6 HELEN ABBOTT MICHAEL 



entree. In her renderings of the works of the great masters, 

 she was notable for her union of strength and delicacy of 

 touch with sympathetic appreciation. She read at sight with 

 extraordinary fluency and correctness. She speedily secured a 

 reputation as being one of the ablest amateur pianists of her 

 native city. 



This reputation she carried abroad with her in 1878, and 

 at the concert given at Ventnor in the Isle of Wight in aid of 

 the " Distress Fund," after the training-ship Eurydice, on its 

 way home from Bermuda, foundered off Dunnose Headland 

 with a loss of three hundred lives, she played three selections, 

 and was characterized by a local newspaper as "a performer 

 of great finish and artistic appreciation of her subject." An- 

 other newspaper said her performance "was marvelously 

 clever and testified to a most thorough acquaintance with the 

 pianoforte." 



She spent that winter in Paris, and how well she improved 

 her opportunities and what an impression she made are well 

 shown by a recent letter from M. Alphonse Duvernoy of the 

 Conservatoire. He says : 



" She had a superior mind open to everything. Her eagerness 

 for instruction recognized no obstacles, and under a frail exterior 

 she concealed an energy and will power of which many men 

 might have been envious. In a word, by her nature she was 

 one of the elect, and I was happy to appreciate her at her real 

 value. ... She worked under my direction from July, 1878, 

 until the end of April, 1879. Remarkably gifted for music, she 

 made very rapid progress, and her execution was sufficiently 

 advanced to allow her to grapple with the works of the great 

 masters, for whom she felt a passionate admiration. In May, 

 1879, she returned to Amerka, and was back in Paris in 1880. 

 At this time she devoted herself to chamber music, into which 

 she was initiated by two eminent artists MM. Armingaud 

 the violinist and Jacquard the violoncellist. In 1881 she ceased 

 to work with these gentlemen, whom she entirely won by the 

 quickness of her intelligence and by her musical feeling." 



Madame Arabella Goddard, the eminent pianist, who made 

 her last public appearances in connection with Sir Arthur 



