“I am he, monsieur.”
“Mein Gott, M. Berlioz, where in the world have you been? We have been waiting for you a week and couldn’t think what had become of you.”
I thanked my worthy friend as well as my limited vocabulary would allow, and could not help thinking that my non-appearance would never give rise to similar anxiety at the Paris Douane.
The first concert I went to was one in the Riding School, given by nearly a thousand performers—most of them amateurs—for the benefit of the Conservatoire, which has no, or very little, Government support. The verve and precision with which that musical crowd rendered Mozart’s delicate Flauto Magico overture quite astonished me, I had not believed it possible.
I was delighted to make the acquaintance of Nicolaï, conductor of the Kärnthnerthor Theatre; he has the three gifts necessary—to my mind—for a perfect director. He is an experienced, enthusiastic composer, has perfect intuition for rhythms and clear-cut and precise mechanism. Finally, he is a clever organiser, sparing neither time nor trouble; hence the wonderful unity and perfection of the Kärnthnerthor orchestra.
He arranged sacred concerts in the Salle des Redoutes similar to ours in Paris. There I heard a scena from Oberon, a fine symphony of Nicolaï’s own and the incomparable B flat of Beethoven.
It is in this fine hall that, thirty years since, Beethoven gave his masterpieces—now worshipped by Europe, but then despised by the Viennese, who crowded to hear Salieri’s operas! How my knees trembled as I stood at the desk where once he had stood! Nothing is changed; the desk I used is the very one that he had used, by that staircase he had come up to receive the applause of his few admirers, looked upon by the rest of the audience as fanatics in search of eccentricity.
For recognition Beethoven had to wait, but how he suffered!
To my great delight Pischek, the splendid baritone I had met and admired in Frankfort, suggested that he should make his Viennese début at my concert.
He had improved immensely; somehow his voice always gave rise in me to a sort of exaltation or intoxication which, now, was intensified by its splendid compass, passion and exquisite sweetness.