Clara Schumann first toured England in April 1856, while her husband was still living but unable to travel. She was invited to play in a London Philharmonic Society concert by conductor William Sterndale Bennett, a good friend of Robert's. She was displeased with the little time spent on rehearsals: "They call it a rehearsal here if a piece is played through once." She wrote that musical "artists" in England "allow themselves to be treated as inferiors." She was happy, though, to hear the cellist Alfredo Piatti play with "a tone, a bravura, a certainty, such as I never heard before". In May 1856, she played Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor with the New Philharmonic Society conducted by Dr Wylde, who as she said had "led a dreadful rehearsal" and "could not grasp the rhythm of the last movement". Still, she returned to London the following year and continued to perform in Britain for the next 15 years.