pupil of Mendelssohn’s pianoforte-master, L. Berger, played with success in Poland and Germany, and has been described by contemporaries as a finished and expressive, but not brilliant, pianist.  His pleasing compositions are of an instructive and mildly-entertaining character.  The other of the two was Joseph Christoph Kessler, a musician of very different mettle.  After studying philosophy in Vienna, and composing at the house of Count Potocki in Lemberg his celebrated Etudes, Op. 20 (published at Vienna, reprinted at Paris, recommended by Kalkbrenner in his Methode, quoted by Fetis and Moscheles in their Methode des Methodes, and played in part by Liszt at his concerts), he tried in 1829 his luck in Warsaw.  Schumann thought (in 1835) that Kessler had the stuff in him to do something great, and always looked forward with expectation to what he would yet accomplish.  Kessler’s studies might be dry, but he was assuredly a “Mann von Geist und sogar poetischem Geist.”  He dedicated his twenty-four Preludes, Op. 31, to Chopin, and Chopin his twenty-four Preludes, Op. 28, to him—­that is to say, the German edition.

By this time the reader must have found out that Warsaw was not such a musical desert as he may at first have imagined.  Perfect renderings of great orchestral works, it is true, seem to have been as yet unattainable, and the performances of operas failed likewise to satisfy a pure and trained taste.  Nay, in 1822 it was even said that the opera was getting worse.  But when the fruits of the Conservatorium had had time to ripen and could be gathered in, things would assume a more promising aspect.  Church music, which like other things had much deteriorated, received a share of the attention which in this century was given to the art.  The best singing was in the Piarist and University churches.  In the former the bulk of the performers consisted of amateurs, who, however, were assisted by members of the opera.  They sang Haydn’s masses best and oftenest.  In the other church the executants were students and professors, Elsner being the conductor.  Besides these choirs there existed a number of musical associations in connection with different churches in Warsaw.  Indeed, it cannot be doubted that great progress was made in the first thirty years of this century, and had it not been for the unfortunate insurrection of 1830, Poland would have succeeded in producing a national art and taking up an honourable position among the great musical powers of Europe, whereas now it can boast only of individual artists of more or less skill and originality.  The musical events to which the death of the Emperor Alexander I. gave occasion in 1826, show to some extent the musical capabilities of Warsaw.  On one day a Requiem by Kozlowski (a Polish composer, then living in St. Petersburg; b. 1757, d. 1831), with interpolations of pieces by other composers, was performed in the Cathedral by two hundred singers and players under Soliva.  On another