[75] Joseph Rastrelli was musical director of the Royal Opera in Dresden from 1823 to 1842. He was an excellent conductor, and a good composer. His operas, “Salvator Rosa,” and “Bertha of Bretagne,” both achieved success.
[76] N.B.—Do not show this letter lest I may be thought vain. (Chopinʼs own observation.)
[77] Malfatti, royal physician in ordinary, and a very famous doctor in his time.
[78] Fräulein Cibini was a daughter of Leopold Kozeluck, who, after Mozartʼs death, became Royal Court Composer. She herself was an accomplished pianist, afterwards lady-in-waiting to the Empress Anna Maria. She nursed the Emperor Ferdinand in his severe illness, and died at the Hradschin, in 1860, highly esteemed as a faithful servant by the Imperial pair.
[79] Sabine Heinefetter, the most famous and distinguished of the three sisters, who all excelled as great singers; in Milan, even among Italians, she shone as a star of the first magnitude. Circumstances obliged her to leave the stage while still in full possession of her powers.
[80] Franz Wildt, the most celebrated, and in truth the best tenor singer the German opera possessed from 1820 to 1845. His voice and training were alike first-rate.
[81] Anton Orlowski, a fellow-student of Chopinʼs, a talented musician, afterwards chapel-master at Rouen. Born in Warsaw 1811, died 1861.
[82] Viz., not Jewish.
[83] Joseph Slawick, born in Bohemia in 1806, studied at the Prague Conservatoire, under Pixis, at the expense of Count Wrbna; he died at Pesth in 1833, just as he was about to commence a long artistic tour.
[84] A reference, perhaps, to the disturbances then prevailing in the Peninsular.