Notes by pianist Charles Rosen:
When I was about twelve years old, Moriz Rosenthal played his "Etude on the Minute Waltz of Chopin" for me, and I can still feel my astonishment at the gentlemanly ease that accompanied the power he had retained in his old age. He was a cultivated man of great kindness who earned his reputation for malice only because he could never resist a bon mot. He must have found me amusing, for I had one or two lessons with him almost every week for more than three years (although, it is to his wife, Hedwig Kanner, my teacher for many years, that I owe the greatest part of what I have ever learned about pianism). With all his famous technique, Rosenthal rarely discussed technical matters: he spoke always about phrasing and tone. He was the first person who made me really think about music.
His courtesy was unfailing. He never said that an interpretation was wrong, only -- "I have a different idea of this piece"; and then he would play part of it. Once he stopped me while I was playing the Brahms-Handel Variations and asked, "Why do you suddenly get faster?" "Because it is marked più mosso," I answered. He walked slowly over to the piano, looked at the music and then turned to me apologetically, explaining, "You see, Brahms let me play his music any way I liked, and I am afraid I took advantage of it. But you must play it as written."

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