doehler

Updated: May 14, 2025

Chopin's place among the great pianists of the second quarter of this century has been felicitously characterised by an anonymous contemporary: Thalberg, he said, is a king, Liszt a prophet, Chopin a poet, Herz an advocate, Kalkbrenner a minstrel, Madame Pleyel a sibyl, and Doehler a pianist. But if our investigation is to be profitable, we must proceed analytically.

Frederick Niecks - Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Volume 2

Liszt played these Variations often at his concerts, and even wrote orchestral accompaniments to them, which, however, were never published. A. d'Eichthal. This last work appeared at Paris first in an Album des Pianistes, a collection of unpublished pieces by Thalberg, Chopin, Doehler, Osborne, Liszt, and Mereaux.

Frederick Niecks - Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Volume 2

Was it not Heine who called "Thalberg a king, Liszt a prophet, Chopin a poet, Herz an advocate, Kalkbrenner a minstrel, Madame Pleyel a sibyl, and Doehler a pianist"? The limpidity, the smoothness and ease of Chopin's playing were, after all, on the physical plane. It was the poetic melancholy, the grandeur, above all the imaginative lift, that were more in evidence than mere sensuous sweetness.

James Huneker - Chopin : the Man and His Music