Düsseldorf, May 11, 1834.
Dear Mrs. Moscheles,—On the very day I received your dear kind letter and the beautiful present, I was going to answer at full length, and with best thanks, but there arrived at the same time the news of my mother’s dangerous illness. To-day there is excellent news, thank God! My mother has been walking in the garden, and is quite herself, and of course so am I; and in this happy mood, when a great load has been taken off my mind, and I can breathe more freely, I sit down at once to write and thank you.
Not being able to cross over to you this year, I do hope and trust you will let me have a few lines now and then; for while I read them I am in Chester Place, I follow your descriptions, live through it all with you, rejoice at Lord Burghersh’s absence from the party, make remarks about Miss Masson’s delicate form of “couching her refusal,” abuse Masoni for that Beethoven Sonata, and admire Miss Use’s beauty, although I know it only by hearsay.
And how grateful I am to you, dear Moscheles, for doing my Rondo the honor of playing it at your concert! You may believe that I fully appreciate it, and feel greatly flattered; and now, if anybody abuses it ever so much, I shall still love the piece and hold it in high consideration. Please write me word if you like the accompaniments, or if you find fault with any part of them. I may perhaps write something of the kind in the course of this year, and should like to avoid former faults.
The cravat, however, dear Mrs. Moscheles, I put on at once, and, so adorned, went out for a ride. You must know I have bought a nice bay horse, and it gives me immense pleasure. When I went to the Hübners’ in the evening, Madame Hübner asked if that cravat was English too. I gave her your message, and she reciprocated it very sincerely. But you have not told me what composition I am to write in the time saved by this cravat which does not require tying. It is to you I shall owe the spare time, and you ought to say how I am to employ it. Shall I write pianoforte pieces, songs, or what else?
And so the people at the Philharmonic did not like my “Melusine”? Never mind; that won’t kill me. I felt sorry when you told me, and at once played the Overture through, to see if I too should dislike it; but it pleased me, and so there is no great harm done. Or do you think it would make you receive me less amiably at my next visit? That would be a pity, and I should much regret it; but I hope it won’t be the case. And perhaps it will be liked somewhere else, or I can write another one which will have more success. The first desideratum is to see a thing take shape and form on paper; and if, besides, I am fortunate enough to get such kind words about it as those I had from you and Moscheles, it has been well received, and I may go on quietly doing more work. I cannot understand your news that Moscheles’s new Concerto met with the same reception. I thought it as clear as sunshine that that must please the public, when played by him. But when is it to be published, that I may pounce upon it? Pray do excuse these disconnected sentences. Ries, the violin-player, is here (you remember his playing in Moscheles’s Trio at Berlin); he is going to give a concert to-morrow, and so I have been constantly interrupted by all sorts of people employed in the arrangements, and have to rehearse every day, in consequence of which my poor bay has not left its stable for the last three days (this, you see, is the principal subject on which my mind turns).
At Whitsuntide I must go to Aix-la-Chapelle to the musical festival, and am not the least inclined for it, since they perform pieces which my musical conscience revolts at; but go I must, for a quiet life, as the people of this place will have it that Ries and I are pope and anti-pope; and, Ries happening to conduct, they fancy me jaundiced with vexation, and think that I shall not go. But they are mistaken; I sip my “Maitrank,”—an excellent drink made of hock, aromatic herbs, and sugar,—and mean to go. This reminds me of Siboni. Oh, Siboni! how can you presume seriously to bring out your recipes for salad-mixing? And is De Vrught there too? And what sort of a figure does he cut at a dinner in Chester Place? Stop! By the by, have you heard of a Mademoiselle Meyer who has gone with her father from here to London to play the piano? She must, some time or other, pass in review before Moscheles, and I should like above all things to hear of her doings in London. The father would set me up here as his daughter’s rival, and has tried to abuse and vex me in every way, and, finding that I took no notice, is going to try what he can do in London.
Lovely weather we have had for some time, and there is every temptation to be perfectly idle, saunter about all day, and become a candidate for the title of Inspector of Nightingales, which they have conferred on an old lounger of this place. Warm days, and so delightfully long, and I have already begun my Oratorio, which is the reason I cannot go to the Westminster Abbey Festival, but must keep to my work. I have