My duties in Salzburg at the Mozarteum were much lighter than I chose to make them. I think I was there to give harpsichord lessons, but I am not sure whether I ever gave any. Nor am I sure whether the idea of giving a series of lectures on the Vortrag alter Klaviermusik was my own or that of someone else, but I took it very seriously and worked feverishly at preparing the lectures and their illustrations. Since I had only just turned twenty-two, finding that I was addressed as Herr Professor by all Austrians without any apparent trace of irony, even by those three times my age, made me feel that I must do something to earn that ceremonious title. The lectures were delivered in German as planned, but before a small and completely polyglot audience which included only a few Germans and Austrians.

The great advantage of this whole undertaking, however, was that I had a large studio on the ground floor of the Mozarteum and a harpsichord on which to practice. Into my studio during the summers of 1933 and 1934 wandered friends from all parts of Europe and America. When I arrived in the morning I never knew with what unlikely combination of persons I might be meeting for lunch. In the two summers that I spent in Salzburg, I performed dozens of introductions, some leading to transitory but passionate love affairs, some never progressing beyond instantaneous hostility, and others leading to lifelong friendships. The combination of Italians and Germans was generally destined to be fatal, and it is my impression that the Italian always got the upper hand without the German ever becoming aware of it. Italians and French nearly always mixed well, and Hungarians were useful because they spoke all languages. Combinations of Anglo-Saxons with other nationalities were always unpredictable, but sometimes they produced the most astonishing results. In those two years there floated through my studio such people as Clifford and Lucille Curzon, Guglielmo Alberti, Erick Hawkins, Alberto Moravia, Mimi Pecci-Blunt, Francis Poulenc, Leon Barzin, John McCullough, Eugene Ormandy, Yella Pessl, Greta Kraus, François Mauriac, Jay Laughlin, Stephen Spender, Isaiah Berlin, Gertrude Ely, Lili Kraus, Szymon Goldberg, John Ritter, the brothers Rück, and many others.