Music-Study in Germany: The Classic Memoir of the Romantic Era

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

293-295

text excerpt

Before definitely deciding to give up Kullak and come to him, Deppe insisted that I should hear one of his scholars play... [a] young lady pupil of whom he is very proud, named Fräulein Steiniger...

I was very much struck by her playing, which was remarkable, not so much for sentiment or poetry, of which she had little, but for the mastery she had over the instrument, and for the perfection with which she did everything. There was a clarity and limpidity about her trills and runs which surprised and delighted. Her left hand was as able as the right, and had a way of taking up a variation like nothing at all and running along with it through the most complicated passages, which almost made you laugh with pleasure! There was a wonderful vitality, elasticity and snap to her chords which impressed me very much, and a unity of effect about her whole performance of any composition which I don't remember to have heard from the pupils of other masters. The position of the hand was exquisite, and all difficulties seemed to melt away like snow or to be surmounted with the greatest ease. I saw at a glance that Deppe is a magnificent teacher, and I believe that he has originated a school of his own.

Fräulein Steiniger played a charming Quintette by Hummel, a beautiful Suite by Raff, a Prelude and Fugue by Bach, and two Studies, and all, as it seemed to me, exactly as they ought to be played.

excerpt from 'Music-Study in Germany: The Classic Memoir of the Romantic Era' pp. 293-295 (256 words)

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1425042469569