Beethoven got up, and while he kept on
playing his own part, sang the cellist's part. When this was commented
on, he remarked that the bass part _had_ to be this way if the composer
understood his business. The composer in this instance was Foerster, his
old teacher.
On another occasion, Beethoven played at sight a new and difficult
composition which had been brought him. The composer told him that he
(Beethoven), had played the Presto so fast that it would have been
impossible to see the single notes. "That is not necessary," Beethoven
replied. "If you read rapidly, many misprints may occur; you do not heed
them, if you only know the language." Wagner in his life of Beethoven
says: "The power of the musician is not to be appreciated otherwise than
through the idea of magic." It would seem so in very fact. Consider the
million combinations of which the brain has to take cognizance while
doing so comparatively simple a thing as transposing. Not to play the
particular notes which are indicated on the staff, but some others, one
or two steps higher or lower; to play four or five at a stroke, as in
piano, and to do it quickly, sixty or eighty or a hundred in a
minute,--this is almost like magic, but it is nothing to what Beethoven
frequently did in music.
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