These historical notes will give us an idea of what Chopin may have heard in the way of choral and orchestral music.  I say “may have heard,” because not a word is to be found in his extant letters about the concerts of these societies.  Without exposing ourselves to the reproach of rashness, we may, however, assume that he was present at the concert of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde on March 20, 1831, when among the items of the programme were Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, and the first movement of a concerto composed and played by Thalberg.  On seeing the name of one of the most famous pianists contemporary with Chopin, the reader has, no doubt, at once guessed the reason why I assumed the latter’s presence at the concert.  These two remarkable, but in their characters and aims so dissimilar, men had some friendly intercourse in Vienna.  Chopin mentions Thalberg twice in his letters, first on December 25, 1830, and again on May 28, 1831.  On the latter occasion he relates that he went with him to an organ recital given by Hesse, the previously-mentioned Adolf Hesse of Breslau, of whom Chopin now remarked that he had talent and knew how to treat his instrument.  Hesse and Chopin must have had some personal intercourse, for we learn that the former left with the latter an album leaf.  A propos of this circumstance, Chopin confesses in a letter to his people that he is at a loss what to write, that he lacks the requisite wit.  But let us return to the brilliant pianist, who, of course, was a more interesting acquaintance in Chopin’s, eyes than the great organist.  Born in 1812, and consequently three years younger than Chopin, Sigismund Thalberg had already in his fifteenth year played with success in public, and at the age of sixteen published Op. 1, 2, and 3.  However, when Chopin made his acquaintance, he had not yet begun to play only his own compositions (about that time he played, for instance, Beethoven’s C minor Concerto at one of the Spirituel-Concerte, where since 1830 instrumental solos were occasionally heard), nor had he attained that in its way unique perfection of beauty of tone and elegance of execution which distinguished him afterwards.  Indeed, the palmy days of his career cannot be dated farther back than the year 1835, when he and Chopin met again in Paris; but then his success was so enormous that his fame in a short time became universal, and as a virtuoso only one rival was left him—­Liszt, the unconquered.  That Chopin and Thalberg entertained very high opinions of each other cannot be asserted.  Let the reader judge for himself after reading what Chopin says in his letter of December 25, 1830:—­