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He now attracted the attention of the Countess Perticari, who admired his voice, and she sent him to the Lyceum to learn fugue and counterpoint at the feet of a very strict Gamaliel, Padre Mallei.
It contained a complete "Treatise on the Fugue," written entirely by the hand of the old master, and containing also a critical analysis of little Jacob's work, exposing its errors, adding example to precept, by contrasting with it a fugue written by the Abbé on the same theme, and also subjecting the two compositions to a severe and logical criticism, which only proved the superiority of the masterly hand over the inexperienced.
I then played a solo, my last sonata in D, for Durnitz, and afterwards my concerto in B; then again a solo in the organ style, namely, a fugue in C minor, then all of a sudden a splendid sonata in C major, finishing with a rondo, all extempore. What a noise and commotion there was! Herr Stein did nothing but make faces and grimaces of astonishment.
Sitting at the organ he threw these words over his arm: "We expect Maryan at lunch." "But she?" inquired Kranitski from the depth of the long and high arms of the cathedra. "She will finish her toilet and go." Then he played the Bach fugue. He played, and Kranitski, sank in the chair, listened and grew sadder and sadder.
With what interest, for instance, do we read Schindler's account of how Beethoven composed his Missa Solemnis of the master's absolute detachment from the terrestrial world during the time he was engaged on this work; of his singing, shouting, and stamping, when he was in the act of giving birth to the fugue of the Credo!
For all that we speak of the sacrosanct uniqueness of a given art work, we know very well, though we do not always admit it, that not all productions are equally intractable to transference. A Chopin étude is inviolate; it moves altogether in the world of piano tone. A Bach fugue is transferable into another set of musical timbres without serious loss of esthetic significance.
The principal result of his influence over me was certainly the growing love of clearness and fluency to which he had trained me. I had already had to write the above-mentioned fugue for ordinary voices; my feeling for the melodious and vocal had in this way been awakened.
The music became more and more audible. The melody grew and passed from one instrument to another. And what was played was a fugue though Petya had not the least conception of what a fugue is.
"You should have: I played the great fugue in A minor expressly for your entertainment: you used to work at Liszt's transcription of it. The organ is only occasionally my consoler. For the most part I am driven to it by habit and a certain itching in my fingers. Marian is my real consoler." "So she has just been telling me," said Elinor.
The sense of mutual fitness that springs from the two deep notes fulfilling expectation just at the right moment between the notes of the silvery soprano, from the perfect accord of descending thirds and fifths, from the preconcerted loving chase of a fugue, is likely enough to supersede any immediate demand for less impassioned forms of agreement.
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