VON BULOW’S MEMORY

A young composer once asked Hans von Bülow to look over a piano concerto. Bülow said he was too busy, but promised to read it later. That same evening at a party, someone asked him to play—and to the composer’s shock, Bülow sat down and performed the entire concerto from memory. His colleagues at Meiningen weren’t so lucky: he even tried (and failed) to get the orchestra to memorize their parts too.