ABSTRACT
The sisters were told that when their father was a boy of about ten, about 1870, Joachim and Brahms came to Budapest to perform, and all three went out to a dinner-party at the ‘Hungaria’, a fashionable dining-place with the best gipsy orchestra in the city. Of course ‘cultured’ music also has something of this. There is a difference between the last private run-through and the public performance, which is not mere keying up of the nervous system. But whereas some performers can take from an audience a sense of occasion that at times approaches the mystical, several eminent pianists have told author that they are quite unaware of people while playing, and some actually prefer an empty broadcasting studio. The ‘skill and imagination’ demanded for the above and the ‘freedom, warmth and naturalness’ felt by Jelly have something in common.
