Unlike Volodja [Vladimir Horowitz], who when not practicing would play a piece from the beginning to the end, Nathan [Milstein] ran through the violin repertoire, playing bits from every piece and demonstrating his clever solution to every difficulty. In between, he spoke of the economics of Spain, enforcing his opinion with a sentence or two in Spanish. Tomorrow, I was sure, he would start speaking German, but meanwhile, he disapproved of German pedantry and approved of all things Latin. So spontaneous and harmless was he that one hated to be critical of anything he said. His extraordinary violinistic capacity, of course, could not be doubted. His violin belonged to his body no less than his eyes or legs. There are violinists who could have been flutists and cellists, and pianists who could as easily function as musicologists or conductors, and so on, but Nathan could only only be what he was, a marvelous violinist. << less