From the year 1830 to 1848, a period during which he [Chopin] created many of his most remarkable works, it was my good fortune to hear him play them successively as they appeared, and each seemed a new revelation. It is impossible at the present day, when Chopin's music has become the property of every schoolgirl, when there is hardly a concert-programme without his name, to realise the impression which these works produced upon musicians when they first appeared, and especially when they were played by himself. I can confidently assert that nobody has ever been able to reproduce them as they sounded under his magical fingers. In listening to him you lost all power of analysis ; you did not for a moment think how perfect was his execution of this or that difficulty ; you listened, as it were, to the improvisation of a poem and were under the charm as long as it lasted. A remarkable feature of his playing was the entire freedom with which he treated the rhythm, but which appeared so natural that for years it had never struck me.