students are so situated that this course is impossible. It is also
often quite impossible for the teacher, who is busy teaching from
morning to night, to give a rendering of the work that would be
absolutely perfect in all of its details. However, one can gain
something from the teacher who can, by his genius, give the pupil an
idea of the artistic demands of the piece.

If the student has the advantage of hearing neither the virtuoso nor the
teacher he need not despair, if he has talent. Talent! Ah, that is the
great thing in all musical work. If he has talent he will see with the
eyes of _talent_--that wonderful force which penetrates all artistic
mysteries and reveals the truths as nothing else possibly can. Then he
grasps, as if by intuition, the composer's intentions in writing the
work, and, like the true interpreter, communicates these thoughts to his
audience in their proper form.

TECHNICAL PROFICIENCY

It goes without saying, that technical proficiency should be one of the
first acquisitions of the student who would become a fine pianist. It is
impossible to conceive of fine playing that is not marked by clean,
fluent, distinct, elastic technic. The technical ability of the
performer should be of such a nature that it can be applied immediately
to all the artistic demands of the composition to be interpreted. Of
course, there may be individual passages which require some special
technical study, but, generally speaking, technic is worthless unless
the hands and the mind of the player are so trained that they can
encompass the principal difficulties found in modern compositions.

In the music schools of Russia great stress is laid upon technic.
Possibly this may be one of the reasons why some of the Russian pianists
have been so favorably received in recent years. The work in the leading
Russian conservatories is almost entirely under supervision of the
Imperial Musical Society. The system is elastic in that, although all
students are obliged to go through the same course, special attention is
given to individual cases. Technic, however, is at first made a matter
of paramount importance. All students must become technically
proficient. None are excused. It may be interesting to hear something of
the general plan followed in the Imperial music schools of Russia. The
course is nine years in duration. During the first five years the
student gets most of his technical instruction from a book of studies by
H