Chopin met Czerny. "He is a good man, but nothing more," he said
of him. Czerny admired the young pianist with the elastic hand
and on his second visit to Vienna, characteristically inquired,
"Are you still industrious?" Czerny's brain was a tireless
incubator of piano exercises, while Chopin so fused the technical
problem with the poetic idea, that such a nature as the old
pedagogue's must have been unattractive to him. He knew Franz,
Lachner and other celebrities and seems to have enjoyed a mild
flirtation with Leopoldine Blahetka, a popular young pianist, for
he wrote of his sorrow at parting from her. On August 19 he left
with friends for Bohemia, arriving at Prague two days later.
There he saw everything and met Klengel, of canon fame, a still
greater canon-eer than the redoubtable Jadassohn of Leipzig.
Chopin and Klengel liked each other. Three days later the party
proceeded to Teplitz and Chopin played in aristocratic company.
He reached Dresden August 26, heard Spohr's "Faust" and met
capellmeister Morlacchi--that same Morlacchi whom Wagner
succeeded as a conductor January 10, 1843--vide Finck's "Wagner.
Pages:
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32