Several paintings of large size and striking originality hang on the walls of the pianist’s home.  They all illustrate religious themes and are the work of Herr Aus der Ohe, the pianist’s only brother, who passed away at the height of his career.

“Yes,” said the composer, “my mother, brother and sister have been taken away, since I was last in America, and now I am quite alone; but I have my art.”

XIX

ELEANOR SPENCER

MORE LIGHT ON LESCHETIZKY’S IDEAS

Eleanor Spencer, whose first American tour is announced for the coming season, happened to be in Berlin during my visit there.  I found her in her charming apartments in the Schoenberg section of the city, far away from the noise and bustle of traffic.  Her windows look out upon a wide inner court and garden, and she seems to have secured the quiet, peaceful environment so essential to an artist’s development.  Indeed Miss Spencer has solved the problems of how to keep house, with all the comforts of an American home, in a great German city.

“I grew so tired of living in pensions that I took this little apartment over two years ago,” she said, “and I like it so much better.

“I have been away from America for nine years, so the foreign cities where I have lived seem almost more like home to me than my native land, to which I have only paid two short visits during those nine years.  But I love America, and perhaps you can imagine how eagerly I am looking forward to my coming tour.

“The first eight years of my life were spent in Chicago, and then my family moved to New York.  Here I studied with Dr. William Mason.  When I was about fifteen I went to Europe for further study, and although I had another master at first, it was not so very long before I went to Vienna, to Leschetizky, for I felt the need of more thorough preparation than I had yet had.  There is nothing like a firm technical foundation; it is a rock to build upon; one cannot do great things without it.  I have had to labor hard for what I have attained, and am not ashamed to say so.  I practise ‘all my spare time,’ as one of my colleagues expresses it; though, of course, if one studies with the necessary concentration one cannot practise more than five hours to advantage.

[Illustration:  To Miss Brower in appreciation and pleasant remembrance of our Berlin meeting ...ELEANOR SPENCER]

“I thoroughly believe in practising technic outside of pieces; I have always done so and still continue to do it.  This brings the hand into condition, and keeps it up to the mark, so that difficult compositions are more readily within the grasp, and the technical requirements in them are more easily met.  When the hand is in fine condition, exhaustive technical practise in pieces is not necessary, and much wear and tear of nerve force is saved.  In this technical practise, to which I give an hour or more daily, I use very simple exercises, but each one contains some principle of touch, movement or condition.  Hand over thumb and thumb under hand; different qualities of tone; staccato or clinging touch; scales, arpeggios and various other forms are used.  Part of the technic study period is always given to Bach.