editions in America and six in Europe.

[Illustration: TIVADAR NACHÉZ, with hand-written note]


THE BEGINNING OF A VIOLINISTIC CAREER: PLAYING WITH LISZT

"No, Léonard was not my first teacher. I took up violin work when a boy
of five years of age, and for seven years practiced from eight to ten
hours a day, studying with Sabathiel, the leader of the Royal Orchestra
in Budapest, where I was born, though England, the land of my adoption,
in which I have lived these last twenty-six years, is the land where I
have found all my happiness, and much gratifying honor, and of which I
have been a devoted, ardent and loyal naturalized citizen for more than
a quarter of a century. Sabathiel was an excellent routine teacher, and
grounded me well in the fundamentals--good tone production and
technical control. Later I had far greater teachers, and they taught me
much, but--in the last analysis, most of the little I have achieved I
owe to myself, to hard, untiring work: I had determined to be a
violinist and I trust I became one. No serious student of the instrument
should ever forget that, no matter who his teacher may be, he himself
must supply the determination, the continued energy and devotion which
will lead him to success.

"Playing with Liszt--he was an intimate friend of my father--is my most
precious musical recollection of Budapest. I enjoyed it a great deal
more than my regular lesson work. He would condescend to play with me
some evenings and you can imagine what rare musical enjoyment, what
happiness there was in playing with such a genius! I was still a boy
when with him I played the Grieg F major sonata, which had just come