Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

SII? STERNDALE BENNETT 15
immediate consciousness of having done it badly.
I remember once in the middle of a fugue, when I
slipped in a passage, I heard his gentle but decisive
voice telling me not to stop, but to keep it up ; and
the ring of that voice was so bracing, that I did
keep it up, and played on, though I never got right
until I had reached almost the last line in the fugue,
and he said, ' You have won a victory,' and praised
me as if I had really performed a feat.
He demanded much, and this demand forced the
pupil to strenuous exertion ; but, on the other hand,
he had such a fine instinct for divining all one had
wished to do, even when the intention was but very
faintly carried out, that one felt sure of being given
credit for all earnest work. This gave me a sense of
rest, and a freedom from morbid anxiety—so much so,
that after one of his lessons, even though I might
have played badly, I was never either out of humour
or discouraged. Indeed, far from this, I invariably
felt cheered, and wound up for fresh efforts. In fact,
while studying with him I acquired such self-posses-
sion, and had such an implicit belief in his knowing
better than I knew myself what I was able to do,
that had he desired me to sit down and to play in
a concert-room for the first time, I am assured that
I should have done so without the slightest danger
of falling much below my best.
His phrasing was absolutely perfect— ^not insistent
nor angular, but wave-like and persuasive. He com-