Berlioz must have heard
that oboe as well as I, for I rediscovered it in the "Ride to Hell" in
his _La Damnation de Faust_.
At the same time I was learning to read. When I was two-years-and-a-half
old, they placed me in front of a small piano which had not been opened
for several years. Instead of drumming at random as most children of
that age would have done, I struck the notes one after another, going on
only when the sound of the previous note had died away. My great-aunt
taught me the names of the notes and got a tuner to put the piano in
order. While the tuning was going on, I was playing in the next room,
and they were utterly astonished when I named the notes as they were
sounded. I was not told all these details--I remember them perfectly.
I was taught by Le Carpentier's method and I finished it in a month.
They couldn't let a little monkey like that work away at the piano, and
I cried like a lost soul when they closed the instrument. Then they left
it open and put a small stool in front of it. From time to time I would
leave my playthings and climb up to drum out whatever came into my head.
Gradually, my great-aunt, who fortunately had an excellent foundation in
music, taught me how to hold my hands properly so that I did not acquire
the gross faults which are so difficult to correct later on.
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