llingly play with her on two pianos, for you cannot imagine
how kindly an interest this German [Mr. Blahetka] took in me
at Vienna.

Among the artists who came to Warsaw were: the youthful Worlitzer, who,
although only sixteen years of age, was already pianist to the King of
Prussia; the clever pianist Mdlle. de Belleville, who afterwards became
Madame Oury; the great violinist Lipinski, the Polish Paganini; and the
celebrated Henrietta Sontag, one of the brightest stars of the time.
Chopin's intercourse with these artists and his remarks on them are
worth noting: they throw light on his character as a musician and man
as well as on theirs. He relates that Worlitzer, a youth of Jewish
extraction, and consequently by nature very talented, had called on him
and played to him several things famously, especially Moscheles'
"Marche d'Alexandre variee." Notwithstanding the admitted excellence of
Worlitzer's playing, Chopin adds--not, however, without a "this remains
between us two"--that he as yet lacks much to deserve the title of
Kammer-Virtuos. Chopin thought more highly of Mdlle. de Belleville, who,
he says, "plays the piano beautifully; very airily, very elegantly,
and ten times better than Worlitzer." What, we may be sure, in no wise
diminished his good opinion of the lady was that she had performed his
Variations in Vienna, and could play one of them by heart. To picture
the object of Chopin's artistic admiration a little more clearly, let me
recall to the reader's memory Schumann's characterisation of Mdlle. de
Belleville and Clara Wieck.

They should not be compared. They are different mistresses of
different schools. The playing of the Belleville is
technically the finer of the two; Clara's is more
impassioned. The tone of the Belleville caresses, but does
not penetrate beyond the ear; that of Clara reaches the
heart. The one is a poetess; the other is poetry itself.

Chopin's warmest admiration and longest comments were, however, reserved
for Mdlle. Sontag. Having a little more than a year before her visit
to Warsaw secretly married Count Rossi, she made at the time we are
speaking of her last artistic tour before retiring, at the zenith of her
fame and power, into private life. At least, she thought then it was her
last tour; but pecuniary losses and tempting offers induced her in 1849
to reappear in public. In Warsaw she gave a first series of five or six
concerts in the course of a wee