Ysa

When Eugene Ysaye was a six-year-old boy in Liege his father once let him sit among the orchestra players at an opera he was conducting. Most children would have been fascinated by the action on the stage but the Belgian conductor's child behaved that day in a manner which determined his career. He ignored the stage, watched the violinists with open-mouthed wonder.

For a half century and more the great Ysaye had no time for the stage. He was busy being a master violinist, busy at symphonic conducting, busy at composing for violin or orchestra. But last week he would have given a great deal to have gone back to Liege for the premiere of a one-act opera called Peter the Miner. He had written it himself but he was too sick to travel from Brussels to see it played. Seventy-two, diabetic, one leg amputated, he had to listen to his opera over the radio. One of his ablest violin pupils represented him at the performance: Her Majesty Queen Elisabeth.

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