Text extracted from opening pages of book: HAROLD BAUER W W NORTON
& COMPANY INC New York Qslluslraiions Facing Page Harold Bauer
at the age of ten 30 Concert announcement of Nikita's Russian tour
with Harold Bauer as pianist . 31 The Paderewski picture 31 Harold
Bauer, Fritz Kreisler, and Pablo Casals 62 Harold Bauer and Ossip
Gabrilowitsch 62 Paris, 1912 63 Medal of the society La Trompette
63 Harold Bauer 158 Musicians at Moszkowski Benefit, 1922 159
Harold Bauer, from the bust by Brenda Putnam 190 Harold Bauer 191
re j f ace I NEVER INTENDED TO WRITE THE STORY OF MY LIFE, AND I
neither know nor care whether I shall be believed when I say that
this writing has been the most abominable and tedious chore that I
ever undertook What happened is this: my very dear and
distinguished friend, the late Carl Engel, president of G.
Schirmer, Inc., wished to pay me a compliment on the occasion of my
sev entieth birthday. Since he had always been amused by my
relation of little incidents in my long career, he got me to write
some of them down, then put them together with inimitable skill and
charm, and published the result in the Musical Quarterly. This
created a great deal of comment, and the next thing was that Warder
Norton asked me to write a whole book about myself. I rejected his
suggestion with horror, but I went to tea with him and his wife,
and, as a consequence of their skillful and delicate flattery, I
was undone. Even so, the book would never have been completed
without the gentle and incessant nagging of my wife. The time has
come for me to express my acknowledg ments to everyone concerned in
this perpetration, and I hereby do so, peevishly, with the fervent
hope that they will allleave me alone in future. It remains only
for me to add, now that I notice the curi ously abrupt fashion in
which this book starts, that I was born near London on April 28,
1873. H. B. ne MY EARLIEST REACTION TO MUSIC, AS FAR AS I CAN
RECALL, was one of fascinated terror. Even at this far-distant
time, it almost makes my flesh creep when I think of the huge faces
of adults bending over me, or over one of my sisters, and emitting
the strange sound which, I was later to learn, is called singing.
The music was not confined to noises coming from human faces,
however, for there was also the unfor gettable sound solemn and yet
piercing of the shiny brass instruments played in the street by a
group of shabby men called the German Band. In addition, there was
the Italian barrel-organ grinder, accompanied sometimes oh, bliss!
by a monkey; an occasional violinist; a man who played a bright
yellow clarinet; two men in Highland cos tume, one of whom danced
to the playing of the bagpipes ( the most exciting sound in the
world, I think) by his com panion. Then the music of the street
cries ( Chinaware cheap and Jubilee Coal Blocks provided the
themes, later on, [ 9] for a juvenile sonata), and finally, the god
of musicians, a glorious individual who went about with a dozen
different instruments distributed over his person, playing them all
at the same time. That, to me, was real magic; and I longed
unspeakably to grow up and conquer my fear of the sounds, so that I
could wield the power he possessed some day! I suppose it was this
mingled feeling of fear and ambition that made me try to find the
notes of a tune which had alarmed me to the extent of wanting to
hide under the table. After I had pickedout the notes, I did not
mind it so much. It was the opening of Brahms' piano quintet, and I
am still a little afraid of it. On my fourth birthday, I decided
that the time had come for me to do something important, so I
composed a polka which contained exactly eight measures quite
enough, I considered, for a beginning, a middle, and an end. How it
was that this babyish little thing stuck in my mind I am un able to
say, but it came back to me about half a century later, when Ossip
and Clara Gabrilowitsch told me almost tear fully that their
daughter Nina showed not
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