In his prime Remenyi was the master of an enormous technique, and the possessor of a strongly pronounced poetic individuality.  His whole soul was in his playing, and his impulse carried him away with it as he warmed to his task, and it carried the audience too.  His greatest success was in the playing of Hungarian music, some of which he adapted for his instrument, but the stormier pieces of Chopin which he arranged for the violin were given by him with tremendous effect.  In the more tender pieces, such as the nocturnes of Field and of Chopin, he played with the utmost dreaminess.

His individuality showed in his playing.  He was impulsive and uncertain,—­a wandering musician, who, when the whim took him, would disappear from public view altogether.  When he made a success in any place his restless nature would not allow him to follow it up, so that when his prime was past, instead of having formed connections which should have lasted him for the rest of his life, he was still the wandering musician, but without the marvellous powers which he had wielded only a few years before.

During his long career he toured Australia and almost all the islands of the Pacific, also Java, China, and Japan; in fact, he went where few, if any, violinists of his ability had been before.

Once upon a time the representative of a London newspaper went to interview Remenyi, and was surprised to find that the violinist was not only willing to tell him much, but even proposed questions which he should answer.  He said that he had played in the 60’s before the natives of South Africa, and had been shipwrecked, after which he had the pleasure of reading some very fine obituary notices.  In New Zealand he found the Maoris perfectly reckless in their demand for encores, and instead of playing six pieces, as announced on his programmes, he frequently had to play sixteen.

In South Africa he discovered thirty out of his collection of forty-seven old and valuable violins.  Most of them were probably the property of the Huguenots, who after the edict of Nantes went to Holland and thence to South Africa, to which place they were banished by the Dutch government.

It was related by Remenyi that when he was a young man in Hamburg, in 1853, he was to appear at a fashionable soiree one night, but at the last moment his accompanist was too ill to play.  Remenyi went to a music store and asked for an accompanist.  The proprietor sent Johannes Brahms, then a lad of sixteen, who was struggling for existence and teaching for a very small sum.  Remenyi and Brahms became so interested in each other that they forgot all about the soiree, and sat up till four the next morning chatting and playing together.  Remenyi’s negligence of his engagement resulted in the loss of any further business in Hamburg, and together with Brahms he set out for Hanover, giving concerts as they went, and thus earning sufficient funds to carry them on their way.