the courage to applaud). One might essay in vain to express the marvellous facility with which Gottschalk makes his instrument vibrate, one can hardly follow his hands in their rapid course; the forte, the piano, the trills carried to the highest degree of perfection, all the shades, all the inflections of human sensations, he renders them all with precision and exquisite delicacy.
Play, light and graceful, variations, melody large; as for difficulties he is not aware of them; it is useless to add that he excels in classical music.
His instrument is always ready to express a tender and painful sentiment; in the high keys it has a metallic timbre between a bell and glass, but with much more sweetness and less shrillness; one could not imagine anything more delicious, more flexible, more penetrating, more incisive! touched, manié, effleuré with more art.
To analyze all the pieces which he has played to us would carry us too far; the only thing one could say would be, what Voltaire placed at the foot of every page of Racine.
But above all it is necessary to hear him when he plays for us his chants of the new world, chants which bring tears to our eyes, so much do they breathe of sadness and simplicity.
One transports us to forests, peopled with rare trees which invite us to pluck and taste their fruits; another represents faithfully the indolent Creole, swinging gently in his hammock, while listening to liis little one singing again his song of another hemisphere; and what shall we say of the third? does it not seem to be overwhelmed by that solemn silence and that solitude which one feels in traversing those vast prairies at the foot of the Rocky Mountains?
Gottschalk, full-handed, spends his life in animating and charming that public which remains in ecstasy at every piece, and while he is far from the eyes of this same public he must be seen as we have seen him, restless, disquieted, not able to be still for a moment, and when he returns to charm our ears anew, we see this young man tranquil as at first. And if we again reflect, that every sound which he pauses to vibrate tears one hour from his frail and nervous existence. . . . . He finds, it is true, his recompense in the consciousness of his talent and in that noble pride without which there can be no great artists.
But do not deem that ambition is alone his sole dream in this world; no, amidst the intoxication of bravos and of gold, his thoughts turn toward his family, and he thinks of his mother, his brothers, and his sisters, who are expecting and wishing for his return.
That God may watch over him for the numerous admirers of his talents (for every place where he has been and wherever he shall go, they will always be numerous and unanimous), for his friends who will be able to appreciate the amenity of his amiable character and the general knowledge which he possesses, and above all that He will watch over him for the sake of his mother and her young family, in which he takes the place of a father—this is the very sincere wish which his admirer and friend has for him.
Ch. Schriwaneck.
The following is extracted from an article, dated Lausanne, 29 October, 1850, from Mr. Witterson, a correspondent of 'La France Musicale,' of Paris, which appeared in that journal under date of 10 November, 1850.
