In the Concert also, which the brothers gave, the eldest had no success, [from Spohr's diary] “the passages were flat and without expression: he played even very false, and at times scraped so much as to inflict pain on the ears of the audience. . . . . According to my idea, three years ago when I heard him in Brunswick, he played the easy Concertos of Iwanovichi and others, better than the difficult ones with which he now came forward.” Yes, I even doubted whether he ever could become a great violinist, “unless he soon got a good master, who, of all things, could give him a good style of bow-ing.” Upon these doubtless too severe criticisms my Instructor who was a very stern judge, may certainly have had some influence. When, ten years later, I again met Pixis in Vienna, he had become a distinguished virtuoso, and as Professor at the Conservatory in Prague, he proved himself also an able teacher of the violin. << less