"It is his own composition, the final word in modern music," I had been told. "He does not merely play the concerto; he lives it. Be sure to watch his face." It was not a very impressive face as artists go. It was rather heavy, rather sullen, and seemingly incapable of mirroring more than the elementary passions. The great pianist entered the hall almost unwillingly, and wound his way among the musicians with consummate indifference to the roar of applause that greeted him. You might have said that he was once more a little boy being scourged to his piano day after day by parents who had been told that they had brought forth a genius. He half-dropped into his seat, glanced wearily about him, then let his eyes sink expressionless on the keyboard and his hands fall flat on his knees, nerveless, heavy, apathetic.

The orchestra leader poised his baton and the two-score strings under his command swung into a noble andante. The artist at the piano slowly raised his eyes to a level with the top of his instrument, his lips just parted as if in halting wonder at something he alone in the great hall could see, the hands made as if to lift themselves from his knees. "Look at his face," my neighbour said. I looked and saw that the dull mask was slightly changing, that some emotion at last was rising to the surface of that stolid countenance, striking its cloudy aspect with the first anticipations of breaking light. Would that cloud dissolve? Would the light completely break and irradiate player, piano, and audience, all equally keyed up to the delayed climax? Would those massive hands rise slowly, slowly, and hanging aloft an instant crash down in a rage of harmony upon keyboard and auditors' hearts? No. The clouds once more swept over that massive face. The player moistened his lips with his tongue, half-turned on his chair, and slowly swept the hall with an indifferent, almost a disdainful eye. Then he sank into his former lassitude. His hands dropped to his side without striking the keys. Evidently the time had not come. The violins in the orchestra sang on.

My neighbour was not the only one to fall under the spell of such masterly musicianship. Twenty-four ladies in the parquette shrank back into their seats with a half-sob of brimming emotion, and implored their escorts to look at the artist's face. Eleven ladies in the lower boxes interrupted their conversation to remark that it was wonderful what soul those Slavs managed to put into their playing. In the upper balconies listeners strained forward in their seats so that from below it seemed as if they were about to precipitate themselves over the railings. What expert opinion had described as the sublimest ten minutes in the great pianist's greatest concerto had just begun. The conductor slightly raised himself on his toes. Instantly through the weaving of the violins the voices of the wood instruments began to break out. The contest between the two came quickly to its climax. The strings were forced back and back, wailing an ineffective protest against the shrilling advance of the woods. A solitary 'cello made dogged resistance, knowing its cause hopeless, but determined to sell life as dearly as possible. But the 'cello, too, went down and for a bar or two the flutes and oboes sang a pÆan of victory. Too soon. Upon them, like a tidal wave, swept down a hurricane of brasses and shook the hall with its resonant thunders.

That was the moment our artist at the piano had been waiting for. His heavy figure straightened up; it seemed to swell to monstrous proportions, forcing orchestra and leader out of the vision and consciousness of his listeners. His face now was all eloquence. A divine wrath almost made his eyes blaze as he prepared to hurl himself at the silent, yet quivering instrument. His huge hands hovered over the keyboard ready to fall and destroy. His eyes ran over the keys as if searching for the vulnerable, for the vital spot. Back and forth his eyes ran, and his outstretched fingers kept pace with them in the air. But those fingers could find no resting-place. Still the piano remained silent. And then came the inevitable reaction. Such passion could not last without crushing player and audience alike. Seven ladies in the parquette were grasping the arms of their chairs, and three women in the upper balcony had seized the arms of their escorts, as the brasses crashed once and died out. The flutes for an instant reappeared, to make way in turn for the violins, which now began timidly to peep out from their hiding-places. They grew bolder; they joined hands, and once more their insistent story quivered and sang throughout the house. And as they sang, the player at the piano, exhausted by his supreme effort, sank more and more into his indifferent former self. His form collapsed, the fire in his eyes died out, and the powerful hands wearily drooped and drooped till they rested once more on the player's knees. A sigh of relief swept over the hall. Human emotion could stand no more. The audience could hardly wait for the last throb of the violins, to break out in rapturous applause. The master rose, bowed sorrowfully towards nobody in particular, and walked off.

"Did you watch his face?" asked my neighbour. "Have you ever come across such utterly overpowering individuality? I have played for fifteen years, but if I played for fifty years I could never even approach art like this."