I still recall my excitement and pleasure in hearing the Meistersinger for the first time. This performance, which I attended with Rimsky-Korsakov, turning the pages of the score for him, was given in the Maryinsky Theater by a German company, and I remember that the accuracy of the musical execution, which far surpassed our St. Petersburg standards, amazed and delighted me. / Because I was following the score, my memory of my impressions of the stage is less strong than my recollection of the effect of the music. I had known it since childhood, but from the piano reduction. The actual sound was a revelation whose force, all musical experience being ‘live’ then, a young composer today is unable to appreciate. I was a composer myself, after all (not merely a listener), and each opportunity to compare my imagination of an orchestra score with its realization in performance had to be used as a lesson and a chance to acquire some skill of my own. And skill is a large part of what the Meistersinger is about. / It has been such a long time since I last heard the Meistersinger that I am unable to say what it would mean to me now. But I think I would still listen to it as an active composer listening to an active composition, for at the age of a hundred the Meistersinger is a very lively monument.