Carl Wilhelm August Blum’s Evening Concert
Potsdam—Time: Evening
✗Programme
| Piano Music | Mr. Moscheles |
| Principal Vocalists: Mr. Blume |
| Principal Instrumentalists: Messrs. [Blume], Moscheles |
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Charlotte: Am 15. Dec. nahm Moscheles mit Widerstresben Abschied von Berlin, und von dem ihm so liebgewordenen Mendelssohn’schen Hause. Er reiste mit Frl. Bauer und deren Mutter und mit seinem Bruder nach Potsdam, um seinem Versprechen gemäss Abends in Blume’s Concert in Gegenwart des Hofes mitzuwirken. [AML I, 96.]
Letter: Ignaz Moscheles to Joseph Dessauer in Prague
[Magdeburg den 19te Decemb 1824.]
….Wiener bitte ich zu sagen das Mad. G über das Toupé recht gelacht hat und mir die Anektode wegen den Titus erzählt hat, als wir beym fröhlichen Mahle in Potsdam bey Gelegenheit von Blums Concert (am 16t. D.) zu letzenmahl beysamen waren. [H. R.]
Review
The Harmonicon, vol. III (April 1825): 58.
Two concerts given by Moscheles here, before his departure, were among the most splendid that Berlin has witnessed for many years. With respect to this great pianist, we will not say a word relative to mechanical difficulties conquered by him with perfect ease, as these may be vanquished by almost all, who labour in earnest to attain their object. What we would dwell upon is, his sylph-like facility, and the bold, but playful, character of his style; the most difficult series of tones flit away, not as if the strings had been struck by the key and the finger, but as if they had been swept by the passing breeze, whence accents so new, so varied, so expressive, arise, that even amateurs the most difficult to be pleased, are forced into admiration.
With respect to this professor’s compositions; many of them, being written in great haste, and in moments snatched from his continual occupation, cannot be supposed to possess superior merit, but on the present occasion we were delighted to hear two concertos of real excellence: viz., in E flat major, and G minor. There is a greatness of ideas, and such a high and poetical instrumentation in the Adagio,—a movement in which all virtuosi do not excel,—that the beauty of the composition can for a moment make us forget even this performer himself. It is with no common feeling of regret, that we reflect how long it may be before we are again enchanted with this artist’s performance. Virtuosi may be compared to comets; they are not stationed like composers in the centre of a circle of which they are the life and soul; they are not governed by common laws ; their course is wild and eccentric, they excite a momentary astonishment, and then sweep away into vast distances, from which their return is not to be calculated.
Ignaz Moscheles' Concert Life 