which she played the most difficult compositions of Beethoven, Field, Ries, and Dussek.  Another good sign of the improving taste was a series of twenty-four matinees given on Sundays from twelve to two during the winter of 1818-1819 by Carl Arnold, and much patronised by the highest nobility.  The concert-giver, a clever pianist and composer, who enjoyed in his day a good reputation in Germany, Russia, and Poland, produced at every matinee a new pianoforte concerto by one of the best composers—­ sometimes one of his own—­and was assisted by the quartet party of Bielawski, a good violinist, leader in the orchestra, and professor at the Conservatorium.  Although Arnold’s stay was not of long duration, his departure did not leave the town without good pianists.  Indeed, it is a mistake to suppose that Warsaw was badly off with regard to musicians.  This will be evident to the reader as soon as I have named some of those living there in the time of Chopin.  Wenzel W. Wurfel, one of the professors at the Conservatorium, who stayed in Warsaw from 1815 to 1824, and afterwards went to Vienna, where he became conductor at the Karnthnerthor Theater, was an esteemed pianist and composer, and frequently gave concerts, at one of which he played Field’s Concerto in C.

[Footnote:  Wenzel Wilhelm Wurfel, in most dictionaries called Wilhelm Wurfel (exceptions are:  E. Bernsdorf’s “Neues Universal-Lexikon der Tonkunst”, and Dr. Hugo Riemann’s “Opern-Handbuch").  A Warsaw correspondent of a German musical paper called him Waclaw Wurfel.  In Whistling’s “Handbuch der musikalischen Literatur” his Christian names are only indicated by initials—­W.  W.]

If we scan the list of professors at the Conservatorium we find other musicians whose reputation was not confined to the narrow limits of Warsaw or even Poland.  There was, for instance, the pianist and composer Franz Lessel, the favourite pupil of Haydn; and, further, that interesting character Heinrich Gerhard Lentz, who, born and educated at Cologne, went in 1784 to Paris, played with success his first concerto at the Concert Spirituel, published some of his compositions and taught in the best families, arrived in London in 1791, lived in friendly intercourse with Clementi and Haydn, and had compositions of his performed at Solomon’s concerts, returned to Germany in 1795, stayed with Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia till Dussek supplanted him, and so, wandering about, reached Warsaw, where he gave lessons, founded a pianoforte manufactory, became professor of the organ at the Conservatorium, married twice, and died in 1839.  The only other professor at the Conservatorium about whom I shall say a few words is C. E. Soliva, whose name and masters I have already mentioned.  Of his works the opera “La testa di bronzo” is the best known.  I should have said “was,” for nobody now knows anything of his.  That loud, shallow talker Count Stendhal, or, to give him his real name, Marie Henry Beyle, heard it at Milan in 1816, when it was first produced.  He had at first some difficulty in deciding whether Soliva showed himself in that opera a plagiarist of Mozart or a genius.  Finally he came to the conclusion that—­