: the length of the tube was so calculated as
to keep him erect and motionless." This exact discipline and mechanism
were not merely matters of technical culture; they were the logical
outcome of the man and surely a part of himself. But within his limits,
fixed as these were, Thalberg was so great that he must be conceded to
be one of the most striking and brilliant figures of an age fecund in
fine artists.

Thalberg was born at Geneva, January 7,1812, and was the natural son of
Prince Dietrichstein, an Austrian nobleman, temporarily resident in that
city. His talent for music, inherited from both sides, for his mother
was an artist and his father an amateur of no inconsiderable skill,
became obvious at a very tender age, following the law which so
generally holds in music that superior gifts display themselves at an
early period. These indications of nature were not ignored, for the boy
was placed under instruction before he had completed his sixth year. It
is a little singular that his first teacher was not a pianist, though a
very superior musician. Mittag was one of the first bassoonists of
his times, and, in addition to his technical skill, a thoroughly
accomplished man in the science of his profession. Thalberg was
accustomed to attribute the wonderfully rich and mellow tone which
characterized his playing to the influence and training of Mittag. From
this instructor the future great pianist passed to the charge of the
distinguished Hummel, who was not only one of the greatest virtuosos of
the age, but ranked by his admirers as only a little less than Beethoven
himself in his genius for pianoforte compositions, though succeeding
generations have discredited his former fame by estimating him merely
a "dull classic." Contemporaneously with his pupilage under Hummel,
he studied the theory of music with Simon Sechter, an eminent
contrapuntist. Even at this early age, for Thalberg must have been
less than ten years old, he impressed all by the great precision of
his fingering and the instinctive ease with which he mastered the most
difficult mechanism of the art of playing. At the age of fourteen young
Thalberg went to London in the household of his father, who had been
appointed imperial ambassador to England, and the youth was then placed
under the instruction of the great pianist Moscheles. The latter speaks
of Thalberg as the most distinguished of his pupils, and as being, even
at that age, already an artist of di