So in the morning of the day of the concert he went to the Concert Hall to practise. He had asked me to follow him thither a little later and to rehearse with him the songs— his, of course —he was to accompany for me in the evening. When I arrived at the hall I found him quite alone, seated at the piano and working away for all he was worth, on Beethoven's Choral Fantasia and Schumann's Concerto. He was quite red in the face, and, interrupting himself for a moment on seeing me stand beside him, said with that childlike, confiding expression in his eyes : " Really, this is too bad. Those people to-night expect to hear something especially good, and here I am likely to give them a hoggish mess (Schweinerei). I assure you, I could play to-day, with the. greatest ease, far more difficult things, with wider stretches for the fingers, my own concerto for example, but those simple diatonic runs are exasperating. I keep saying to myself : ' But, Johannes, pull yourself together,— Do play decently,' —but no use ; it's really horrid."