[...] Horowitz and I did not consider ourselves defectors, and when we were invited to play at the Soviet embassy (in those days the Soviet diplomatic representations abroad were called polpredstva) in Berlin, we readily agreed. The Soviet polpred, or ambassador, to England, Leonid Krasin, had died in London. He was a famous Bolshevik, a friend of Lenin's and Maxim Gorky's, and his body was being transported to Moscow for an elaborate funeral, with a stop in Berlin. Horowitz and I constituted the musical part of a memorial service for Krasin. With mournful mien I played Handel’s Largo. Volodya delivered a brilliant rendition of Liszt’s “Funérailles”. The enchanted audience, completely forgetting about the deceased Bolshevik, shouted bravo. << less