deal."

And yet musical culture was said to be in its infancy in America at that
time!

In Boston, Vieuxtemps, after an absence of fourteen years, was
criticised thus: "We cannot see in M. Vieuxtemps the spark of genius,
but he is a complete musician, and the master of his instrument. Tone so
rich, so pure, so admirably prolonged and nourished, so literally drawn
from the instrument, we have scarcely heard before; nor such vigour,
certainty, and precision, such nobility and truth in every motion and
effect. We recognise the weakness for sterile difficulties of extreme
harmonics."

Vieuxtemps was also subject to comparison with Sivori, rather to the
former's disparagement. "The one plays the violin like a great
musician, the other like a spoiled child of nature, who has endowed him
with the most precious gifts. Intrepid wrestlers, both, and masters of
their instrument, they each employ a different manner. M. Vieuxtemps
never lets you forget that he plays the violin, that the wonders of
mechanism which he accomplishes under your eye are of the greatest
difficulty and have cost him immense pains, whereas M. Sivori has the
air of being ignorant that he holds in his hands one of the most
complicated instruments that exists, and he sings to you like Malibran.
He sings, he weeps, he laughs on the violin like a very demon."

The following paragraph is a good sample of New York musical journalism
in the year 1844:

"Vieuxtemps's first concert on Monday night was a very stylish jam.