I remember seeing Mahler in St Petersburg, too. His concert there was a triumph. Rimsky was still alive, I believe, but he wouldn’t have attended because a work by Tchaikovsky was on the programme, Manfred, I think, the dullest piece possible. Mahler also played some Wagner fragments and, if I remember correctly, a symphony of his own. Mahler impressed me greatly, himself and his conducting. I attribute the latter to his training as a composer. The most interesting (though, of course, not necessarily the prettiest on the most rousing) conductors are composers, for the reason that they are the only ones who can have new insights into music itself. The conductors of my period who have most advanced the art of conducting are Mahler, Strauss, Zemlisnky, Klemperer, all of them composers.