Sivori was of the gentle, poetic, and graceful class of players. Beauty and grace rather than self-assertion characterized his style. Ernst, whom I heard in Homburg in the year 1852, was a player of great intensity of feeling, and was regarded as the most fervent violinist of his time. Joachim's style impressed me as classical and rather reserved, and while I enjoyed and admired it, there was present no feeling of enthusiasm. Wilhelmj, with his broad and noble style, was certainly most impressive. Henri Wieniawski had a musical organization of great intensity, and this, combined with his perfect technic, made his playing irresistible. Ferdinand Laub, for some reason not so well known to the general public as he should be, is generally conceded by the most distinguished violinists to have been the greatest of all quartet-players. Laub was concertmeister during the whole period of my stay in Weimar, and was an intimate friend of mine. It will be remembered that at that time Bernhard Cossmann was the violoncellist of the Weimar string quartet. I owe many delightful moments of musical enjoyment to his exquisitely poetical and refined playing. The last time I met him was at his own house in Frankfort. His wife and children were present, and being thus quite _en famille_, we played together, for the sake of old times, the piano and violoncello sonata of Beethoven in A major. [Illustration: AUTOGRAPH OF OLE BULL] There are many others whom I am prevented by lack of space from mentioning; but I must not omit the name of my friend Adolf Brodsky, a violinist of the first rank, and a man of great nobility of character. His playing is broad, intelligent, and thoroughly musical, whether as soloist or as first violin in chamber quartet music. Sometimes I have heard him in the privacy of my own home, where, feeling entire freedom from restraint, he has thrown himself intensely into his music, to my thorough and complete musical satisfaction. REMENYI I have already had something to say of Eduard Remenyi, the Hungarian violinist who accompanied Brahms to Weimar in 1853. He was a talented man, and was esteemed by Liszt as being, in his way, a good violinist. He remained at Weimar after Brahms left there, and I became intimately acquainted with him. He was very entertaining, and so full of fun that he would have made a tiptop Irishman. He was at home in the Gipsy music of his own country, and this was the main characteristic of his playing. He had also a fad for playing Schubert melodies on the violin with the most attenuated pianissimo effects, and occasionally his hearers would listen intently after the tone had ceased, imagining that they still heard a trace of it.