Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

HENSELT ii,t,
wondered if I might hope for the same privilege, and
with this idea had a whole set of them sent to me
from Leipzig. He saw them in my room, and said,
'Come in and we will play them for my wife;' and
she was so charmed, that every evening at six it was
arranged that I should come over to the villa and try
a duet with him. When I speak of ' trying a duet,' I
mean that, having in most instances carefully read
over the second part, I acted as ' an accompanist
to the Meister, who from the time he sat down beside
me on these occasions laid aside all his abruptness,
and had such a gentle way of intimating his mode of
interpretation, that he seemed^-but for the sweet
tones which welled up beneath his fingers—to be no
more Henselt, but someone else.
This time I played with Henselt a long programme
of pieces which I had been studying in Germany
— '
his Poevie d'Amour, Liszt's lAicia,, second Rhapsodie
Hongroise, Bach's Italienisches Concert; but it was,
as I have already said, a trying summer, and as I
wished to play one or two more concertos before
finally returning to my native land, I went once more
to St. Petersburg, and was again warmly welcomed
by the friends to whom I had naturally drawn still
closer during my second stay in St. Petersburg. It
was then that Henselt wrote me the accompanying
little note on a post-card.
Henselt was away in Moscow when I arrived, but
my own special friend met me at the station, and as