New-York tribune., 1910-10-09

Oh MS own which were in the highest degree
grand and wonderful And he plays difficulties
ana brings effects out of the pianoforte of which
we never dreamed"
What Beethoven's innovatiors ,,-ara like We
can guess in some degree from remark in Il
letter which he wrote to his cbiIdhood friend.
Eleonore Breuning in sending her a set of
variations for pianofOrte and violin on the
melody of Sc vuol ballare" from Mozart's
NoZze oil Figaro, which he had dedicated to
heF. IN the CODA occurred a passage in which
ulH was imposed on other voices. Referring
to this Beethoven wrote You will find the V
little difficult to play. especially the triIs in
the coda. but don't let that alarm YOU 1t is SO
contrived that you need play only the trilI Ieav-
ing out the other notes. because they are ALSO
in the violin part never would have composed
a thing of the kind had l not often observed
that here and there in Vienna there was some
body who, after L had improvised of an evening.
noted down many of my pecuiarities and made
parade Of them next day his own. FOresee-
ing that some of these things would soon appear
in print l resolved to anticipate them Another
| reason that 1 had to embarrass the local
pianoforte masters. Many of them my
deadly enemies and 1 wanted to revenge myself
on them. knowing that once in a while somebody
would ask them to play the variations and
they would make a sorry show with them"
Beethoven's single encounter with Daniel Stei-
belt Q765-1S2:0 has been described in an earlier
chapter of these studies Steibet seems to have
possessed great measure Of digital skill, though
it is said that a showy tremOlGRd0 with both
hands. which caught the ears Of the groundlings,
had for its real purpose the hiding of a weak
ness of the left hand. He travelled a great deal
and became something of a musical lion by rea-
son of the success of an opera, Romeo and
T,,1fC - N-,t r,Iv, n
character as a charlata tan but also the popular
taste of the time may be read in the tale of his
trfumpIs in Vienna. whittier he went in 1900.
! He was accompanied by English woman who
/ figured his wife and who played the tambOu-
rine in catchpenny pieces called "Bacchanalcs-"
| The instrument was taken up by some of the
! fashionable ladies' of the Austrian capital, who
! paid the madam twelve golden ducats hour
| for many lessons and bought cartIoad OF
/ tambOurines from her husband
A virtuOso of a very different order was Josef
Woelfl. or WoelH. with whom, though he put
him TO his trumps both player and improviser,
| Beethoven associated terms of amity Gnd
mutual esteem. WoeIm was Il native of SaZ-
! burg and pupil of Mozart's father and Ha ydn's
brother. The friendly rivalry between him and
! Beethoven separated the music lovers of Vienna
! into two camps. Describing their meetings at
which in the presence of their arstocratic ad-
! herents the two artists measured their powers
| against each other, performing their own com
| positions and improvising themes which they
| exchanged the ChevaIier Won Seyfried wrote at
! the time: Tt would have been difficult perhaps
! impossible to award the palm of victory to
either one of the gladiatOrs in respect of tech
nicaI skill. Nature had been particularly kind 10
WOelH in bestowinS upon him a hand which
! enabled him to span a tenth as easily as other
! hands compass an octave and permitted him to
play passages of double notes in these intervals
! with the rapidity of lightning" Won Sayfried
| then describes the tempestuous manner of his
playing in his exalted moments, when he tore
| along like a wildly foaming cataract and the
| coniurer constrained his instrument to an ut
! terance so forcefuI that the stoutest structure
| was scarcely able 10 withstand il WOelHl,
on the contrary, trained in the school Of Mozart,
| was always eQuabe; never superficial, but al
ways clear and thus more accessible to the
! many. He used art only as means to an end,
| never to exhibit his requirements. He always
! enlisted the attention of his hearers and in
| evitably it was made to follow the progression
| of his well-ordered ideas. Whoever has heard
! Hummel will know what is meant by this"
We have another description OF WOelffs
| playing in Tomaschek's autobiography, in an
| account of a concert given in 1893: Then he
| played Mozart's Fantasia in F minor. published
| by Breitkopf for four hands, just as it is