The preceding article ended with a question. The title of this one contains an implicit reply—which is moreover a strictly foreseeable one. Indeed, an artist who has attained the fulness of his creative powers should be able to change his means of expression without altering its internal structure.

On leaving the stage, Markevitch the composer bequeathed all his experience to the conductor. Certainly, the conductor still had much to learn, and he was applying himself passionately to the task when, at the end of the war, the Allies in occupied Florence entrusted him with the conductorship of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. But the essentials he had known long since, because—as has been seen—his thought was essentially orchestral. This is why Markevitch, in deciding to become an interpreter, did not take up the familiar piano, but preferred orchestral conducting, of which he had scarcely more than an elementary idea and which he now had to manage in his own way, guided only by his pigheadedness, his tenacity, and … his experience as a composer.