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But within his limits, fixed as these were, Thalberg was so great that he must be conceded to be one of the most striking and brilliant figures of an age fecund in fine artists. Thalberg was born at Geneva, January 7,1812, and was the natural son of Prince Dietrichstein, an Austrian nobleman, temporarily resident in that city.
Do you think that I, old midwife that I am, don't know the squall of the demon child from that of the angel child, the very moment they are delivered? Ask a musician, how he knows, even in the dark, a note struck by Thalberg from one struck by Listz!" "I long to test them," cried the Wondersmith, rubbing his hands joyfully.
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 This last work appeared at Paris first in an Album des Pianistes, a collection of unpublished pieces by Thalberg, Chopin, Doehler, Osborne, Liszt, and Mereaux.
He and the "Creole Chopin," Louis Moreau Gottschalk, attracted much attention by several joint appearances in our musical centres of the time. Thalberg was a pupil of Hummel, and felt the influence of his teacher's cold, severely classic style.
At this day the amateur would give much to hear exactly how such men as Meyerbeer, and Hummel, and Clementi played, and to compare them with Thalberg, Gottschalk, and Satter.
Some of them have a scale of your whole nervous system, and can play all the gamut of your sensibilities in semitones, touching the naked nerve-pulps as a pianist strikes the keys of his instrument. I am satisfied that there are as great masters of this nerve-playing as Vieuxtemps or Thalberg in their lines of performance.
Other players treat it as if impatient of its limitations, and resolved to make an orchestra of a feeble key-board. But Thalberg instinctively apprehended the character of the instrument, and respected its limitations as well as its powers, and knew that its utmost resource was attainable by skilled motion rather than by brute force.
No matter how many and great artists we possess or have seen pass before us of recent years, though some of them equal him in single points, all must yield to him in energy and boldness. People have been very fond of placing Thalberg in the lists beside him, and then drawing comparisons. But it is only necessary to look at both heads to come to a conclusion.
It was then Chopin told Sand of his pupil, Georges Mathias, "c'est une bonne caboche." Thalberg took his revenge whenever he could. After a concert by Chopin he astonished Hiller by shouting on the way home. In reply to questions he slily answered that he needed a forte as he had heard nothing but pianissimo the entire evening! Chopin was never a hearty partisan of the Romantic movement.
Our conversation was of Beethoven and Mozart, of Strauss and Lanne. The fame of the bravura composers of the present day, Liszt and Thalberg, had not yet penetrated to these regions. I requested my kind host to shew me the establishment for hatching eggs that exists at Gizeh. He immediately sent for the superintendent, who happened however to be absent, and to have locked up the keys.
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