Entrance examinations were lax, to say the least, and so we were often left stranded, Iturbi and I, with some pretty hopeless pedagogical cases on our hands. When we got together for some sonata-playing – Iturbi always amazed me by his sight-reading prowess! – we used to compare notes, and we came to the melancholy conclusion that the general level of pupil-potential could not have risen appreciably since Liszt’s days at our institution.