Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

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MV MUSICAL EXPERIENCES
Op. 7, No. 4, and in the second part of the first movement,
where a motive in A minor modulates into D
minor, and, beginning "pp, gradually works up to a
climax marked ff, I increased the rapidity of the beat
in proportion as I got up to the crescendo. He did not
stop me at the moment, as almost any other musician
would have done, but when a suitable place for a
pause occurred, pointing to the bars where I had
hurried the time, he asked me what reason I had for
doing so. I replied, ' It is very intense, it is very
insistent; I feel as if it must get on.' 'I am glad,'
he replied, ' that you have the keen feeling for beauty
there which makes you try to hurry on ; but, re-
member, it is not by merely quickening the time that
the feeling of intensity shows itself. It is by means
much less obvious, much deeper-lying than this, that
such an impression is conveyed. It must be done by
the tone, the turn of the phrase. Think well over
this,' he added.
On another occasion, in adverting to the fact that
love for and enjoyment in music deepens rather than
lessens as we advance in life, he observed, ' Association
comes in then to strengthen and reinforce the feeling,
and every beautiful thing which we have loved in our
early years brings back with it a whole host of
memories.' I cannot recall the exact words he used,
but I remember that as he uttered them a sensation
came over me as if I had been wafted into a vast
cathedral, where, amid solemn records of the past.