Details
MOSCHELES, Ignaz (1794-1870). Autograph letter signed ('I. Moscheles') to an unidentified recipient ('Geschätzte Frau') [THE SOPRANO WILHELMINE SCHRöDER-DEVRIENT], 3 Chester Place, Regent's Park, [London], 'the 19th May 1832 at the glorious triumph of German opera in London', in German, 2 pages, 8vo, framed and glazed, with a translation.
ECSTASIES AT WILHELMINE SCHRöDER-DEVRIENT'S ENGLISH DEBUT AS LEONORE. Moscheles congratulates the recipient on her performance: 'you have opened to me a new world of art, for I had no conception of such a Fidelio, and if Beethoven did not hear you, his ideal was decidedly never presented to him. I congratulate you that an English audience, in spite of their ignorance of the German language, was so affected ... My wife felt the same enthusiasm as I did, till her weak nerves sank under it, and she fainted'; Moscheles invites the recipient to visit him on Sunday, 'the only day of rest for me'.
Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient (1804-1860) was one of the greatest singers of her age, particularly renowned for her Leonore, in which role Moscheles elsewhere remarks that he preferred her to Malibran: 'It was her Leonore that roused the 16-year-old Wagner to his sense of vocation as a dramatic composer' (Grove). Moscheles, whose closeness to Beethoven during his years in Vienna after 1808 put him in a good position to judge Schröder-Devrient's performance, had settled in London after his marriage in 1825, and taught piano at the Royal Academy; in 1832, the year of the present letter, he conducted the first London performance of Beethoven's Missa solemnis.
ECSTASIES AT WILHELMINE SCHRöDER-DEVRIENT'S ENGLISH DEBUT AS LEONORE. Moscheles congratulates the recipient on her performance: 'you have opened to me a new world of art, for I had no conception of such a Fidelio, and if Beethoven did not hear you, his ideal was decidedly never presented to him. I congratulate you that an English audience, in spite of their ignorance of the German language, was so affected ... My wife felt the same enthusiasm as I did, till her weak nerves sank under it, and she fainted'; Moscheles invites the recipient to visit him on Sunday, 'the only day of rest for me'.
Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient (1804-1860) was one of the greatest singers of her age, particularly renowned for her Leonore, in which role Moscheles elsewhere remarks that he preferred her to Malibran: 'It was her Leonore that roused the 16-year-old Wagner to his sense of vocation as a dramatic composer' (Grove). Moscheles, whose closeness to Beethoven during his years in Vienna after 1808 put him in a good position to judge Schröder-Devrient's performance, had settled in London after his marriage in 1825, and taught piano at the Royal Academy; in 1832, the year of the present letter, he conducted the first London performance of Beethoven's Missa solemnis.
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