Olga Bardel Author:Stacy Aumonier General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1916 Original Publisher: Century Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select ... more »from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER VI THE debut of the Child-Wonder, Olga Barjelski, at the Queen's Hall was surely one of the most incredible things within the memory of music, lovers. The public had been forewarned of it three months ahead by the following paragraph appearing in all the daily papers: WONDERFUL CHILD PIANIST A Romantic Stoby The famous Professor of Music, Louis du Casson, Ib to be congratulated on a remarkable and romantic discovery. Visiting the East Kntl of London a short time ago on philanthropic work, be happened to hear a little girl strumming on an old upright piano. The performance of one phrase was sufficient to inform the experienced ear of the professor that here was a genius. He made inquiries and discovered that the little girl was named Olga Barjelski. She is nine years old and the daughter of Polish parents who had settled in Turkey. The whole family were massacred in a pogrom, being taken for Armenians, except this little girl who was smuggled out of the country at night in a basket labeled "vegetable produce," and conveyed aross the border into Greece by an old Magyar woman. This old woman -- who has since died -- was a mystic, and sincerely believed that the child was a reincarnation of Chopin, the great Polish composer. She brought the child to London and gave her into the care of a distant relation, in whose house the famous professor heard her. The story, of course, with regard to the reincarnation may or may not be accepted by those who believe in these things, but there is no doubt but that the child is a very remarkable pianist. Professor Du Casson declar...« less