Yet he writes in 1830 that
he intends going to Weimar, "for the sly reason of being able to _call
myself_ a pupil of Hummel." Wieck, his father-in-law, he esteemed
greatly as teacher and adviser, but it offended him deeply that Wieck
should have followed the common error of estimating genius with a
yard-stick, and asked where were his "Don Juan" and his "Freischuetz?"
His enthusiasm for Schubert, Chopin, and especially for Bach, finds
frequent expression. Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavichord" he declares is
his "grammar, and the best of all grammars. The fugues I have
analyzed successively to the minutest details; the advantage resulting
from this is great, and has a morally bracing effect on the whole
system, for Bach was a man through and through; in him there is
nothing done by halves, nothing morbid, but all is written for time
eternal." Six years later: "Bach is my daily bread; from him I derive
gratification and get new ideas--'compared with him we are all
children,' Beethoven has said, I believe." One day a caller remarked
that Bach was old and wrote in old-fashioned manner: "But I told him
he was neither old nor new, but much more than that, namely, eternal.
Pages:
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148