An autobiography is one of the most difficult of tasks, for it should not overstep the bounds of modesty, and yet it should at the same time always remain faithful to the truth.

In order, at my age, not to sin against modesty, such great care is no longer necessary; the world knows only too well how much I have done for art up until now, and I think that any self-denial here may be taken for hypocrisy rather than modesty. Truth, however, will not be lacking here, since from my childhood I have been trained, and can do naught else, than to hold it as something holy.

Had I, in presenting the outline of my life story, followed the path trod by several of my biographers, then I would probably have already completed the whole thing; but given, however, that in accordance with the wishes of various artistic friends, I will in addition always discuss the condition of the art of music, as I experienced it up until now; so I can do no better than, according to my view, give a strict, but always just, judgment of all of the artists whom I heard, or also got to know more closely. For these are the ones who through their virtuosity and compositions always give a new direction to artistic taste, and thereby make their contributions to the improvement or the decline of the art.

On the a wide path that I entered, I quickly lost the desire to go further, and only my great respect for the highly revered editor of “Libussa”, and my warm support for the thriving Institute for caring for and employing blind adults to which he has devoted so much attention, were able to impel me to further continue what I had already begun.

Because, however, it was entirely impossible, given my very limited time, to complete it thus, there was nothing else to be done, but to only deal with the first period of my life history, when it was not yet determined whether I would be destined for the service of Themis or Apollo, as is presented in the following pages.