Thalberg had but little sympathy with the dreamy romanticism which
found such splendid exponents, while he was yet in his early youth,
in Schumann, Chopin, and Liszt. Imagination in its higher functions he
seemed to lack. A certain opulence and picturesqueness of fancy united
in his artistic being with an intelligence both lucid and penetrating,
and a sense of form and symmetry almost Greek in its fastidiousness. The
sweet, vague, passionate aspiration^, the sensibility that quivers
with every breath of movement from the external world, he could not
understand. Placidity, grace, and repose he had in perfection. Yet he
was very highly appreciated by those who had little in common with his
artistic nature. As, for example, Robert Schumann writes of Thalberg and
his playing, on the occasion of a charity concert, given in Leipzig in
1841: "In his passing flight the master's pinions rested here awhile,
and, as from the angel's pinions in one of Rucker's poems, rubies and
other precious stones fell from them and into indigent hands, as the
master ordained it. It is difficult to say anything new of one who has
been so praise beshow-ered as he has. But every earnest virtuoso is glad
to hear one thing said at any time--that he has progressed in his
art since he last delighted us. This best of all praise we are
conscientiously able to bestow on Thalberg; for, during the last two
years that we have not heard him, he has made astonishing additions to
his acquirements, and, if possible, moves with greater boldness, grace,
and freedom than ever. His playing seemed to have the same effect on
every one, and the delight that he probably feels in it himself was
shared by all. True virtuosity gives us something more than mere
flexibility and execution: aman may mirror his own nature in it, and in
Thalberg's playing it becomes clear to all that he is one of the favored
ones of fortune, one accustomed to wealth and elegance. Accompanied
by happiness, bestowing pleasure, he commenced his career; under such
circumstances he has so far pursued it, and so he will probably continue
it. The whole of yesterday evening and every number that he played gave
us a proof of this. The public did not seem to be there to judge, but
only to enjoy; they were as certain of enjoyment as the master was of
his art."
Thalberg in his appearance had none of the traditional wild
picturesqueness of style and manner which so many distinguished artists,
even Liszt himself, have thought it worth while to carry perhaps to
the degree of affectation. Smoothly shaven, quiet, eminently
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
doubtlessly true. Whether the absence of the imaginative warmth and
vigor which suffuse a work of art with the glow of something that can
not be fully expressed, and kindle the thoughts of the hearer to take
hitherto unknown flights, is fully compensated for by that repose and
symmetry of style which know exactly what it wishes to express, and,
being perfect master of the means of expression, puts forth an exact
measure of effort and then stops as if shut down by an iron wall--this
is an open question, and must be answered according to one's art
theories. The exquisite modeling of a Benvenuto Cellini vase, wrought
with patient elaboration into a thing of unsurpassable beauty, does not
invoke as high a sense of pleasure as an heroic statue or noble painting
by some great master, but of its kind the pleasure is just as complete.
Apart from Thalberg's power as a player, however, there was something
captivating in the quality of his talent, which, though not creative,
was gifted with the power of seizing the very essence of the music to
be interpreted. A striking example of this is shown in the fantasias he
composed on the different operas, a form of writing which reached its
perfection in him. His own contribution is simply a most delightful
setting of the melodies of his subject, and the whole is steeped in the
very atmosphere and feeling of the original, as if the master himself
had done the work.
A good example is the fantasia on Mozart's "Don Giovanni." The little,
wild, unformed melodies rustle in quick gusts along the keys as if
wavering shadows, yet with all the familiar rhythm and family likeness,
filling the mind of the hearer with the atmosphere and necessity of what
is to follow, while gradually the full harmonies unfold themselves. The
introduction of the minuet is one of the most striking portions. The
scene of the minuet in the opera is a vision of rural loveliness and
repose, whispering of flowers, fields, and happy flying hours. All this
becomes poetized, and the music seems to imply rich reaches of odorous
garden and moonlight, whispering foliage, and nightingales mad with the
delight of their own singing, and a palace on the lawn sounding with
riotous mirth. The player-composer weaves the glamour of such a dream,
and the hearer finds himself strolling in imagination through the
moonlit garden, listening to the birds, the waters, and the rustling
leaves, while the stately beat of the minuet comes throbbing through
it all, calling up the vision of gayly dressed cavaliers and beautiful
ladies fantastically moving to the tune. Such poetic sentiment as
this of the purely picturesque sort was in large measure Thalberg's
possession, but he could never understand that turbulent ground-swell of
passion which music can also powerfully express, and by which the
soul is lifted up to the heights of ecstasy or plunged in depths of
melancholy. Music as a vehicle for such meanings was mere Egyptian
hieroglyphic, utterly beyond his limitation, absolute bathos and
absurdity.
It is doubtful whether any player ever possessed a more wonderfully
trained mechanism; the smallest details were polished and finished with
the utmost care, the scales marvels of evenness, the shakes rivaling the
trill of a canary bird. His arpeggios at times rolled like the waves
of the sea, and at others resembled folds of transparent lace floating
airily with the movements of the wearer. The octaves were wonderfully
accurate, and the chords appeared to be struck by steel mallets instead
of fingers. He was called the Bayard of pianists, "le Chevalier sans
peur et sans reproche." His tone was noble, yet mellow and delicate, and
the gradations between his forte and piano were traced most exquisitely.
In a word, technical execution could go no further. It is said that
he never played a piece in public till he had absolutely made it the
property of his fingers. He was the first to divide the melody between
the two hands, making the right hand perform a brilliant figure in the
higher register, while the left hand exhibited a full and rich bass
part, supplementing it with an accompaniment in chords. It was this
characteristic which made his fantasias so unique and interesting, in
spite of their lack of originality of motive, as compositions. Almost
all writers for the piano have since adopted this device, even the great
Mendelssohn using it in some of his concertos and "Songs without Words";
and in many cases it has been transformed into a mere trick of arrant
musical charlatanism, designed to cover up with a sham glitter the utter
absence of thought and motive. No better suggestion of the dominant
characteristic of Thal-berg as a pianist can be found than a critical
word of his friend Moscheles: "The proper ground for finger gymnastics
is to be found in Thalberg's latest compositions; for mind [Geist], give
me Schumann."