Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

HENSELT 269
of the whist-players, whether I had brought one of
the duets which I had tried with him in Warmbrunn
(Mozart's stringed quintets and quartets, to which I
have before alluded) ; and on my replying that in St.
Petersburg it had never entered my head to think
even of having such a pleasure, he smiled and said,
' Well, we shall have them the next time.' And here,
returning back a little, I note the fact that one of the,
alas ! too rare occasions when I heard Henselt at his
highest, tvas on an afternoon when he had been
playing with me for more than an hour at the house
of a friend. One of the members of this very same
household (people who had been intimate with him
for at least thirty years or longer) had been talking
about the Meister a day or two before, and saying
how people seemed to vie with each other in spoiling
him. But on this afternoon, when the duets were
over, and I left Henselt sitting alone at the piano, as
his fingers wandered among the keys, he all at once
flung himself into ' Der Freischiitz '; and it was at the
same time orchestra and piano— grand, exciting, mys-
terious, and sweet—and this same lady, coming up to
me afterwards, said in German, which I translate,
' One forgives everything to anyone who can play
like that ! No
feet !'
wonder so many have lain at his
To return, however, to my St. Petersburg friend.
Henselt dined again with her, and on this occasion
took me with him in a sleigh ; but it was an anxious