In the afternoon, to get some air, I went into the Conservatoire and sat with Max listening to the final exam performances of the external students ('external to music', as Nikolayev describes them). What a glorious work Rachmaninov's First Concerto is (the first movement)! Even allowing for the thinness of the musical material and a certain immaturity, how lovely is its representation of sincerity, tenderness, and a general feeling of delight. On top of that its pianism is beyond reproach and it is utterly free of routine or uninteresting passages for the soloist. I am speaking here of the first movement; I do not know the second and third movements but apparently they are not so good.