Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

MV MUSICAL EXPERIENCES
my playing, dropped by degrees into his usual tone
and manner. Need I say that I never again gave
him cause for displeasure on these grounds ? There
came, indeed, times when I was taken aback by
getting praise where I looked for blame ; but I grew
in time to understand that the praise was given to
what I had intended to do, and when I once realized
this, and felt that he really did study every pupil's
case, and had 'mastered mine,' a great calm came
over me. All that trepidation and flutter of nervous
excitement, which so often spoils an interview or a
lesson, entirely vanished. If I had played a page, or
even a whole movement, badly to him, instead of
chiding myself for the failure, and thus marring what
was coming next, I learnt from him, as one among
the many other conditions for becoming a performer,
to go on cheerfully, and not think of what had just
happened before. The result was that, from a grow-
ing sense of self-possession, I began to think of doing
far more than I had ever dreamed of when I first
went to him. The possibility of one day being a
concert-player dawned upon me with fresh clearness
every month. But my mother could not bring herself
to think of such a possibility. She had indulged my
desire to study to play, and to seclude myself for the
purpose. But public life^—no ! Even if I reached
the height of a Clara Schumann, it would make no
difference in her feeling about it ; and she would say
this often to Sterndale Bennett, and he would reply.