pischek

Updated: May 9, 2025

J. E. Cox, the author of "Musical Recollections," describes Herr Pischek in the supper scene of Don Giovanni as "out-heroding Herod by swallowing glass after glass of champagne like a sot, and gnawing the drumstick of a fowl, which he held across his mouth with his fingers, just as any of his own middle-class countrymen may be seen any day of the week all the year round at the mit-tag or abend-essen feeding at one of their largely frequented tables-d'hôte."

Carl Van Vechten - The Merry-Go-Round

I will not broach the question here, whether or not their language is the reason of it, and whether Mme. Sontag, Pischek, Tichatschek, Mlle. Lind, who is almost a German, and many others, do not form magnificent exceptions; but, upon the whole, German vocalists sing, and do not howl; the screaming school is not theirs; they make music."

Henry Theophilus Finck - Chopin and Other Musical Essays