performs certain miracles with springs or tubes, and in some degree
wakens up the company, who, however, not unfrequently relapse into all
their solemn primness, under a concerto manuscript, or a trio
manuscript, the composition of the _bénéficiaire_. Between the parts,
people go quietly into a room beneath, where there are generally some
mild prints to be turned over, some mild coffee to drink, some mild
conversation about mild things in general; and then the party remount
the stairs, and mildly listen to more mild music. This is the common
routine of a classical pianoforte soirée. The _bénéficiaire_ is a
fashionable teacher, and, in a small way, a composer. He gives, every
season, a series, perhaps two or three series, of classic evenings.
The pupils and their families form the majority of the audience,
interspersed with a few pianoforte amateurs, and those _fanatici per
la musica_ who are to be found wherever a violin is tuned, or a piano
is opened.

Another species of classic concert is to be found in the
quartett-meetings. These take place in some small concert-room, such
as that I have described, or at the houses of the executants; and the
audience comprehends a far larger proportion of gentlemen than the
last-mentioned entertainments. The performers are four--pretty sure to
be gentlemen of the highest professional abilities. The instruments
are first and second violin, viola, and violoncello; and three or four
quartetts by the great masters, or, very probably, as many
compositions, marking the different stages of Beethoven's imagination,
are played with the most consummate skill and the tenderest regard for
light and shade. People not deep in the sympathies and tastes of the
musical world, have no idea how these compositions are loved and
studied by the real disciples of Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn; how
particular passages are watched for; and how old gentlemen nod their