e expected later.

XXI

TERESA CARRENO

EARLY TECHNICAL TRAINING

A music critic remarked, "That ever youthful and fascinating pianist,
Teresa Carreno is with us again."

I well remember how fascinated I was, as a young girl, with her playing
the first time I heard it--it was so full of fire, enthusiasm,
brilliancy and charm. How I longed and labored to imitate it--to be able
to play like that! I not only loved her playing but her whole
appearance, her gracious manner as she walked across the stage, her air
of buoyancy and conscious mastery as she sat at the piano; her round
white arms and wrists, and--the red sash she wore!

During a recent talk with Mme. Carreno, I recalled the above incident,
which amused her, especially the memory of the sash.

[Illustration: TERESA CARRENO]

"I assure you that at heart I feel no older now than in the days when I
wore it," she said. The conversation then turned to questions of
mastering the piano, with particular reference to the remarkable
technic of the artist herself.

"The fact that I began my studies at a very early age was a great
advantage to me," she said. "I loved the sound of the piano, and began
to pick out bits of tunes when I was little more than three. At six and
a half I began to study seriously, so that when I was nine I was playing
such pieces as Chopin's Ballade in A flat. Another fact which was of the
utmost advantage to me was that I had an ideal teacher in my father. He
saw that I loved the piano, and decided I must be properly taught. He
was passionately fond of music, and if he had not been a statesman,
laboring for the good of his country, he would undoubtedly have been a
great musician. He developed a wonderful system for teaching the piano,
and the work he did with me I now do with my pupils. For one thing he
invented a series of stretching and gymnastic exercises which are
splendid; they did wonders for me, and I use them constantly in my
teaching. But, like everything else, they must be done in the right way,
or they are not beneficial.

580 TECHNICAL EXERCISES

"My father wrote out for me a great many technical exercises; to be
exact, there were 580 of them! Some consisted of difficult passages
from the great composers--perhaps originally written for one hand--which
he would arrange for two hands, so that each hand had the same amount of
work to do. Thus both my hands had equal training, and I find no
difference between them. The