ng virtuoso. On the contrary, his fee
for putting the artist on his "list" and promoting her interests may
range from five hundred dollars to two thousand dollars in advance.
After that the manager usually requires a commission on all engagements
"booked." Graft? Spoils? Plunder? Not a bit of it. If the manager is a
good one--that is, if he is an upright business man well schooled in his
work--the investment should prove a good one. Exploiting a new artist
is a matter demanding brains, energy, ingenuity and experience. A
manufacturing firm attempting to put some new product upon an already
crowded market would spend not $2000.00 a year in advertising, but
$100,000.00. The manager must maintain an organization, he must travel,
he must advertise and he too must live. If he succeeds in marketing the
services of the young virtuoso at one or two hundred dollars a concert,
the returns soon begin to overtake the incessant expenses. However, only
the most persistent and talented artists survive to reap these rewards.
The late Henry Wolfsohn, one of the greatest managers America has ever
produced, told the writer frequently that the task of introducing a new
artist was one of the most thankless and uncertain undertakings
imaginable.

Does the work, the time, the expense frighten you, little miss at the
keyboard? Do you fear the grind, the grueling disappoints, the unceasing
sacrifices? Then abandon your great career and join the army of useful
music workers who are teaching the young people of the land to love
music as it should be loved,--not in hysterical outbursts in the concert
hall but in the home circle. If you have the unextinguishable fire
within your soul, if you have the talent from on high, if you have
health, energy, system, vitality, nothing can stop you from becoming
great. Advice, interferences, obstacles will be nothing to you. You will
work day and night to reach your goal. What better guide could you
possibly have than the words of the great pianists themselves? While
the ensuing pages were compiled with the view of helping the amateur
performer quite as much as the student who would become a professional
pianist, you will nevertheless find in the expressions of the really
great virtuosos a wealth of information and practical advice.

Most of the following chapters are the results of many different
conferences with the greatest living pianists. All have had the revision
of the artists in person before publicat