One day, long after I had emerged from my retirement and achieved some notoriety as a pianist, I played at his [Chopin's] request, in his own room, the sonata in E flat, Op. 30, No. 3, and after the finale he said that it was the first time he had liked it, that it had always appeared to him very vulgar. I felt flattered, but was much struck by the oddity of the remark. In another direction, he did not admire Mendelssohn's ' Lieder ohne Worte,' with the exception of the first of the first book, which he called a song of the purest virginal beauty. When one reflects on the wonderful originality of his genius, the striking difference of his works from any written before him, without making comparison as to their respective worth, one feels it natural that he should have lived in his own world, and that other music, even the very greatest, did not touch all his sympathies. << less