Page:Selected letters of Mendelssohn 1894.djvu/76

---

of interest in Milan. In the afternoon his wife calls for me in her carriage to drive on the Corso, and in the evenings we have music till one o’clock. Yesterday morning they took me an excursion in the country, and made me come to dinner at midday. In the evening they had a reception. Besides, they are the most delightful and cultivated people one can wish for, and as much in love with one another as though they had been married the other day, instead of four and thirty years ago. Yesterday he was speaking of his profession and military life, and about personal courage and kindred matters, with a clearness and a fine freedom of view such as I have scarcely heard except from father. He has already been an officer for forty-six years, and you should see him riding beside his wife’s carriage in the park, such a brisk and noble style the old gentleman has still. She plays Beethoven’s things very beautifully, though it is long since she studied them. Often she exaggerates the expression a little, lingering too much, and then hurrying on, yet she renders some pieces grandly. And I think I have learnt something from her. At times she can draw out no more expression from the piano, and then she throws in her voice, that seems to come straight from her innermost heart; at those times she often reminds me of you, my Fanny, though, indeed, you far surpass her. As I reached the end of the adagio on the trio in B major, she exclaimed, “It is too expressive to be played,” and that is really true of the passage. The next day I was there again, and played the symphony in C minor; she insisted on my taking