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In this I did not deviate in the least from the composer's text while we played together, but in the solo parts I yielded freely to my own imagination, and introduced several novelties, which seemed to annoy my adversary.
In 1860, when the leaves of thirty-three autumns had fallen upon the composer's grave and the Countess had gone to her last resting-place, a voice, like an echo from a dead past, linked the names of Beethoven and the woman he had loved. There was at that time in Germany a virtuosa, Frau Hebenstreit, who when a young girl had been a pupil of Beethoven's friend, the violinist Schuppanzigh.
"Of course the purely mechanical must always be dominated by the artistic personality of the player. Yet technic is also an important part of interpretation: knowing exactly how long to hold a bow, the most delicate inflections of its pressure on the strings. There must be perfect sympathy also with the composer's thought; his spirit must stand behind the personality of the artist.
No one cared to know the composer's name; like occupants of the baignoires, lost to view of the house, to gain a view of the stage, Pons and Schmucke eclipsed themselves by their success.
Each man picks up his own bell from the table and sounds his own note at the moment prescribed by the score, and so the whole of the composer's idea is reproduced. To suppress diversities results in monotony; to combine them is the only sure way to secure harmony.
In the wake of this song, with a relentless trip and tramp of warrior hordes, is the real clash and jingle of the battle, where the sparkling thrill of strings and the saucy counter theme are strong elements in the stirring beauty. There is a touch here of the old Goth, or rather the Hun, nearer akin to the composer's race.
In the Fifth symphony he gave us every minute nuance in rigid obedience to the composer's directions or evident intentions, and gave them with a fastidious care strangely in contrast with Mottl's rough-and-ready brilliancy or Richter's breadth.
Thus it is unquestionably true that all melodies which, stirred up in this way, proceed from the depths of the composer's being, seem to us to belong to the singer alone who fanned the first spark within us. We hear her voice and record only what she has sung.
Coleridge Taylor's "Song of Hiawatha" was the hit of the Festival, and its performance at Birmingham has hall marked the young composer's fresh, picturesque, and melodic music. I might write a great deal more about the Birmingham Musical Festivals, but time and space forbid.
One of our composer's companions had a volume of poems, which Schubert looked at in a lazy way, laughing and drinking the while. Singling out some verses, he said: "I have a pretty melody in my head for these lines, if I could only get a piece of ruled paper."
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