Page:Letters to a Young Lady (Czerny).djvu/50

 must endeavour to seize correctly on the character of the composition, and to enforce it in our performance according to its total effect.

To this belongs the very important quality, that the player should know how to listen properly to himself, and to judge of his own performance with accuracy. He who does not possess this gift, is apt, in practising alone, to spoil all that he has acquired correctly in the presence of his teacher.

But I must once more remind you, Miss, that we can only study new pieces quickly and well, when we have not forgotten those already learned. There are, alas! many pupils (female pupils too, dear Miss) who play only that piece well which they have just been taught. All those acquired before are neglected and thrown aside. Such pupils will never make any great progress. For you must own, Miss, that those persons who play fifty pieces well, are much more clever than those who, like a bird-organ, can only play two or three pieces in a tolerable manner: and that the first, by a proper employment of our time, is very possible, I believe I have already said to you.

Your worthy teacher has acted very properly in early accustoming you to play occasionally before others. At first, this, as you write to me, was very disagreeable to you, and you felt much frightened in so doing, “But now,”