to sing in such a manner as would make the king repent of his order.
For a good part of the evening she kept to her resolve. But suddenly the audience were astonished to notice a complete change in her style of singing and acting. She had changed from her poorest to her best mood, and she seemed to excel herself in the brilliancy of her singing and the intensity of her acting. And Mara at her best was wonderful.
The secret of this sudden change was that Mara had bethought herself that if she went on in her first careless style, the heir to the Russian throne would carry away with him a very poor opinion of her abilities, and as this would be very undesirable she suddenly changed her policy, making the king the victor after all.
125.—CHOPIN'S TECHNIC.
The coming of Chopin into the field of piano composition marked a new era in the treatment of that instrument, both in the technic of composition and in the technic of interpretation. While nearly every great composer felt called on to essay the various forms of composition and for a variety of instruments, Chopin devoted himself exclusively to the piano, using the orchestra only as incidental to his piano works.
The technic of the schools that had preceded him was inadequate to the performance of his compositions, so much so that even as great a player as Moscheles confessed himself unequal to the task of properly playing Chopin's music.
In this connection, it is related that Chopin went to Kalkbrenner, a celebrated pianist and teacher of Paris, hoping to get some valuable technical instruction from a man of such celebrity. Kalkbrenner criticised his playing severely and advised Chopin to attend his classes in the Conservatoire to learn the proper fingering. Chopin answered this advice by placing one of his own
