In so far as school like permitted, I used to go to symphony concerts and to recitals by famous Russian or foreign pianists, and in this way I heard Josef Hofmann, whose serious, precise, and finished playing filled me with such enthusiasm that I redoubled my zeal in studying the piano. Among other celebrities who appeared in St. Petersburg at the time, I remember Sophie Menter, Eugen d’Albert, Reisenauer, and such of our own famous virtuosi as the pianist Annette Essipova, the wife of Leschetitzky, and the violinist, Leopold Auer.