Has my lecture been too long to-day? I ask your pardon. My desire to
make myself useful to you must be my excuse, if I cannot dispose of such
an extensive subject in a few words. I have not yet exhausted it.




CHAPTER XII.

THOUGHTS ON PIANO-PLAYING.


My daughters play the music of all the principal composers, and also the
best salon music. Limited views of any kind are injurious to art. It is
as great a mistake to play only Beethoven's music as to play none of it,
or to play either classical or salon music solely. If a teacher confines
himself to the study of the first, a good technique, a tolerably sound
style of playing, intelligence, and knowledge are generally sufficient
to produce an interpretation in most respects satisfactory. The music
usually compensates for a style which may be, according to
circumstances, either dry, cold, too monotonous or too strongly shaded,
and even for an indifferent or careless touch. Interest in the
composition frequently diverts the attention of even the best player
from a thoroughly correct and delicate mode of execution, and from the
effort to enhance the beauty of the composition, and to increase its
appreciation with the hearer. In the performance of classical music,
inspiration--that is, the revelation of an artistic nature and not
empty affectation--can be expected only from an artist, and not from a
pupil. Therefore, with more advanced pupils, I take up in my lessons, in