sentimentalizings, but a lofty, detached style,
impeccable technic, tone as beautiful as starlight--yes, Joseffy is the
enchanter who wins me with his disdainful spells. I heard him play the
Chopin E minor and the Liszt A major concertos; also a brace of encores.
Perfection! The Liszt was not so brilliant as Reisenauer; but--again
within its frame--perfection! The Chopin was as Chopin would have had it
given in 1840. And there were refinements of tone-color undreamed of
even by Chopin. Paderewski is Paderewski--and Joseffy is perfection.
Paderewski is the most eclectic of the four pianists I have taken for my
text; Joseffy the most subtly poetic; D'Albert the most profound and
intellectually significant, and Pachmann--well, Vladimir is the _enfant
terrible_ of the quartet, a whimsical, fantastic charmer, an apparition
with rare talents, and an interpreter of the Lesser Chopin (always the
_great_ Chopin) without a peer. Let us be happy that we are vouchsafed
the pleasure of hearing four such artists.

IX

THE INFLUENCE OF DADDY LISZT

Have you read Thoreau's _Walden_ with its smell of the woods and its
ozone-permeated pages? I recommend the book to all pianists, especially
to those pianists who hug the house, practising all day and laboring
under the delusion that they are developing their individuality.
Singular thing, this rage for culture nowadays among musicians! They
have been admonished so often in print and private that their ignorance
is not blissful, indeed it is baneful, that these ambitious ladies and
gentlemen rush off to the booksellers, to libraries, and literally gorge
themselves with the "ologies" and "isms" of the day. Lord, Lord, how I
enjoy meeting them at a musicale! There they sit, cocked and primed for
a verbal encounter, waiting to knock the literary chip off their
neighbor's shoulder.

"Have you read"--begins some one and the chattering begins, _furioso_.
"Oh, Nietzsche? why of course,"--"Tolstoi's _What is Art?_ certainly, he
ought to be electrocuted"--"Nordau! isn't he terrible?" And the
cacophonous conversational symphony rages, and when it is spent, the
man who asked the question finishes:

"Have you read the notice of Rosenthal's playing in the _Koelnische
Zeitung?_" and there is a battery of suspicious looks directed towards
him whilst murmurs arise, "What an uncultured man! To talk 'shop' like a
regular musician!" The fact being that the man had read everything, but
was setti