ntly
respectable-looking, his handsome, somewhat Jewish-looking face composed
in an expression of unostentatious good breeding, he was wont to
seat himself at the piano with all the simplicity of one doing any
commonplace thing. He had the air of one who respected himself, his art,
and the public. His performance was in an exquisitely artistic sense
that of the gentleman, perfect, polished, and elaborately wrought. The
distinguished American litterateur, Mr. George William Curtis, who heard
him in New York in 1857, thus wrote of him: "He is a proper artist in
this, that he comprehends the character of his instrument. He neither
treats it as a violoncello nor a full orchestra. Those who in private
have enjoyed the pleasure of hearing--or, to use a more accurate
epithet, of seeing--Strepitoso, that friend of mankind, play the piano,
will understand what we mean when we speak of treating the piano as if
it were an orchestra. Strepitoso storms and slams along the keyboard
until the tortured instrument gives up its musical soul in despair
and breaks its heart of melody by cracking all its strings.... Every
instrument has its limitations, but Strepitoso will tolerate no such
theory. He extracts music from his piano, not as if he were sifting the
sands for gold, but as if he were raking oysters.... Now, Thalberg's
manner is different from Strepitoso's. He plays the piano; that is the
phrase which describes his performance. He plays it quietly and suavely.
You could sit upon the lawn on a June night and hear with delight
the sounds that trickled through the moonlight from the piano of this
master. They would not melt your soul in you; they would not touch those
longings that, like rays of starry light, respond to the rays of the
stars; they would not storm your heart with the yearning passion
of their strains, but you would confess it was a good world as you
listened, and be glad you lived in it--you would be glad of your home
and all that made it homelike; the moonlight as you listened would melt
and change, and your smiling eyes would seem to glitter in cheerful
sunlight as Thalberg ended."

Thalberg's style was, perhaps, the best possible illustration of the
legitimate effects of the pianoforte carried to the highest by as
perfect a technique as could possibly be attained by human skill.

That he lacked poetic fire and passion, that the sense of artistic
restraint and a refined fastidiousness chilled and fettered him, is
d