Teacher and virtuoso--these mark great pianists into two groups, or at least into two temperaments; and it was this marked difference which was signalised by the appearance of Bülow and of Rubinstein. In all, the severance is perfected according to the natural aptitude and inner development. Of course over every virtuoso at a certain time there comes the wish to busy himself with teaching, but only in a small circle; but on the other hand we observe that the decision to follow the teaching profession is instantly taken by those artists who have no turn for publicity, or do not like to face the competition which to-day is more keen than ever. The extreme of the virtuoso type is seen in certain international geniuses, who continued rather the tradition of Thalberg than that of Liszt. Thalberg, in the fifties, like Henri Herz in the forties, toured in America and Brazil. Rubinstein also, in the sixties, visited America. The most travelled of all was the Irish pianist and composer Wallace, who, for the sake of his health, toured and gave concerts through Australia, New Zealand, India, South America, the United States and Mexico--long before Thalberg’s Brazilian journey. To-day a tour in America is almost a matter of course in the life of every virtuoso. Countries like France and Italy are shut off from a great international intercourse of this kind, since their concert-life, and especially their cultivation of the piano, has never duly unfolded itself. The opera is there all powerful. But England, as a hundred years ago, invites to her shores the great men of the Continent, and sends them back loaded with treasures. As London pianists Hartvigson, the pupil of Bülow, Borwick, and Dawson, stand in the front rank. Russia, formerly a colony of foreign emigrants, has now, by Anton Rubinstein’s foundations in St Petersburg, and by the like activity of his highly-esteemed brother Nicholas in Moscow, awaked to a noble concert-life, in which the rivalry of the two capitals is remarkably balanced. It was inevitable that in nearer and further states ever more numerous pupils of German or Parisian masters should settle and labour as teachers. In America, so early as the sixties and seventies, a great number of naturalised teachers was known, among whom Wolfsohn is perhaps most distinguished. His eighteen evenings of historically arranged piano-music, which he gave so early as 1877 in Chicago, are deservedly famous. [Illustration]