FRIEDRICH ERNST FESCA, born at Magdeburg, in 1789, was brought up in the midst of music, and took to the study of the violin in his ninth year, under M. Lohse, first violinist of the Magdeburg Theatre. Fesca made rapid progress, and was speedly delighted at being enabled to join in quartetts of Haydn, Boccherini and Mozart. In his eleventh year, he exhibited in a concerto on the violin, publicly, at Magdeburg. His first essay in composition was a concerto for the violin, performed by himself at Leipsig. Introduced by Marshal Victor to Jerome Buonaparte, he became first violinist at Cassel. His forte in instrumentalizing lay principally in the _adagio_, that true touchstone of a performer’s abilities and it was in giving effect to this that his inmost soul shone forth. His _compositions_, also, showed superior delicacy in the adagio. Fesca afterwards became first violin of the Court Theatre at Carlsruhe, and at a later period was concert-master to the Grand Duke of Baden. He died in 1825, leaving a character highly esteemed and respected, especially for its exemption from the alloy of professional envy. He was distinguished in other compositions besides the instrumental. His quartetts possess great merit, but are by no means to be ranked with those of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. They are marked by grace and feeling, more than by invention. CHRISTOPH GOTTFRIED KIESEWETTER was born in 1777, at Anspach, where his father was first violinist at the Royal Chapel. His own devotion to the instrument was repaid by the high reputation he acquired, rather than by pecuniary success;—for music in Germany, like virtue everywhere, is, in a certain qualified sense, its own reward. In that country, where the practice of the musical art is so extensively diffused, the individual professor has not the opportunity of rendering it so lucrative to himself, as it is where talent is concentrated among a very few of the community. Holding the appointment of leader of the band to the Hanoverian Court, Kiesewetter found himself too poor for the maintenance of a wife and eight children. In 1821, he came to London, and at once established a reputation here by his spirited playing at the Philharmonic Concerts. His execution was considered to be sometimes quite amazing, but not always perfect. It was particularly remarked that in quick playing he had a sort of jerking squeak in his high notes, that was somewhat anti-musical, and was one of the consequences of his too frequent use of the extra shifts. These squeaking notes, and marked slidings of the finger up the strings, as it has justly been observed, may shew a certain kind of mechanical skill that partakes of the nature of practical wit, but they also betray the weaker part in the instrument, and are apt to be (except when _insured_ by the skill of a Paganini) more provoking than pleasing. There existed a similar cause of deduction from the praise due to _another_ German violinist, M. Hauman,