I heard Habeneck play two airs variés of his composition. He is a brilliant violinist and plays much with great rapidity and ease. His tone and his bow-stroke are somewhat coarse.
Kreutzer junior, the brother and pupil of the elder, played to me a new, very brilliant and graceful trio of his brother’s composition. The manner in which he executed it reminded me somewhat of the style of the elder one, and satisfied me that they are the purest players of all the Parisian violinists. Young Kreutzer is wanting in physical power, he is somewhat ill, and dare not play sometimes for months together. His tone therefore is weak, but in other respects his play is pure, spirited and full of expression.
Two days ago I heard two more quite new quintets of Reicha, which he wrote for the morning-concerts of the five previously named artists. They were played at a rehearsal, which appears to me to have been given solely for the purpose of fishing for more subscribers to the morning-concerts, among the numerous persons who were invited. At least a list of them was handed round. It is sad to see what means artists here are obliged to resort to, in order to procure support for their undertakings. While the Parisians press eagerly forward to every sensual enjoyment, they must be almost dragged to intellectual ones.—I found the composition of these two new quintets, like those I had previously heard at Kreutzer’s, rich in interesting sequences of harmony, correct throughout in the management of the voices, and full of effect in the use made of the tone and character of the different wind-instruments, but on the other hand, frequently defective in the form. Mr. Reicha is not economical enough of his ideas, and at the very commencement of his pieces he frequently gives from four to five themes, each of which concludes in the tonic. Were he less rich, he would be richer. His periods also are frequently badly connected and sound as though he had written one yesterday and the other to-day. Yet the minuets and scherzi, as short pieces, are less open to this objection, and some of them are real masterpieces in form and contents. A German soundness of science and capacity are the greatest ornaments of this master. The execution in the rapid subjects was again wonderfully correct, but somewhat less so in the slow ones.
I do not think I have yet spoken to you of the Feydeau. We have been less frequently to that theatre than to the other operatic theatres, because it so happened that on those evenings when we were at liberty pieces were generally performed that did not much interest us. Yet we were present at the first representation of Méhul’s “Joseph,” which, after a long repose was again put on the stage. The public however, did not seem very grateful for this to the directors of the theatre, for they gave it but a cold reception. In support of my assertion that the French take an interest only in the piece, and know little how to appreciate the excellence of the music, I may adduce, that the tirades in the dialogue were far more applauded than the song parts. The singers succeeded in obtaining applause only when, in the superabundance of an artificial feeling, instead of singing, they began to sob. At the pieces of the opera—for instance, at the first chorus of the brothers—there was not a hand stirred. Many of the tempi were taken quite different from those in Germany, but not to the advantage of the music; for instance, the fine morning-hymn of the Israelites, behind the scenes, was taken so quick, that it lost all its solemnity. A screaming violin, also, that supported the soprani was far too prematurely loud. The orchestra played well, and was particularly remarkable for a delicate piano.
Moscheles has been here a month. He makes a great sensation with his extremely brilliant play, and wins the admiration both of artists and dilettanti, the former by his execution of his richly intellectual compositions, and the latter by his free fantasias, in which, as far as his Germanism permits him, he accommodates himself to the Parisian taste. The brothers Bohrer have also returned to-day from a tour in the provinces, but will remain here a few days only, and then leave on a new tour viâ Munich to Vienna. I regret that I shall not have an opportunity of hearing these artists, whom I have not met for ten years. They wanted to persuade me to accompany them from here upon a tour in the southern provinces, where they assure me some money is to be made. But I have not the least inclination to go. The bad orchestras in the provincial towns, the bad taste and the unpleasant negociations to lessen the amount to be given up to the theatre and the poor of the towns, would make a journey of the kind too disagreeable to me. In a few days we shall return to Germany by way of Nancy and Strasbourg, and therefore shall soon greet you again in dear Fatherland.
Till then farewell!
To these letters regarding my sojourn in Paris, I have yet to add some few things from recollection. From the frequent opportunities I had of playing before Cherubini at private parties, I conceived a very ardent desire to have all my quartets and quintets so far as I thought them worthy of it, heard by that by me highly esteemed master, and to introduce them by degrees to his notice, in order to ask his opinion of them. But in this I succeeded with very few only, for when Cherubini had heard the first quartet (it was Nr. 1 of the Op. 45 written at Frankfort), and I was on the point of producing a second, he protested against it, and said: “Your music, and indeed the form and style of this kind of music, is yet so foreign to me, that I cannot find myself immediately at home with it, nor follow it properly; I would therefore much prefer that you repeated the quartet you have just played!” I was very much astonished at this remark, and did not understand it until I afterwards ascertained that Cherubini was quite unacquainted with the German masterpieces of this kind of Mozart and Beethoven—and at the utmost had once heard a quartet by Haydn at Baillot’s soirées. As the other persons present coincided with Cherubini’s wish, I consented the more readily, as in the first execution of it, some things had not gone altogether well. He now spoke very favourably of my composition, praised its form, its thematic working out, the rich change in the harmonies, and particularly the fugato in the last subject. But as there were still many things not quite clear to him in the music, he begged me to repeat it a second time, when we should next meet. I hoped he would think nothing more about it, and therefore at the next music party brought forward another quartet. Before I could begin, however, Cherubini renewed his request, and I was therefore obliged to play the same quartet a third time. The same thing occurred also with Nr. 2 of Op. 45, excepting that he spoke of it with more decisive praise, and said of the adagio: “It is the finest I ever heard.” He was equally pleased with my pianoforte quintet with the concerted accompaniment of wind instruments, and I was frequently obliged to play it on that account. The first time my wife played the piano part; but when Moscheles subsequently requested permission to study it and to play it once, she had not the courage to play it any more in Paris, after him. He remained therefore in possession, and entered more and more into the spirit of the composition. He executed the two allegro subjects especially with far more energy and style, which certainly greatly increased their effect. As the wind instruments of Reicha’s quintet were excellent, I never recollect to have heard that quintet so perfectly rendered as then, although I have heard it played in more recent days by many celebrated pianoforte virtuosi. From the continual repetition of my quartets in Paris I could find no opportunity of giving even one of my two first quintets for stringed instruments which had been some time written. Nevertheless I found for them a very sympathetic audience at Strasbourg, on my return journey, to which the taste for quartet-music has more readily penetrated from its contiguity to Germany. The quintet in G major, with the half melancholy half merry finale, became soon an especial favorite with the friends of music there, and at their request formed the finale of every quartet-party. In Carlsruhe, where on a former visit I had already played quartets frequently, particularly in the house of that lover of art Mr. von Eichthal, my stay this time was very much saddened by finding the friend of my youth Feska dangerously ill: he shortly afterwards succumbed to his incurable malady.