With The Exception Of Haydn's "Creation" There Is
Scarcely A Work Of That Kind Existing Which Could Show Such
Countless Performances.
I, for my part, chose the "Messiah" for
performance again in Weymar (in August 1850) - partly because
Herder had interested himself in the preparation of the German
text - and in the previous August they celebrated the Middle-Rhine
Musical Festival at Darmstadt with it.
This latter circumstance
enhances my general consideration as to the artistic
judiciousness of a repeated performance of the Messiah, up to a
special point in regard to the Aix-la-Chapelle Festival, and
therefore I should like the question put to the Committee
"whether they consider that, in the interests of the 'fresher
life of the Musical Festival there,' it can be advantageous for
the Lower-Rhine to repeat it after the Middle-Rhine."
The sentence in the letter of the Committee, in which the hope is
cherished and expressed that "the celebrated Frau Lind-
Goldschmidt may be engaged," leads me to an almost more serious
consideration. -
Do not be alarmed, dear sir, and do not be in the least afraid
that I am going to struggle, in the usual style of our
unchivalrous Don Quixote of musical criticism, with the windmill
of virtuosity. You could not fairly expect this of me either, for
I have never concealed that, since the grapes of virtuosity could
not be made sour for me, I should take no pleasure whatever in
finding them sour in somebody else's mouth.
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