The Sun.
London, England, 1848-12-16 00:00:00

PERFORMER.

There are many who devoutly consider that the only
requisites for a musical Soirée are, good singers, good
accompanyists, and 'good instruments. Their creed Is
palpably born of error, and. is remarkable only for
falsity, for one and the chief requisite is entirely lost
sight of—namely, a GOOD AUDINCE. It is scarcely to
be conceived—it is barely possible to estimate, much
less to overrate, the influence which this circumstance
exercises over the performer.
And here let it be borne in mind that to render fit for
public performance almost any kind of entertainment
which has to bear the test, to brave the too often severe
ordeal of public criticism, the approval or condemna-
tion of stranger eyes, of stranger hands, and of stranger
hearts, it generally requires six months' study for many
weary hours a day before the student can hope to attain
anything like that standard of perfection to which h.
must arrive ere he can indulge the slightest hope, ere he
can possess the merest chance of success, the mechanioa
part of his efforts either as speaker, vocalist, or instru-
mentalist, requiring inconceivable labour. In the two
latter instances no ray of inspiration lights upon the
student, none of the joy which the thorough apprecia-
tion of his subject confers, until the mechanism of per..
fection is attained, until the goal so ardently sought is
self-won, and then, when at length all is mastered in
triumph, it has lost for him, through this long process
of patient analysis and thoughtful study, all its beauty
all its freshness and poetry. Yes! this, indeed, is well
nigh all that the Worshipper at the Shrine of Art, the
Seeker after the Beautiful and the True, can hope to
meet as a reward for the labours, the pains, the self
struggles of days and years, which are alike summed up
in the sad and apposite line--
" They blooms to wither! blossom but to die 1"
And if he would seek a temporary gleam of its early
beauty, a halo of its pristine poetry, it must only be
sought for and found—if found at alt—in the sympathy
of his auditors. By the secret, the unseen establishment
between them and himself of a kind of magnetic current
—I might, in these railroad and electro-magnetic times,
in these days in which the electric light is expected not
only to banish the erstwhile bright, but now duller gas,
from our streets and squares, but also the myths of
ignorance from the hearts of those who ambulate and
perambulate those streets and squares—almost say by a
sort of electro-telegraphic communion—his own sen-
sibilities, his own powers are invigorated, and for the
nonce a fresh inspiration is created and conveyed.
Let us for an instant pause to imagine the artist
entering for the first time the arena of his
future
re-
nown or downfall. He advances perhaps timidly, per-
haps with an assumed air of calmness and nonehaleut.ec,
to cover, to conceal the feelings of nervous anxiety winch
beset him, he glances with a mingled look of penetrating
curiosity and fear on the faces of the assemblage around
him. Verily, it is an exciting, and to some an awful mo-
ment; ho may perceive only countenances as impertur-
bably stolid as a mummy of the Pharoabs, or eyes as
colourless as his own, in fact, he may find the tempera-
ture of his auditors to be somewhere about five and
twenty degrees below Zero. Adieu then to inspiration,
farewell to his half-formed hopes of success—adieu to
the golden dreams he has nursed—there is a cloud, like
the shadow which Titan threw over the earth, between
him and the object of his warm desires; and let him sing
with never so much taste, let him play never so fault-
lessly, or with never so great precision, it is all in vain;
even if his performance should be decreed to be true and
free from all blemish, it will be thought tiresome, and
will never wake the response buried within, which, when
aroused at last, bursts into one loud, simultaneous voice
which cries, "Thou bast done well and art more 'than
worthy !"
"I do remember me" of a little anecdote of Steibelt,
the great pianoforte master, bearing so intimately and
closely on my foregoing observations that Ido not hesi-
tate to relate it, the more so, as he thereby inculcated a
lesson, or at least inferred a hint, to auditors of this genre,
which our young professors and artists would do well to
bear in memory.

This great pianoforte player frequently by the inspi-
ration and genius of his music, banished for a time the
watches and snuff-boxes of his hearers—of course, I must
be supposed to mean their use—the reverberations of the
German watch dials, the tschews of the Viennoise nasal
organs were generally unheard when he performed. But
Steibelt who was so exigeant of attention, was once des
tined to meet an interruption to his performance in
another shape.
In the zenith of his fame he had, on one occasion and
after many oft-repeated solicitations, positively given his
promise that he would attend at the palace of the Prince
Von H—, and give an extemporaneous performance.
To render to the musician a due share of homage, a
largo concourse of nobles and cognescang were invited
At the hour appointed arrived Steibelt, and without
further ceremony than a bow, seated himself at the
pianoforte. The most profound silence reigned over the
suite—not a single "hush" was heard. Steibelt twitched
his nose slightly, his wonted custom when a little flurried,
but this passed unobserved ; he struck his first chord,
and then, as if seized with an uncontrollable panic, as vio-
lent as it was most extraordinary, stopped suddenly, and
turning toward the Prince, indicated, as well by his ex-
pressive countenance as by the intensity of his gestures,
that he could not proceed. Every one cried out with
encouragement ; the Prince entreated, prayed, nay in-
sisted, till at length Steibelt was induced to commence
again, but he had scarcely played a bar when he seemed
absolutely petrified with horror, and rose precipitately
from his seat.
"I shall not play," exclaimed he " before those two
marble blocks I"
Every eye followed the motion of his finger and was
immediately fixed on two women who were carelessly
supporting themselves against th.e marble chimney piece,
and who might have stood for images for rigidity ant
immobility, for emblems of somnolent stupidity, or " to
be gentle with the gentle sex, of awful insipidity. The
pianist dared not await any reply, but hurried from the
palace in a state of great mental agitation and excite-
ment, leaving all but the two marble blocks" he had
named, and seemed utterly unconscious and unmoved, in
a state of great disappointment and chagrin. It was
some long time before the Prince would be pacified and
prevailed upon to forgive Steibelt.

• Qual vaghezza di lauro?,. qual di mirto
Povera e nuda vai, lilosofia,
Dice la turba al vil goadagno intesa.
Pochi compagni avrai per l'altra via:
pi
u, ti prego spirto
Non lasoar la magnanima tua imprisa."
PETRA/NA.

DBATIt FROM A DROP or WAX.---It is with much
regret that we announce the death of Dr. John
Stewart, which took place at his house at Cum-
nock, on Monday, the 20th ultimo, after a week's
illness. He had accidentally burnt his wrist some
short time previously, by letting fall upon it
a drop of melted wax, but the injury was so slight that
he paid little attention to it at the time. In a few days,
however, it became inflamed and painful, and notwith-
standing all that medical skill could devise, the inflam-
mation increased, inducing a high degree of fever, till, after
a week of severe distress, exhausted nature gave way. Dr.
Stewart was possessed of much professional skill, and
was particularly noted for the dexterity and success of
his surgical operation.—Ayr Observer,