I went to my first lesson with Yesipova. 'What are you talking about, the whole Schumann Sonata?' she asked in horror. 'To bring such a complex piece up to examination standard would take up all our time and leave none for the remainder of the repertoire!'

All the same, I played her two movements and they were obviously very much to her taste since her conclusion was as follows: 'Well, all right then... bring the whole work to me for the next lesson, and then we won't need to touch it again until the exam.'

This hardly tallied with what she had said earlier, but never mind! After this she went off to Kiev and Odessa for a concert tour with Auer, and there were no more lessons for three weeks.