The director of the Peabody Orchestra, who had been a pupil of Von Buelow,
and was a composer of distinction, has left the most authoritative account
of Lanier as a performer: --
"To him as a child in his cradle Music was given, the heavenly gift
to feel and to express himself in tones. His human nature
was like an enchanted instrument, a magic flute, or the lyre of Apollo,
needing but a breath or a touch to send its beauty out into the world.
It was indeed irresistible that he should turn with those poetical feelings
which transcend language to the penetrating gentleness of the flute,
or the infinite passion of the violin; for there was an agreement,
a spiritual correspondence between his nature and theirs,
so that they mutually absorbed and expressed each other.
In his hands the flute no longer remained a mere material instrument,
but was transformed into a voice that set heavenly harmonies into vibration.
Its tones developed colors, warmth, and a low sweetness of unspeakable poetry;
they were not only true and pure, but poetic, allegoric as it were,
suggestive of the depths and heights of being and of the delights
which the earthly ear never hears and the earthly eye never sees. No doubt
his firm faith in these lofty idealities gave him the power to present them
to our imaginations, and thus by the aid of the higher language of Music
to inspire others with that sense of beauty in which he constantly dwelt.
His conception of music was not reached by an analytic study of note by note,
but was intuitive and spontaneous; like a woman's reason:
he felt it so, because he felt it so, and his delicate perception
required no more logical form of reasoning.
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