There is, of course, Vladimir de Pachmann. Everybody who has attended his recitals has come under the spell of his beautiful tone and has been annoyed by his bad manners. For, curiously enough, the two qualities have become inseparable with him, especially in recent years. Once in Chicago I saw the strange little pianist sit down in front of his instrument, rise again, gesticulate, and leave the stage. Returning with a stage-hand he pointed to his stool; it was not satisfactory. A chair was brought in, tried, and found wanting; more gesticulation--this time wilder. At length, after considerable discussion between Mr. de Pachmann and the stage-hand, all in view of the audience, it was decided that nothing would do but that some one must fetch the artist’s own piano bench from his hotel, which, fortunately, adjoined the concert hall. This was accomplished in the course of time. In the interval the pianist did not leave the platform. He sat at the back on the chair which had been offered him as a substitute for the offending stool and entertained his audience with a spectacular series of grimaces. On another occasion this singular genius arrested his fingers in the course of a performance of one of Chopin’s études. His ears were enraptured, it would seem, by his own rendition of a certain run; over and over again he played it, now faster, now more slowly; at times almost slowly enough to give the student in the front row a glimpse of the magic fingering. With a sudden change of manner he announced, “This is the way Godowsky would play this scale”: great velocity but a dry tone. Then, “And now Pachmann again!” The magic fingers stroked the keys. Even as an auditor de Pachmann sometimes exploits his eccentricities. Josef Hofmann once told me the following story: De Pachmann was sitting in the third row at a concert Rubinstein gave in his prime. De Pachmann burst into hilarious laughter, rocking to and fro. Rubinstein was playing beautifully and de Pachmann’s neighbour, annoyed, demanded why he was laughing. De Pachmann could scarcely speak as he pointed to the pianist on the stage and replied, “He used the fourth finger instead of the third in that run. Isn’t it funny?” I cannot take Vladimir de Pachmann to task for these amusing bad manners! But they annoy the _bourgeois_. We should most of us be glad to have Oscar Wilde brilliant at our dinner parties, even though he ate peas with his knife; and Napoleon’s generalship would have been as effective if he had been an omnivorous reader of the works of Laura Jean Libbey. But one must not dwell too long on de Pachmann. One might be tempted to devote an entire essay to the relation of his eccentricities. Another pianist, also a composer, claims attention: Alberto Savinio. You may find a photolithograph of Savinio’s autograph manuscript of _Bellovées Fatales, No. 12_, in that curious periodical entitled “291,” the number for April, 1915. There is a programme, which reads as follows: