One of the books that I dip into from time to time is Arrau on Music and Performance, written by Joseph Horowitz. Just today I picked up something that I missed when reading it the first time around, and that is Arrau’s reporting of a comment made by the great Venezuelan pianist Teresa Carreño. She had five children with three husbands and a common-law partner. Arrau met her after one of her concerts, and she said, “Oh, with all the children we have it’s so difficult to practice. I have a loaded gun on my piano. And I have threatened all my children—if they open the door, I shoot.”