But last winter, Ernest Schelling, one of our best American pianists, and an old friend of Moszkowski’s, conceived the happy idea of giving a testimonial concert in his honor, which should be thoroughly original in character. He, together with his distinguished colleague, Harold Bauer, accordingly enlisted the co-operation of twelve other celebrated pianists who were in America during the winter. This list, a truly remarkable one, included Elly Ney, Ignaz Friedman, Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Rudolph Ganz, Leopold Godowsky, Percy Grainger, Ernest Hutcheson, Alexander Lambert, Josef Lhevinne, Yolanda Mero, Germaine Schnitzer, and Sigismond Stojowski. Mr. Flagler offered the services of our orchestra, but as the stage was to be completely filled with fourteen grand pianos, there was no room for an orchestra, and I had to content myself with the possibility of being taken on as a piano mover, as I longed to take part in the affair in any capacity. The morning before the concert, however, I received a hurried S. O. S. telephone call from Ernest Schelling. He said: “Please come down to Steinway’s immediately and help us out. The fourteen pianists are all here for rehearsal. We have arranged for several compositions to be played by all of us, but alas, each one has his own individual interpretation, and nothing seems to make us play together. We need a conductor!” When I arrived at the rehearsal hall the confusion was indeed indescribable, and it took some time to bring order out of chaos. Here were fourteen of the world’s greatest pianists, veritable prima donnas of the piano, but several had never learned to adapt themselves to play together for a common musical purpose, and when I rapped on my stand for silence in order to begin the “Spanish Dances” of Moszkowski, at least five or six continued their infernal improvising, playing of scales, and pianistic fireworks. By using heroic measures I gradually produced a semblance of order, and gave the signal for the beginning of the music. The effect was extraordinary! Several of these pianists had never followed a conductor’s beat, and after the first ten bars, two of them rushed over to me, the one violently exclaiming that the tempo was too fast, and the other insisting with equal vehemence that it was too slow. Finally I obtained silence, and told my pianistic orchestra that they were, undoubtedly, the fourteen greatest pianists in the world, and that the interpretation of each one of them was undoubtedly equally the greatest in the world, but as they represented fourteen different grades and shades of interpretation, I intended to take the matter into my own hands and they would just have to follow my beat whether they liked my tempo or not. This was greeted with a roar of approval, and we now settled down to the work of rehearsing as solemnly as if these prima donnas of the ivories were orchestral musicians and routined members of the New York Musical Union. Order followed anarchy, and the results