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These indications of nature were not ignored, for the boy was placed under instruction before he had completed his sixth year. It is a little singular that his first teacher was not a pianist, though a very superior musician. Mittag was one of the first bassoonists of his times, and, in addition to his technical skill, a thoroughly accomplished man in the science of his profession.
It was as if the monotonous beat of the music were duplicated in some sounding mirror, some mirror that magnified hideously, hideously mimicked the melody. Yet these footfalls murmured as a sea-shell. Every phrase stood out before the pianist, exquisitely clear; his brain had only once before harboured such an exalted mood.
The stupid fool would come back soon enough, and to-day, with Prince Puckler-Muskau, Baron Korff, General de Pfuel, and von Bülow the pianist, coming to lunch, and perhaps Wagner, if he could finish his rehearsal of "Lohengrin" in time, he was not sorry to see his table relieved of the dull pomposity and brilliant watch-chain of the pillar of Prague society. How mean to hide one's Judaism!
Halle, the pianist, once asserted that he proved Chopin to be playing four-four instead of three-four measure in a mazurka. Chopin laughingly admitted that it was a national trait. Halle was bewildered when he first heard Chopin play, for he did not believe such music could be represented by musical signs. Still he holds that this style has been woefully exaggerated by pupils and imitators.
The pianist hurried up to a stout man with a low, turned-down collar and a white satin tie, whose double chin, and general air of rather fatuous prosperity, proclaimed him the possessor of a tenor voice, and Miss Schley walked quietly, but with determination, up to where Lady Holme was sitting and took a seat beside her. "Glad to meet you again," she drawled.
It was my good fortune to be present at the orchestral concert at Queen's Hall, when Mr. Stojowski was the soloist. It was pleasant to see the enthusiasm aroused by the concerto itself, and the performance of it by the artist. "One of the most necessary things is the conserving of vital energy in piano practise," said the pianist Rudolph Ganz to me one day.
The latter, however, did not at first feel inclined to accept the proposed trust; but on hearing the boy play he conceived so high an idea of his capacities that he agreed to undertake his artistic education. Chopin seems to have always retained a thorough belief in his muscular pupil, although some of his great pianist friends thought this belief nothing but a strange delusion.
The first preliminary was the getting of the instruments in tune; and not knowing that the mandolin is an octave higher than the guitar, they spent a great deal of time and broke a great many guitar-strings. As the next step, Thyrsis went to hear a great pianist, and sat perplexed and wondering.
David backed the request sincerely. Lucy played a piece composed expressly for the piano by a pianist of the day. David sat on her left hand and watched intently how she did it. When it was over, Talboys did a bit of rapture; Eve another. "That is playing." "I would not have believed it if I had not seen it done," said David.
Foss in the optimism of her mood said to herself that all would very likely go well in that quarter; they ought not to worry as they did. The pianist had struck up a polka. One still danced the polka in those days, and the schottische and the dear old lancers, though the waltz was already the favorite.
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