ng the earlier part of his sojourn in Vienna Chopin remarked that
excepting Heinefetter and Wild, the singers were not so excellent as he
had expected to find them at the Imperial Opera. Afterwards he seems to
have somewhat extended his sympathies, for he writes in July, 1831:--

Rossini's "Siege of Corinth" was lately very well performed
here, and I am glad that I had the opportunity of hearing
this opera. Miss Heinefetter and Messrs. Wild, Binder, and
Forti, in short, all the good singers in Vienna, appeared in
this opera and did their best.

Chopin's most considerable criticism of this time is one on Miss
Heinefetter in a letter written on December 25, 1830; it may serve as
a pendant to his criticism on Miss Sontag which I quoted in a preceding
chapter.

Miss Heinefetter has a voice such as one seldom hears; she
sings always in tune; her coloratura is like so many pearls;
in short, everything is faultless. She looks particularly
well when dressed as a man. But she is cold: I got my nose
almost frozen in the stalls. In "Othello" she delighted me
more than in the "Barber of Seville," where she represents a
finished coquette instead of a lively, witty girl. As Sextus
in "Titus" she looks really quite splendid. In a few days she
is to appear in the "Thieving Magpie" ["La Gazza ladra"]. I
am anxious to hear it. Miss Woikow pleased me better as
Rosina in the "Barber"; but, to be sure, she has not such a
delicious voice as the Heinefetter. I wish I had heard Pasta!

The opera at the Karnthnerthor Theatre with all its shortcomings
was nevertheless the most important and most satisfactory musical
institution of the city. What else, indeed, had Vienna to offer to the
earnest musician? Lanner and Strauss were the heroes of the day, and the
majority of other concerts than those given by them were exhibitions
of virtuosos. Imagine what a pass the musical world of Vienna must have
come to when Stadler, Kiesewetter, Mosel, and Seyfried could be called,
as Chopin did call them, its elite! Abbe Stadler might well say to
the stranger from Poland that Vienna was no longer what it used to be.
Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert had shuffled off their mortal
coil, and compared with these suns their surviving contemporaries
and successors--Gyrowetz, Weigl, Stadler, Conradin Kreutzer, Lachner,
&c.--were but dim and uncertain lights.

With regard to choral and orchestral performanc