That memorable session at Blüthner’s piano store in Leipzig with Stravinsky playing his Piano Sonata to an audience of three – a friend, the representative of the Koussevitzky Publishing House, and myself- stands in a niche of its own. It was in 1923, after a very prolonged and very Russian midday meal that followed the Furtwängler rehearsal for the Gewandhaus première of his Piano Concerto. I remember I had my violin along, as I had been asked by Stravinsky to play Bach’s Solo Sonata in A minor for him afterwards. He played his Sonata in succession, then turned around and said simply to us, deeply-impressed little group: “Tchistaya rabota!” (Clean work!”) Needless to say he was referring not to his playing but to the intensely “worked out” contrapuntal texture of this piece of his neo-classical period. << less