“In my second school year we used to have twice a week a lesson in penmanship from the

master who just before that gave a singing-lesson to the big boys. Now it happened one day that we had come over the infant school too early, so that we had to wait outside the other class-room, and when they began the vocal duet, ‘In the mill by the stream below there I was sitting in quiet thought,’ followed by ‘Beautiful forest, who planted you there?’ I had to hold on to the wall to prevent myself from falling. The charm of the two-part harmony of the songs thrilled me all over, to my very marrow, and similarly the first time I heard brass instruments playing together I almost fainted from excess of pleasure. “