he gave last
Monday at M. Erard's. Especially his fantasia on the
"Freischutz" was applauded.

Of course, the expression of any individual opinion is no conclusive
proof. Gutmann was so successful as a teacher and in a way also as
a composer (his compositions, I may say in passing, were not in his
master's but in a light salon style) that at a comparatively early
period of his life he was able to retire from his profession. After
travelling for some time he settled at Florence, where he invented the
art, or, at least, practised the art which he had previously invented,
of painting with oil-colours on satin. He died at Spezzia on October 27,
1882.

[FOOTNOTE: The short notice of Gutmann in Fetis' Biographie Universelle
des Musiciens, and those of the followers of this by no means infallible
authority, are very incorrect. Adolfo Gutmann, Riccordi Biografici,
by Giulio Piccini (Firenze: Guiseppe Polverini, 1881), reproduces to a
great extent the information contained in Der Lieblingsschuler Chopin's
in Bernhard Stavenow's Schone Geister (Bremen: Kuhlmann, 1879), both
which publications, eulogistic rather than biographical, were inspired
by Gutmann.]

Whatever interest the reader may have taken in this survey of Chopin's
pupils, he is sure to be more deeply interested by the account of the
master's manner and method of teaching. Such an account, which would be
interesting in the case of any remarkable virtuoso who devoted himself
to instruction, is so in a higher degree in that of Chopin: first,
because it may help us to solve the question why so unique a virtuoso
did not form a single eminent concert-player; secondly, because it
throws still further light on his character as a man and artist; and
thirdly, because, as Mikuli thinks may be asserted without exaggeration,
"only Chopin's pupils knew the pianist in the fulness of his unrivalled
height." The materials at my disposal are abundant and not less
trustworthy than abundant. My account is based chiefly on the
communications made to me by a number of the master's pupils--notably,
Madame Dubois, Madame Rubio, M. Mathias, and Gutmann--and on Mikuli's
excellent preface to his edition of Chopin's works. When I have drawn
upon other sources, I have not done so without previous examination
and verification. I may add that I shall use as far as possible the
ipsissima verba of my informants:--

As to Chopin's method of teaching [wrote to me M. Mathias], it
was abso