On Rachmaninoff

I played one of his own preludes once, and he took me to the window and he said look down at those trees, those are mimosa trees and I want you to play this melody with a golden sound. And I said but how can you make color into a sound on the piano? And I then said the magic words,I said "show me", and he played the first few bars of this prelude and I knew exactly what to do; from there on I was able to do it.

Ruth Slenczynska