Deryk Barker wrote:

>Which was saying something, as Enesco had a legendary memory.

... hadn't he? (if the following anecdote is not apocryphal).
He was given the manuscript of Ravel's Violin sonata.  He just read it
once and gave it back, just saying:  "All right now, I know the piece".
And, indeed, he played it immediately by heart.

Toscanini - also mentioned recently in this thread - was not bad either.
As he was claiming that he knew by heart all Verdi's operas, someone asked
him if he could be able to write down the part of the second bassoon in
the second act of "Traviata".  Well, he did it....  (same disclaimer as
the previous one for this anecdote, of course).

Simon Corley
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