On another occasion, at a concert given for the benefit of the Polish refugees at the house of Princess Czartoriska, he [Liszt] did me the honour to ask me to play a duet for two pianos with him, and chose Thalberg's well-known ' Fantasia ' on ' Norma.' We had no rehearsal, but he said to me : ' Let us take the theme of the variations at a moderate pace, the effect will be better.' Now the first part of this theme is accompanied on the second piano (which Liszt had chosen by octaves for both hands, which octaves in the second part fall to the lot of the first piano. What was my horror when, in spite of the caution he had given me, Liszt started his octaves at such a pace that I did not conceive the possibility of getting through my portion of them alive. Somehow I managed it, badly enough, but if I ever understood the French saying ' suer sang et eau ' it was then. I had my revenge, however. In the second variation, where the pianos successively accompany the theme with chromatic scales, Liszt, instead of confining himself to the scales, altered them by introducing double and additional notes, a feat of amazing difficulty, which made my hair stand on end, but which I did not feel compelled to try and imitate, simple chromatic scales neatly and rapidly played being, on the whole, more effective ; so when my turn came I confined myself to them, and earned a round of applause in which Liszt most generously joined. << less