albert’s father’s health began to improve. About the same time, a distant relative of Albert’s mother died and left her an inheritance. It wasn’t enough to make the family rich, but it certainly meant that his mother was less concerned about money than she had been for years.
Despite the family’s extra income, Albert didn’t want to ask his parents for money to buy something he really wanted—his own bicycle. Instead, he set about earning it himself. Although he’d found mathematics particularly difficult, Albert had applied himself to the subject and was now near the top of his class. He decided to tutor younger students in math and save the money he earned for a bicycle.
By now, Albert had found a rhythm to his studies. He had to work hard at most subjects but now consistently got good grades. In August 1893, he passed his final written and oral tests. His years of studying at the gymnasium in Mulhouse were behind him, and Albert was eager to start at the University of Strasbourg in the fall. In the meantime, he headed back to Gunsbach to visit his family.
At the beginning of October 1893, a month before Albert was due to start his studies in philosophy and theology at the University of Strasbourg, he was sitting on a Paris-bound train. The trip was a surprising turn of events for him. Following graduation from the gymnasium at Mulhouse, his father’s two oldest brothers, Uncle Charles and Uncle Auguste, had sent Albert a train ticket to come visit them in Paris, where they lived. Albert had never been to Paris before, and there was a lot he wanted to see and do in the city.
Uncle Charles, a high school German teacher, met Albert at the Paris train station. Together they caught a fiacre, or horse-drawn cab. As the horse clopped along, several automobiles passed the fiacre in both directions. “It’s getting to be a problem,” Uncle Charles told Albert. “There are so many automobiles on the road now, and they go wherever they want, cutting off horses and scaring cyclists. Thank goodness the city is doing something about it. Look,” he said, pointing at one of the passing vehicles. “The Paris police have passed a law that each automobile driving in the city must have a metal plate bearing the owner’s name and address on its left side. It’s the first law like it in the world, I believe. Maybe that will make them slow down a little. I’m sure one vehicle passed us going ten miles an hour when I came to collect you.”
Albert nodded, recalling the first time he had seen a bicycle back in Gunsbach. Now roads were being overrun by another invention—noisy automobiles. The world was certainly moving forward.
Uncle Charles and his wife, Louise, welcomed Albert into their fashionable home in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Albert had met their three children, his cousins, when they had visited Gunsbach. Georges was two months younger than Albert, Emile was sixteen years old, and Anne Marie was eleven. It felt good to be among young people again after having lived alone with Uncle Louis and Aunt Sophie for nearly ten years.
“There are many people to introduce you to,” Uncle Charles told Albert. “You’ll find Paris an exciting city compared to Gunsbach or even Mulhouse.” He laughed, and Albert laughed with him. Albert was already impressed with the size of Paris. Over the next few days, his cousins took him to the Louvre art museum and the recently erected Eiffel Tower, built to be the entrance archway for the 1889 World’s Fair. Albert marveled at the tower’s height and its latticed wrought-iron structure. The four cousins also went to the enormous department store Le Bon Marché on rue de Sèvres, and they carried on to see the equally large Notre-Dame cathedral. Once inside the church, Albert was anxious to see the pipe organ. It was impressive. Twenty-five years earlier, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll had built the organ using pipework from the former organ it replaced. While the organ was quite a spectacle, Albert knew it wasn’t the grandest organ in Paris. Aristide Cavaillé-Coll’s masterpiece was the organ in Saint-Sulpice, the second-largest church in Paris after Notre-Dame. In fact, Albert harbored a secret dream of meeting Charles-Marie Widor, organist at Saint-Sulpice, while in Paris. Widor was probably the most famous organist and organ music composer in the world.
