I had to laugh at his word-play and Rubinstein himself chimed in, and the piece was saved, or rather the player. For when I repeated that particular part it went very well, and he allowed me to continue without further interruption.
Once I asked him for the fingering of a rather complex passage.
"Play it with your nose," he replied, "but make it sound well!"
This remark puzzled me, and there I sat and wondered what he meant.
As I understand it now he meant: Help yourself! The Lord helps those who help themselves!
As I said before, Rubinstein never played for me the works I had to study. He explained, analysed, elucidated everything that he wanted me to know; but, this done, he left me to my own judgment, for only then, he would explain, would my achievement be my own and incontestable property. I learned from Rubinstein in this way the valuable truth that the conception of tone-pictures obtained through the playing of another gives us only transient impressions; they come and go, while the self-created conception will last and remain our own.
Now, when I look back upon my study-days with Rubinstein, I can see that he did not so much instruct me as that I learned from him. He was not a pedagogue in the usual meaning of that word. He indicated to me an altitude offering a fine view, but how I was to get up there was my affair; he did not bother about it. "Play with your nose!" Yes—but when I bumped it till it fairly bled where would I get the metaphorical handkerchief? In my imagination! And he was right.
To be sure, this method would not work with all pupils, but it is nevertheless well calculated to develop a student's original thought and bring out whatever acumen he may possess. If such a one succeeded by his own study and mental force to reach the desired point which the great magician's wizardry had made him see, he had gained the reliance in his own strength: he felt sure that he would always find that point again—even though he should lose his way once or twice, as every one with an honest aspiration is liable to do.
I recall that Rubinstein once said to me: "Do you know why piano-playing is so difficult? Because it is prone to be either affected or else afflicted with mannerisms; and when these two pitfalls are luckily avoided then it is liable to be—dry! The truth lies between those three mischiefs!"
When it was settled that I should make my Hamburg début under his baton with his own D-minor Concerto, I thought the time had come at last to study with him one of his own works. So I proposed it, but Rubinstein disposed of it! I still see him, as if it were but yesterday, seated in the greenroom of the Berlin Philharmonic during an intermission in his concert (it was on a Saturday) and telling me: "We shall appear together in Hamburg on Monday." The time was short, but I knew the Concerto and hoped to go through it with him some time in the remaining two days. I asked his permission to play the Concerto for him, but he declined my urgent request, saying: "It is not necessary; we understand each other!" And even in this critical moment he left me to my own resources. After the last (and only) rehearsal the great master embraced me before the whole orchestra, and I—well, I was not in the seventh, but in the "eighth" heaven! Everything was all right, I said to myself, for Rubinstein, Rubinstein was satisfied! The public simply had to be! The concert went off splendidly.