end of his first finger to
the nerve. This troubled him to such a degree that he had several
operations for the purpose of removing it, but the result was not wholly
satisfactory.

Emerging from his retirement in 1894, he went to Berlin again, and gave
a recital in which he met with the most remarkable success. It was
written at the time: "Mr. Burmester comes from an obscure town,
unheralded, and, in the face of indifference, prejudice, and jealousy,
conquered the metropolis off-hand. For nearly half an hour recall
followed recall."

The following season he created an equal impression in London, and
shortly afterward in America.

His technique has been described as "marvellous, almost diabolical."
Difficult pizzicato passages and runs in thirds and tenths at top speed
are but as child's play to him. His left hand pizzicato is marvellous,
and he makes runs in single and artificial harmonics as quickly as most
violinists can play an ordinary scale. He plays harmonics with a vibrato
(Paganini played a double shake in harmonics), and his staccato volante
is developed to an astounding degree of perfection.

When Burmester played in London his success was at once attributed to
Joachim, and he resented it, in view of the fact that he had been denied
his certificate and had narrowly escaped musical suffocation at the
hands of that great master. He had already made the same statement in
Berlin, referring to the fact of his retirement to Helsingfors, and the
development which he had acquired there in solitude.

This announcement brought forth a deluge of letters from "pupils of
Joachim," and in a couple of weeks Burmester wrote another letter
stating that he did not know the Hochschule had as many pupils as those
who had claimed Joachim as their teacher, and who were all unknown. "If
one known pupil of Joachim," he wrote, "will appoint a meeting to
interview me on the subject, I shall be glad to continue it." But the
one known pupil did not come.

The complaint of Mr. Burmester, that the one idea at the Hochschule is
technique, is not new by any means. In every school there are students
with great talent, who find it difficult to subject themselves to the
rigid discipline required by the teacher. It is the stumbling-block on
which many fall. It is, nevertheless, a fact that without a solid
technique the highest perfection in playing cannot be reached, and it is
usually regarded as a hopeless case when the pupil antagonises