Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

i84 MY MUSICAL EXPERIENCES
The question which I debated with myself was,
What was to be done ? and the answer was not easy
to find, for, look round where I would, it was pretty
clear to me that, for what I just then wanted,
Henselt, and Henselt alone, was the man. But,
then, he lived in St. Petersburg, and only came to
Warmbrunn every summer; and, moreover, he had
told me over and over again that I was not in his
school (inferring by this expression that I was not ia
a fit condition to receive all that he wished to impart).
At first I thought of remaining in Germany, and
getting some pupil of his to drill me; but I heard
from his wife that there was no one in the country
who was, in his opinion, qualified to initiate one
thoroughly into the school ; and so I let the matter
rest for a few days, and after preparing four studies
of Cramer, went again to Henselt.
This time I had worked just as if I were studying
Bach's preludes and fugues, and was myself by no
means dissatisfied with what I had done after but
fom- days of practice. Henselt heard me play the
first study without interrupting me or making any
remark, but when he sat down and played it himself,
I was in utter despair at my own miserably unsatis-
factory tones ; and when he not only played No. HI.,
but gave me a lesson in the left hand of this study, I
caught such a glimpse of possible perfection that I
was at once crushed and enchanted—crushed with an
overpowering sense of my own utter dilettanteism,