Only last February,
thanks to her, we were made acquainted with a quintett, a quartett, and
a trio of Boccherini, and besides that with a quartett of
Cherubini--music that was well-nigh forgotten, but admirable and always
new. Boccherini's adagios and minuets are deliciously fresh; only the
finales seem to me a trifle antiquated. I am sure you must know
something of his.'
'I remember having heard one of his quintetts four of five years ago at
the Conservatoire in Brussels, and I thought it magnificent--in the very
newest style and full of unexpected episodes. I remember perfectly that
in certain passages the quintett was reduced to a duet by employing the
unison, but the effects produced by the difference in the tone of the
instruments was something marvellous! I cannot recall anything the least
like it in other instrumental compositions.'
She discussed music with all the subtlety of a true connoisseur, and in
describing the sentiments aroused in her by some particular composition,
or the entire work of a master, she expressed herself most felicitously.
'I have played and heard a great deal of music,' she said, 'and of every
symphony, every sonata, every nocturne I have a separate and distinct
picture, an impression of shape and colour, of a figure, a group, a
landscape, so that each of my favourite compositions has a name
corresponding to the picture;--for instance, the Sonata of the Forty
Daughters-in-law of Priam; the Nocturne of the Sleeping Beauty in the
Wood, the Gavotte of the Yellow Ladies, the Gigue of the Mill, the
Prelude of the Drops of Water, and so on.
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