Here, also, he unwittingly incurred the enmity of the pianist Himmel. The latter had begged Beethoven for an improvisation, with which request our musician complied, and then asked Himmel to favour him in return. Nothing loath, Himmel seated himself at the pianoforte and began a succession of smooth running passages and arpeggios, skilfully linked together. Beethoven listened for a while in silence, imagining this to be the prelude, but as it seemed to "go on for ever," he said with some impatience, "Pray do begin now!" Himmel, however had already exhausted his imagination and finished his (_quasi_) improvisation. No better fate awaited others who opposed themselves to Beethoven as improvisatori, not excepting the celebrated pianists Woelfl and Steibelt. That the former could ever have been seriously regarded as the rival of Beethoven is scarcely credible to us. Such was the case, however, and as with Gluck and Picini in Paris, and Handel and Buononcini in London (connected with which Swift's well-known _jeu-d'esprit_ will occur to every amateur), so it was with Beethoven and Woelfl in Vienna. Each had his allies, and party spirit ran so high that Beethoven, although devoid of any feeling of rivalry, accepted a challenge to improvise. The meeting took place at the villa of Baron von Wetzlar, Woelfl's patron; the pianofortes were placed side by side, and the two artists played and improvised by turns. Inspired by the ardour of contest, each seemed to surpass himself; never had Woelfl's technical skill seemed greater; never had the wealth of Beethoven's ideas shone out more resplendently. Some of Woelfl's stoutest adherents contended that he had gained the day in a technical point of view, and this may, perhaps, have been the case, since his immense hand, which enabled him to grasp tenths with the same ease as octaves, undoubtedly gave him an advantage. His sonata, "Non plus ultra," gives us an idea of his execution. Beethoven, on the other hand, never cared to make a display of mere dash and brilliancy; technicalities were always subordinated by him to idea and feeling. The gift of improvisation must have been his to an extent unparalleled either before or since. His wealth of idea, certainty of form, and poetry of expression, combined to produce an effect very different from that achieved by ordinary extempore players, who in general, as we have seen in the case of Himmel, mistook the art of preluding for that of improvising. Only one conversant with that language of music to which Beethoven often alluded, could venture, without preparation, to speak to any purpose in it.