The
ballet would also amuse you." "A more encouraging public it would be
difficult to find anywhere; it is really too encouraging--in the
theatre one hears more applause than music. It is very merry, but it
annoys me occasionally." "But I assure you confidentially that long
and alone I should not care to live here; serious men and affairs are
here in little demand and little appreciated. A compensation for this
is found in the beautiful surroundings. Yesterday I was in the
cemetery where Beethoven and Schubert are buried. Just think what I
found on Beethoven's grave: _a pen_, and, what is more, a steel pen.
It was a happy omen for me and I shall preserve it religiously." On
Schubert's grave he found nothing, but in the city he found Schubert's
brother, a poor man with eight children and no possessions but a
number of his brother's manuscripts, including "a few operas, four
great masses, four or five symphonies, and many other things." He
immediately wrote to Breitkopf & Haertel to make arrangements for their
publication.
It is anything but complimentary to the discernment of Viennese
publishers and musicians of that period that, eleven years after
Schubert's death, another composer had to come from Leipsic and give
to the world the works of a colleague who not only had genius of the
purest water, but the gift of giving utterance to his musical ideas in
a clear style, intelligible to the public.
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