22,
and come to him in four weeks. Needless to say, I knew every note of
these compositions by heart when I took my second lesson. Soon I was
bidden to come to him every fortnight, then every week, and finally he
gave me two lessons a week.
"For the first five years of my musical experience, I simply played the
piano. I played everything--sonatas, concertos--everything; large works
were absorbed from one lesson to the next. When I was about twelve I
began to awake to the necessity for serious study; then I really began
to practise in earnest. My master took more and more interest in my
progress and career: he was at pains to explain the meaning of music to
me--the ideas of the composers. Many fashionable people took lessons of
him, for to study with Pugno had become a fad; but he called me his only
pupil, saying that I alone understood him. I can truly say he was my
musical father; to him I owe everything. We were neighbors in a suburb
of Paris, as my parents' home adjoined his; we saw a great deal of him
and we made music together part of every day. When he toured in America
and other countries, he wrote me frequently; I could show you many
letters, for I have preserved a large number--letters filled with
beautiful and exalted thoughts, expressed in noble and poetic language.
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