T.—Were you at ——’s opera?
B.—No; it is said to have turned out very badly. I thought of you; you hit it when you said you expected little from his compositions. I talked with the opera singers, and that night after the production of the opera at the wine-house where they generally gather, I said to them frankly: You have distinguished yourselves again!—what piece of folly have you been guilty of again? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves not to know better, nor to be able to judge better, to have made such a noise about this opera! I should like to talk to you about it, but you do not understand me.
T.—I was at the opera; it began with hallelujah and ended with requiem.
B.—Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! It’s the same with his playing. I am often asked if I have heard him—I say no; but from the opinions of my acquaintances who are capable of judging such things I could tell that he has agility indeed, but otherwise is a very superficial person.
T.—I heard that before he went away he played at Herrn ——’s and pleased much less.
B.—Ha, ha, ha, ha! What did I tell you?—I understand that. Let him settle down here for half a year and then let us hear what will be said of his playing. All this signifies nothing. It has always been known that the greatest pianoforte players were also the greatest composers; but how did they play? Not like the pianists of to-day, who prance up and down the keyboard with passages which they have practised—putsch, putsch, putsch;—what does that mean? Nothing! When true pianoforte virtuosi played it was always something homogeneous, an entity; if written down it would appear as a well thought-out work. That is pianoforte playing; the other thing is nothing!
T.—I am also carrying away from here a very small opinion of ----’s knowledge.
B.—As I have said, he knows nothing outside of singing.
T.—I hear that —— is creating a great sensation here.
B.—My God! he plays nicely, nicely—but aside from that he is a — —. He will never amount to anything. These people have their little coteries where they go often; there they are praised and praised and that’s the end of art! I tell you he will never amount to anything. I used to be too loud in my judgments and thereby made many enemies—now I criticize nobody and, indeed, for the reason that I do not want to injure anybody, and at the last I say to myself: if there is any good in it it will survive in spite of all attacks and envy; if it is not solid, not firm, it will fall to pieces, no matter how it is bolstered up.