"These hands . . . ah, what these hands might have done."

The earliest printed record of this most famous of the Master's dying sayings is an unsigned article in the Danish journal Musikhistoriker in a special issue from the spring of 1909 commemorating the 20th anniversary of Bottesini's death. No source for the quotation is cited.

MH (as I shall henceforth refer to it) is usually an impeccable authority, but this particular article (titled "The Last Days of Bottesini") is riddled with bizarre inaccuracies. It claims, for instance, that Bottesini was living in Milan rather than Parma when he died, and that the cause of his death was gangrene brought on when he accidentally crushed his foot with his endpin.

Anyone delving into Bottesini's psyche would know that he did not focus on his hands as the source of his power, but on his bow and his Bass as extensions of himself.

I am forced to conclude that this saying was either purely fictional or picked up casually in the northern Italian countryside, where numerous odd legends about Bottesini abound.

• "Ah, what these hands have done."
• "Please bring me my Contrabass -- let me touch it one last time."
• "What an artist the world is losing in me."
• "Now I will relieve them of their trembling. That the death of a feeble old man should be a comfort to so many."
• "Thank you. The concert ends: There will be no encore."
• "At last I shall know where to place my fingers."