Mr. Koussevitzy’s conductorial gestures are literally high, wide and handsome.  His wing-spread, so to speak, is much larger than that of either Mr. Stokowski or Mr. Toscanini, and he has a greater repertoire of unpredictable motions than both of them put together.  Time cannot wither, nor custom stale, the infinite variety of his shadow boxing.

Those who knew his history look upon Mr. Koussevitzky’s joyous, unrestrained gymnastics with tolerant eyes.  They realize that, for years, he was forced to hide his fine figure and athletic prowess from thousands of potential admirers.

For Mr. Koussevitzky, before he became a conductor, was a world-famous performer on the double bass, that big growling brute of an instrument popularly known as the bull fiddle.  In those days all that was visible of his impressive person was his head, one of his shoulders and his arms.

He didn’t want to be a bull fiddler any more than you or you or you, and it’s greatly to his credit and indicative of his iron will, consuming ambition and extraordinary musicianship that he developed, according to authoritative opinion, into the best bull fiddler of his time.

Here’s what happened: 

Serge was the son of a violinist who scratched away for a meager living in a third-rate theatre orchestra.  The boy, intensely musical, wished to be a fiddler like his father.  When he was fourteen, his family gave him their blessing, which was all they had to give, and sent him to Moscow to try for a scholarship at the Philharmonic School.

He arrived with three rubles in his pocket.  At the school he was told that the only available scholarship was one in bull fiddling.  Serge tried for it and won.  He was, so far as is known, the first musician to make the barking monster into a solo instrument.

An overburdened troubadour, he dragged the cumbersome thing all over Russia and played it in recitals with amazing success.  In 1903, when Mr. Koussevitzky was twenty-nine (he’s sixty-eight now but looks a mettlesome fifty), the Czar decorated him—­the only instance in history of a decoration bestowed for bull fiddling.

That same year, while giving a concert in Moscow, the virtuoso happened to look into the audience and his eyes met those of a stunning brunette in the front row.  The owner of the lovely eyes, Natalya Konstantinova Ushkova, became his wife two years later.

Natalya, the daughter of a wealthy merchant and a rich girl in her own right, promised him anything he wanted for a wedding gift.  “Give me a symphony orchestra.” was Koussevitzky’s startling request.  The bride was taken aback, for it was with the bull fiddle that he had wooed and won her and she hated to see him give it up, but she kept her word.

Now here is where our old pianist comes in.  It was at that time, he says, that Mr. Koussevitzky sent for him and began an intensive course of study before the triple mirror.