through
it all, calling up the vision of gayly dressed cavaliers and beautiful
ladies fantastically moving to the tune. Such poetic sentiment as
this of the purely picturesque sort was in large measure Thalberg's
possession, but he could never understand that turbulent ground-swell of
passion which music can also powerfully express, and by which the
soul is lifted up to the heights of ecstasy or plunged in depths of
melancholy. Music as a vehicle for such meanings was mere Egyptian
hieroglyphic, utterly beyond his limitation, absolute bathos and
absurdity.

It is doubtful whether any player ever possessed a more wonderfully
trained mechanism; the smallest details were polished and finished with
the utmost care, the scales marvels of evenness, the shakes rivaling the
trill of a canary bird. His arpeggios at times rolled like the waves
of the sea, and at others resembled folds of transparent lace floating
airily with the movements of the wearer. The octaves were wonderfully
accurate, and the chords appeared to be struck by steel mallets instead
of fingers. He was called the Bayard of pianists, "le Chevalier sans
peur et sans reproche." His tone was noble, yet mellow and delicate, and
the gradations between his forte and piano were traced most exquisitely.
In a word, technical execution could go no further. It is said that
he never played a piece in public till he had absolutely made it the
property of his fingers. He was the first to divide the melody between
the two hands, making the right hand perform a brilliant figure in the
higher register, while the left hand exhibited a full and rich bass
part, supplementing it with an accompaniment in chords. It was this
characteristic which made his fantasias so unique and interesting, in
spite of their lack of originality of motive, as compositions. Almost
all writers for the piano have since adopted this device, even the great
Mendelssohn using it in some of his concertos and "Songs without Words";
and in many cases it has been transformed into a mere trick of arrant
musical charlatanism, designed to cover up with a sham glitter the utter
absence of thought and motive. No better suggestion of the dominant
characteristic of Thal-berg as a pianist can be found than a critical
word of his friend Moscheles: "The proper ground for finger gymnastics
is to be found in Thalberg's latest compositions; for mind [Geist], give
me Schumann."

III.

During Thalberg's first visit to Ame