Her next scene of triumph was Paris. She arrived there in 1864, and made her first appearance at one of the Pasdeloup concerts—the most important organisation of the kind in France—with a success that was, as she often said in after life, perfectly bewildering.
It is not difficult to imagine it.
She was possessed of a technique that could hardly be surpassed, and a genius equally remarkable, a constitution that defied fatigue, and an enthusiasm that years of incessant work such as she was destined to experience, did not dull.
There is little doubt that her great powers were displayed, at this time, in their most dazzling splendour.
In May, 1869, Madame Norman-Neruda—as she had become known through her marriage with the Swedish composer—visited London again, and the event proved to be decisive, little as she thought it, as to her future career. She came to play at a Philharmonic concert, but was prevailed upon to stay through the summer, so that she should inaugurate, in the autumn, a new era in the history of the "Popular Concerts"—an institution that had been established ten years previously by the eminent firm of Chappell and Co., with the late Mr. Arthur Chappell as
director. The main feature was the performance of classical chamber music.
The event may be justly described as historic. Her success was absolute and convincing. The fact that a woman was seen "leading" a quartet of performers that embraced the greatest players that Europe could produce, was one of intense significance.
One great result was not long in showing itself. The violin soon became fashionable in a girl's hands, and from a fashion it has degenerated into a rage.
To her lasting fame, Wilma Neruda was the first to demonstrate, under conditions that were often discouraging and sometimes forbidding, that a woman could, in this form of art, hold her own with the greatest of male exponents.
Madame Norman-Neruda was a woman of extraordinary strength of character. Austere in manner and of cold demeanour, as she undoubtedly was, in any direction that her sane judgment pointed out as worthy, she was capable of generosity that was, at once, spontaneous and noble.