He had every right to a first rank among _virtuosi_, but this man, herculean in appearance and tenacious in his purposes, lost all his power before an audience.
He had a dream of giving to lovers of music the last of Beethoven's quartets, which were considered at the time both unplayable and incomprehensible.

In the end he planned a series of concerts at which, despite my age--I was only fifteen--I was to be the regular pianist.

He planned to give in addition to these quartets, some of Bach's sonatas and Reber's and Schumann's trios.

I spoke of this plan to his mother-in-law one day as she was peacefully embroidering at the window, and told her how pleased I was at the thought of the concerts.
"Don't count on it too much," she told me.

"He'll never give them." When everything was ready, he invited some thirty people to listen to a trial performance.