He was a master of the violin before he took to orchestration.

We remained the best of friends to the end of his days.
On the slightest provocation, or none, we passed entire nights together.
Once after a concert he suddenly exclaimed: "Don't you think Wagner was a -- -- fraud ?" A little surprised even by one of his outbreaks, I said: "Wagner may have written some trick music but I hardly think that he was a fraud." He reflected a moment.

"Well," he continued, "it may not lie in my mouth to say it--and perhaps I ought not to say it--I know I am most responsible for the Wagner craze--but I consider him a -- -- fraud." He had just come from a long "classic entertainment," was worn out with travel and worry, and meant nothing of the sort.
After a very tiresome concert when he was railing at the hard lines of a peripatetic musician I said: "Come with me and I will give you a soothing quail and as dry a glass of champagne as you ever had in your life." The wine was poured out and he took a sip.
"I don't call that dry wine," he crossly said, and took another sip.

"My God," without a pause he continued, "isn't that great ?" Of course he was impulsive, even impetuous.

Beneath his seeming cold exterior and admirable self-control--the discipline of the master artist--lay the moods and tenses of the musical temperament.