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During Thalberg's first visit to America he had an active and dangerous rival in the young and brilliant pianist, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, who was as fresh to New York audiences as Thalberg himself, though the latter had the advantage over his young competitor in a fame which was almost world-wide.
To follow the course of Thalberg's pianoforte achievements in his musical travels through Europe would be merely to repeat a record of uninterrupted successes. He disarmed envy and criticism everywhere, and even those disposed to withhold a frank and generous acknowledgment of his greatness did not dare to question powers of execution which seemed without a technical flaw.
So much was she the creature of impulse that, even when she would spend a day, a week, a month, in elaborating a certain passage a certain dramatic effect perhaps on the night of performance she would improvise something perfectly different from her preconceived idea. Her sister Marie made her début in Thalberg's Florinda, in July, with Sophie.
Young Smith, instead of his dinner and his wine, ought to be, where? at the festive tea-table, to be sure, by the side of Miss Higgs, sipping the bohea, or tasting the harmless muffin; while old Mrs. Higgs looks on, pleased at their innocent dalliance, and my friend Miss Wirt, the governess, is performing Thalberg's last sonata in treble X., totally unheeded, at the piano.
Harvey was absent at breakfast, and at dinner the chair opposite Irene's was still vacant. The afternoon wore away, and at dusk Louisa opened the piano and began to play Thalberg's "Home, Sweet Home." Somebody took a seat near Irene, and though the room was dim, she knew the tall form and the touch of his hand. "Good evening, Miss Irene; we have had a gloomy day. How have you and Louisa spent it?"
But she, strange and unnatural production of unnatural art, was a phenomenon, and one not likely to be soon reproduced. The art of the Comédie Française is to-day inimitable. Like Thalberg's playing, it is the very apotheosis of the mechanical.
Thalberg's way throughout the whole of his life was strewn with roses, and, though his career did not present the same romantic incidents which make the life of Franz Liszt so picturesque, it was attended by the same lavish favors of fortune.
Liszt had already been before him in Paris, and Chopin arrived about the same time. Kalkbrenner, Ferdinand Hiller, and Field were playing, but the splendid, calm beauty of Thalberg's style instantly captivated the public, and elicited the most extravagant and delighted applause not only from the public, but from enlightened connoisseurs.
He extracts music from his piano, not as if he were sifting the sands for gold, but as if he were raking oysters.... Now, Thalberg's manner is different from Strepitoso's. He plays the piano; that is the phrase which describes his performance. He plays it quietly and suavely.
True virtuosity gives us something more than mere flexibility and execution: aman may mirror his own nature in it, and in Thalberg's playing it becomes clear to all that he is one of the favored ones of fortune, one accustomed to wealth and elegance.
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