Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

i62 A/V MUSICAL EXPERIENCES
many successive summers. In his absences from St.
Petersburg he missed his winter occupation, that of
teaching, for which he had a passion. A family of
good birth, who were on intimate terms with Henselt's
wife, happened to have a daughter who had just left
school, and was trying to get on with her music by
nerself. This young lady had the good fortune to
come under the notice of the Meister, and it was a
lesson given to her this day at which I had been
invited to be present. Under Frau von Henselt's
auspices, we stole softly in and ensconced ourselves
noiselessly behind the Meister and his pupil; but
though we had made scarcely a sound on coming in,
Henselt had noted our approach, and, turning right
round, he looked full at me. His glance met mine,
and in silence, and without a word of introduction, he
held out his hand and closed mine in a firm and
friendly clasp. The young lady was playing Weber's
Sonata in A Flat ; and Henselt made her pause over
and over again in order to show her how he wished
her to play, and to phrase various passages in this
piece. He did not on that day play more than a page
or so at a time, and yet he had scarcely seated himself
at the piano, scarcely played a few bars, before it was
clear to me that I was in the presence of one who
united in himself all the rarest excellences of a
musician and a virtuoso of the highest order.
His naturally short, fleshy hand, with short fingers,
had been so widened and developed by studies which