No example to follow

Ahundred years ago, a character in a novel who was keen on music would, like E.M. Forster’s Lucy Honeychurch or Leo- nard Bast, be as apt to stumble through a piece at the piano as listen to it at a concert.

Ahundred years ago, a character in a novel who was keen on music would, like E. M. Forster’s Lucy Honeychurch or Leo- nard Bast, be as apt to stumble through a piece at the piano as listen to it at a concert. Given the relative- ly rare opportunities to hear a Brahms or Beethoven symphony before the invention of the LP, the easiest way to enjoy one was probably to play it in piano duet reduction. At the upper end of amateur capacity, there are those memorable small-town enthusiasts who, in Arnold Bennett’s The Death of Simon Fuge, sightread a new piece just published in Germany — the Strauss Sinfonia Domestica.