That I Have
Put Off Replying To You Till Now Is Not Merely On Account Of My
Numerous Occupations, Which
Usually preclude my having the
pleasure of correspondence, but chiefly on account of you and
your remarkable work, which I
Wanted to read at leisure, in order
to get from it the whole substance of its contents. You cannot
find it amiss that it has given me much to reflect upon, and you
will easily understand that I shall have much to say to you on
this subject - so much that, to explain all my thoughts, I should
have to make another book to match yours - or, better still,
resume our lessons of twenty years ago, when the master learned
so much from the pupil, - discuss pieces in hand, the meaning,
value, import, of a large number of ideas, phrases, episodes,
rhythms, harmonic progressions, developments, artifices; - I
should have to have a good long talk with you, in fact, about
minims and crotchets, quavers and semi-quavers, - not forgetting
the rests which, if you please, are by no means a trifling
chapter when one professes to go in seriously for music, and for
Beethoven in particular.
The friendly remembrance that you have kept of our talks, under
the name of lessons, of the Rue Montholon, is very dear to me,
and the flattering testimony your book gives to those past hours
encourages me to invite you to continue them at Weymar, where it
would be at once so pleasant and so interesting to see you for
some weeks or months, ad libitum, so that we might mutually edify
ourselves with Beethoven. Just as we did twenty years ago, we
shall agree all at once, I am certain, in the generality of
cases; and, more than we were then, shall we each of us be in a
position to make further steps forward in the exoteric region of
Art. - For the present allow me, at the risk of often repeating
myself hereafter, to compliment you most sincerely on your
volume, which will be a chosen book and a work of predilection
for people of taste, and particularly for those who feel and
understand music. Artists and amateurs, professors and pupils,
critics and virtuosi; composers and theorists - all will have
something to gain from it, and a part to take in this feast of
attractive instruction that you have prepared for them. What
ingenious traits, what living touches, what well-dealt blows,
what new and judiciously adapted imagery should I not have to
quote, were I to enter in detail into your pages, so different
from what one usually reads on similar subjects! In your
arguments, and in the intrinsic and extrinsic proofs you adduce,
what weight - without heaviness, what solidity - without stiffness,
of strong and wholesome criticism - without pedantry! Ideas are
plentiful in this by turns incisive, brilliant, reflected, and
spontaneous style, in which learning comes in to enhance and
steady the flow of a lively and luxuriant imagination. To all the
refinement and subtle divination common to Slavic genius, you
ally the patient research and learned scruples which characterize
the German explorer.
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