At a concert given in Paris in 1846 appeared a new prodigy, a boy pianist, «le petit Saint-Saëns,» as the «Gazette Musicale» announced him, who, only ten and a half years old, played Händel, Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart, «without notes, with no effort, giving his phrases with clearness, elegance, and even expression in the midst of the powerful effects of a numerous orchestra using all its resources.» This, the first public appearance of Saint-Saëns, was by no means his first musical exploit. We read that he began the study of the piano with his great-aunt at the age of three, when already his sense of tone was so keen that he would press down with his left hand the slender fingers of the right until they became strong enough to satisfy his exacting requirements; that at five he composed little waltzes; that at ten he played fugues by Bach, a concerto of Hummel, and Beethoven's C-minor Concerto; and that he could tell the notes of all the clock-chimes in the house, and once remarked that a person in the next room was «walking in trochees.» By the time he was seventeen he had earned wide reputation as a pianist, had taken prizes for organ-playing at the conservatory, and had written an ode for chorus, solo, and orchestra, and a symphony. Thus early did he lay the foundations of that skill which in the early seventies, when at Wagner's house he played on the piano the «Siegfried» score, won from von Bülow the remark that, with the exception of Wagner and Liszt, he was the greatest musician living.