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GREAT PIANISTS ON PIANO PLAYING
Study Talks with Foremost Virtuosos
by
JAMES FRANCIS COOKE
A Series of Personal Educational Conferences with Renowned Masters
of the Keyboard, Presenting the Most Modern Ideas upon the Subjects
of Technic, Interpretation, Style and Expression
[Illustration]
Theo. Presser Co.
Philadelphia, Pa.
Copyright, 1913, by Theo. Presser Co.
International Copyright Secured
CONTENTS
PAGE
1. THE ARTIST'S LIFE 5
2. ARE PIANISTS BORN OR MADE? 24
3. THE STORY OF A WONDER-CHILD _Pepito Arriola_ 41
4. THE PIANIST OF TO-MORROW _Wilhelm Bachaus_ 52
5. ARTISTIC ASPECTS OF PIANO STUDY _Harold Bauer_ 64
6. APPEARING IN PUBLIC _Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler_ 80
7. IMPORTANT DETAILS IN PIANO STUDY _Ferruccio Busoni_ 97
8. DISTINCTIVE PIANO PLAYING _Teresa Carreño_ 109
9. ESSENTIALS OF TOUCH _Ossip Gabrilowitsch_ 122
10. THE REAL SIGNIFICANCE OF TECHNIC _Leopold Godowsky_ 133
11. ANALYZING MASTERPIECES _Katharine Goodson_ 144
12. PROGRESS IN PIANO STUDY _Josef Hofmann_ 158
13. PIANO STUDY IN RUSSIA _Josef Lhévinne_ 170
14. SEEKING ORIGINALITY _Vladimir de Pachmann_ 182
15. MODERN PIANISTIC PROBLEMS _Max Pauer_ 197
16. ESSENTIALS OF ARTISTIC PLAYING _S. V. Rachmaninoff_ 208
17. SYSTEMATIC MUSICAL TRAINING _A. Reisenauer_ 222
18. THE TRAINING OF THE VIRTUOSO _E. Sauer_ 236
19. ECONOMY IN MUSIC STUDY _X. Scharwenka_ 252
20. LEARNING A NEW PIECE _E. Schelling_ 267
21. WHAT INTERPRETATION REALLY IS _S. Stojowski_ 279
I
THE ARTIST'S LIFE
THE VIRTUOSO'S CAREER AS IT REALLY IS
The father of a young woman who was preparing to become a virtuoso once
applied to a famous musical educator for advice regarding the future
career of his daughter. "I want her to become one of the greatest
pianists America has ever produced," he said. "She has talent, good
health, unlimited ambition, a good general education, and she is
industrious." The educator thought for awhile, and then said, "It is
very likely that your daughter will be successful in her chosen field,
but the amount of grinding study she will be obliged to undergo to meet
the towering standards of modern pianism is awful to contemplate. In the
end she will have the flattery of the multitude, and, let us hope, some
of their dollars as well. In return, she may have to sacrifice many of
the comforts and pleasures which women covet. The more successful she
is, the more of a nomad she must become. She will know but few days for
years when she will not be compelled to practice for hours. She becomes
a kind of chattel of the musical public. She will be harassed by
ignorant critics and perhaps annoyed by unreliable managers. In return
she has money and fame, but, in fact, far less of the great joy and
purpose of life than if she followed the customary domestic career with
some splendid man as her husband. When I was younger I used to preach
quite an opposite sermon, but the more I see of the hardships of the
artist's life the less I think of the dollars and the fame it brings. It
is hard enough for a man, but it is twice as hard for a woman."
GOLDEN BAIT
Some cynic has contended that the much-despised "Almighty Dollar" has
been the greatest incentive to the struggling virtuoso in European music
centers. Although this may be true in a number of cases, it is certainly
unjust in others. Many of the virtuosos find travel in America so
distasteful that notwithstanding the huge golden bait, the managers have
the greatest difficulty in inducing the pianists to come back. Indeed,
there are many artists of great renown whom the managers would be glad
to coax to our country but who have withheld tempting offers for years.
One of these is Moritz Moszkowski, probably the most popular of modern
pianoforte composers of high-class music. Grieg, when he finally
consented to make the voyage to America, placed his price at two
thousand five hundred dollars for every concert--a sum which any manager
would regard prohibitive, except in the case of one world-famous
pianist. Grieg's intent was obvious.
The inconveniences of travel in America have been ridiculously
exaggerated in Europe, and many virtuosos dread the thought of an
American trip, with the great ocean yawning between the two continents,
and red-skinned savages just beyond New York or certainly not far from
Chicago. De Pachmann detests the ocean, and when he comes over in his
favorite month of June he does not dare return until the following June.
Others who have never visited America must get their idea of American
travel from some such account as that of Charles Dickens in his
unforgivable _American Notes_ (1842), in which he said, in describing
one of our railroads:
"There is a great deal of jolting, a great deal of noise, a
great deal of wall, not much window, a locomotive engine, a
shriek and a bell. The cars are like shabby omnibuses
holding thirty, forty, fifty people. In the centre of the
carriage there is usually a stove, fed with charcoal or
anthracite coal, which is for the most part red hot. It is
insufferably close, and you see the hot air fluttering
between yourself and any other object you may happen to look
at."
There could have been but little improvement in our railroads in 1872
when Rubinstein came to America, for although he accepted $40,000 for
215 concerts during his first trip, he refused an offer of $125,000 for
only 50 concerts when a manager tried to persuade him to return.
American railroads now present the acme of comfort, convenience, and
even luxury in travel, yet the European artist has difficulty in
adjusting himself to journeys of thousands of miles crowded in a short
winter season when he has been accustomed to little trips of a few
hundred kilometers. He comes to dread the trains as we might a prison
van. Paderewski resorts to a private car, but even this luxurious mode
of travel may be very monotonous and exhausting.
The great distances must certainly account for some of the evidences of
strain which deform the faces and exhaust the minds of so many
virtuosos. The traveling salesman seems to thrive upon miles of railroad
travel as do the crews of the trains, but the virtuoso, dragged from
concert to concert by his showman, grows tired--oh, so tired, pale, wan,
listless and indifferent! At the beginning of the season he is quite
another person. The magnetism that has done so much to win him fame
shines in his eyes and seems to emanate from his finger-tips, but the
difference in his physical being at the end of the season is sickening.
Like a bedraggled, worn-out circus coming in from the wear and tear of a
hard season, he crawls wearily back to New York with a cinematographic
recollection of countless telegraph poles flying past the windows,
audience after audience, sleeping cars, budding geniuses, the inevitable
receptions with their equally inevitable chicken salad or lukewarm
oysters, and the "sweet young things," who, like Heine's mythical tribe
of _Asra_, must love or perish. Some virtuosos have the physical
strength to endure all this, even enjoy it, but many have confessed to
me that their American tours have been literal nightmares.
One of the greatest pianists was obliged to stay in New York for a while
before attempting the voyage homeward. At the time he was so weak from
the rigors of the tour that he could scarcely write his name. His
haggard face suggested the tortures of a Torquamada rather than Buffalo,
Kansas City, Denver and Pittsburgh. His voice was tired and faltering,
and his chief interest was that of the invalid--getting home as soon as
possible. To have talked with him upon music at that time would have
been an injustice. Accordingly, I led him away from the subject and
dwelt upon the woes of his native Poland, and, much to his surprise,
left him without the educational material of which I had been in quest.
He asked the reason, and I told him that a musical conference at that
time could serve no purpose.
As men and women, aside from the attainments which have made them
illustrious, virtuosos are for the most part very much like ordinary
mortals who have to content themselves at the foot of Parnassus. It has
been my privilege to know thirty or more of the most eminent artists,
and some have become good personal friends. It is interesting to observe
how several very different types of individuals may succeed in winning
public favor as virtuosos. Indeed, except for the long-haired caricature
which the public accepts as the conventional virtuoso there is no
"virtuoso type." Here is a business man, here an artist, here an
engineer, here a jurist, here an actor, here a poet and here a freak,
all of them distinguished performers. Perhaps the enthusiastic
music-lover will resent the idea of a freak becoming famous as a
pianist, but I have known no less than three men who could not possibly
be otherwise described, but who have nevertheless made both fame and
fortune as virtuosos.
FREAK PIANISTS
The anthropologist who chooses to conduct special investigations of
freaks can find no more entertaining field than that of the remarkable
freaks of the brain, shown in the cases of some astonishing performers
whose intelligence and mental capacity in other ways has been
negligible. The classic case of Blind Tom, for instance, was that of a
freak not so very far removed in kind from the Siamese Twins, or General
Tom Thumb. Born a slave in Georgia, and wholly without what teachers
would term a musical education, Blind Tom amazed many of the most
conservative musicians of his time. It was possible for him to repeat
difficult compositions after hearing them played only once. I conversed
with him a number of years ago in New York, only to find that
intellectually and physically he was allied to the _cretin_.
Blind Tom's peculiar ability has led many hasty commentators to conclude
that music is a wholly separate mental faculty to be found particularly
in a more or less shiftless and irresponsible class of gifted but
intellectually limited human beings. The few cases of men and women
whose musical talent seems to eclipse their minds so that they remain in
utter darkness to everything else in life, should not be taken as a
basis for judging other artists of real genius and undisputed mental
breadth. I have in mind, however, the case of one pianist who is very
widely known and highly lauded, but who is very slightly removed from
the class of Blind Tom. A trained alienist, one acquainted with the
difference between the eccentricities which frequently accompany
greatness and the unconscious physical and psychical evidences of idiocy
which so clearly agree with the antics of the chimpanzee or the droll
Capuchin monkeys, might find in the performer to whom I refer a subject
for some very interesting, not to say startling reflections. Few have
ever been successful in inducing this pianist to talk upon any other
subject than music for more than a few minutes at a time. Another
pianist, who was distinguished as a Liszt pupil, and who toured America
repeatedly, seemed to have a hatred for the piano that amounted to an
obsession. "Look," he exclaimed, "I am its slave. It has sent me round
and round the world, night after night, year after year. It has cursed
me like a wandering Jew. No rest, no home, no liberty. Do you wonder
that I drink to forget it?"
A PATHETIC EXAMPLE
And drink he did in Bacchanalian measure! One time he gave an
unconscious exhibition of his technical ability that, while regrettable,
would have been of immense interest to psychologists who are seeking to
prove that music depends upon a separate operation of a special
"faculty." During his American tours I called frequently upon this
virtuoso for the purpose of investigating his method of playing. He was
rarely free from the influence of alcohol for more than a few hours at
a time. One morning it was necessary for me to see him professionally,
and when I found him at his hotel he was in a truly disgraceful
condition. I remember that he was unable to stand, from the fact that he
fell upon me while I was sitting in a Morris chair. He was barely able
to talk, and just prior to my leaving he insisted upon scrawling upon
his visiting card, "Zur freundlichen Errinerung, auf einen sehr späten
Abend." (Friendly remembrances of a very late evening.) Since it was
still very early in the morning, it may be realized that he had lost all
idea of his whereabouts. Nevertheless, he sat at the piano keyboard and
played tremendously difficult compositions by Liszt and
Brahms--compositions which compelled his hands to leap from one part of
the keyboard to the other as in the case of the Liszt _Campanella_. He
never missed a note until he lost his balance upon the piano stool and
fell to the floor. Disgusting and pathetic as the exhibition was, I
could not help feeling that I was witnessing a marvelous instance of
automatism, that wonderful power of the mind working through the body to
reproduce, apparently without effort or thought, operations which have
been repeated so many times that they have become "second nature." More
than this, it indicated clearly that while the better part of the man's
body was "dead to the world," the faculty he had cultivated to the
highest extent still remained alive. Some years later this man succumbed
to alcoholism.
THE PIANIST OF TO-DAY
Contrasted with a type of this kind may be mentioned such men as Sauer,
Rachmaninov, d'Albert, Paderewski, Godowsky, Bachaus, Rosenthal, Pauer,
Joseffy, Stojowski, Scharwenka, Gabrilowitsch, Hofmann, Bauer, Lhévinne,
to say nothing of the ladies, Bloomfield-Zeisler, Carreño, Goodson, _et
al._, many of whom are intellectual giants. Most all are exceedingly
regular in their habits, and at least two are strong temperance
advocates. Intellectually, pianists of this class represent a very
remarkable kind of mentality. One is impressed with the surprising
quickness with which their brains operate even in ordinary conversation.
Speaking in alien languages, they find comparatively little difficulty
in expressing themselves with rapidity and fluency. Very few great
singers ever acquire a similar ease. These pianists are wonderfully well
read, many being acquainted with the literature of three or more tongues
in the original. Indeed, it is not unusual to find them skipping through
several languages during ordinary conversation without realizing that
they are performing linguistic feats that would put the average college
graduate to shame. They are familiar with art, science, politics,
manufactures, even in their most recent developments. "What is your
favorite type of aëroplane?" asked one some years ago in the
kindergarten days of cloud navigation. I told him that I had made no
choice, since I had never seen a flying machine, despite the fact that
I was a native of the country that gave it birth. He then vouchsafed his
opinions and entered into a physical and mechanical discussion of the
matter, indicating that he had spent hours in getting the whole subject
straightened out in his mind. This same man, a German, knew whole cantos
of the _Inferno_ by heart, and could repeat long scenes from _King Lear_
with a very creditable English accent.
The average American "tired business man" who is inclined to look upon
the touring virtuoso as "only a pianist" would be immensely surprised if
he were called upon to compare his store of "universal" information with
that of the performer. He would soon see that his long close confinement
behind the bars of the dollar sign had made him the intellectual
inferior of the musician he almost ignores. But it is hardly fair to
compare these famous interpreters with the average "tired business man."
They are the Cecil Rhodes, the Thomas Edisons, the Maurice Maeterlincks
of their fields. It is easy enough to find musicians of smaller life
opportunities basking in their ignorance and conceit.
While the virtuoso may be described as intellectual in the broader sense
of the term, he usually has a great fear of becoming academic. He
aspires to be artistic rather than scholarly. He strives to elevate
rather than to teach--in the strictly pedagogical sense. Some of the
greatest performers have been notoriously weak as teachers. They do not
seek the walls of the college, neither do they long for the cheap
_Bohemianism_ that so many of the French feuilletonists delight in
describing. (Why should the immorality of the artist's life be laid at
the doors of fair Bohemia?) The artist's life is wrapped up in making
his readings of master works more significant, more eloquent, more
beautiful. He is interested in everything that contributes to his
artistry, whether it be literature, science, history, art or the technic
of his own interpretative development. He penetrates the various mystic
problems which surround piano playing by the infallible process of
persistent study and reflection. The psychical phase of his work
interests him immensely, particularly the phenomena of personal
attraction--often called magnetism.
THE MAGIC OF MAGNETISM
Magnetism is surely one of the most enviable possessions of the
successful pianist. Just what magnetism is and how it comes to be, few
psychologists attempt to relate. We all have our theories, just why one
pianist who often blunders as readily as a Rubinstein, or who displays
his many shortcomings at every concert can invariably draw larger
audiences and arouse more applause than his confrère with weaker vital
forces, although he be admittedly a better technician, a more highly
educated gentleman and perhaps a more sensitive musician.
Charles Frohman, keenest of theatrical producers, attributed the actor's
success to "vitality," and in doing this he merely chose one of the
weaker synonyms of magnetism. Vitality in this sense does not imply
great bodily strength. It is rather soul-strength, mind-strength,
life-strength. Professor John D. Quackenbos, A.M., M.D., formerly of
Columbia University, essays the following definition of magnetism in his
excellent _Hypnotic Therapeutics_:
"Magnetism is nothing more than earnestness and sincerity,
coupled with insight, sympathy, patience and tact. These
essentials cannot be bought and cannot be taught. They are
'born by nature,' they are dyed with 'the red ripe of the
heart.'"
But Dr. Quackenbos is a physician and a philosopher. Had he been a
lexicographer he would have found the term magnetism far more inclusive.
He would at least have admitted the phenomenon which we have witnessed
so often when one possessed with volcanic vitality overwhelms a great
audience.
The old idea that magnetism is a kind of invisible form of intellectual
or psychic electricity has gone down the grotesque phrenological
vagaries of Gall as well as some of the pseudoscientific theories of
that very unusual man, Mesmer. We all possess what is known as
magnetism. Some have it in an unusual degree, as did Edwin Booth, Franz
Liszt, Phillips Brooks and Bismarck. It was surely neither the art nor
the ability of Daniel Webster that made his audiences accept some of his
fatuous platitudes as great utterances, nor was it the histrionic talent
alone of Richard Mansfield that enabled him to wring success from such
an obvious theatrical contraption as _Prince Karl_. Both Webster, with
his fathomless eyes and his ponderous voice, and Mansfield, with his
compelling personality, were exceptional examples of magnetism.
A NOTABLE EXAMPLE
Among virtuosos Paderewski is peculiarly forceful in the personal spell
he casts over his audience. Someone has said that it cost one hundred
thousand dollars to exploit his hair before he made his first American
tour. But it was by no means curiosity to see his hair which kept on
filling auditorium after auditorium. I attended his first concert in New
York, and was amazed to see a comparatively small gathering of musical
zealots. His command of the audience was at once imperial. The critics,
some of whom would have found Paderewski's hirsute crown a delightful
rack upon which to hang their ridicule, went into ecstasies instead. His
art and his striking personality, entirely apart from his appearance,
soon made him the greatest concert attraction in the musical world.
Anyone who has conversed with him for more than a few moments realizes
what the meaning of the word magnetism is. His entire bearing--his lofty
attitude of mind, his personal dignity all contribute to the
inexplicable attraction that the arch hypnotist Mesmer first described
as animal magnetism.
That magnetism of the pianist must be considered wholly apart from
personal beauty and great physical strength is obvious to anyone who has
given the subject a moment's thought. Many of the artists already
mentioned (in this book) who possess magnetism similar to that of
Paderewski could surely never make claim for personal beauty. Neither is
magnetism akin to that attraction we all experience when we see a
powerful, well-groomed horse, a sleek hound, a handsome tiger--that is,
it is not mere admiration for a beautiful animal. Whether it has any
similarity to the mysterious charm which makes the doomed bird lose
control of its wings upon the approach of a snake is difficult to
estimate. Certainly, in the paraphernalia of the modern recital with its
lowered lights and its solitary figure playing away at a polished
instrument one may find something of the physical apparatus employed by
the professional hypnotist to insure concentration--but even this can
not account for the pianist's real attractiveness. If Mr. Frohman's
"vitality" means the "vital spark," the "life element," it comes very
close to a true definition of magnetism, for success without this
precious Promethean force is inconceivable. It may be only a smouldering
ember in the soul of a dying Chopin, but if it is there it is
irresistible until it becomes extinct. Facial beauty and physical
prowess all made way for the kind of magnetism that Socrates, George
Sand, Julius Cæsar, Henry VIII, Paganini, Emerson, Dean Swift or Richard
Wagner possessed.
More wonderful still is the fact that magnetism is by no means confined
to those who have finely trained intellects or who have achieved great
reputations. Some vaudeville buffoon or some gypsy fiddler may have
more attractive power than the virtuoso who had spent years in
developing his mind and his technic. The average virtuoso thinks far
more of his "geist," his "talent" (or as Emerson would have it, "the
shadow of the soul--the otherwise") than he does of his technic, or his
cadenzas. By what mystic means magnetism may be developed, the writer
does not pretend to know. Possibly by placing one's deeper self (shall
we say "subconscious self") in closer communion with the great throbbing
problems of the invisible though perpetually evident forces of nature
which surround us we may become more alive, more sensitively vivified.
What would it mean to the young virtuoso if he could go to some occult
master, some seer of a higher thought, and acquire that lode-stone*
which has drawn fame and fortune to the blessed few? Hundreds have spent
fortunes upon charlatans in the attempt.
All artists know the part that the audience itself plays in falling
under the magnetic spell of the performer. Its connection with the
phenomena of autosuggestion is very clear. Dr. Wundt, the famous German
psychologist, showed a class of students how superstitions unconsciously
acquired in early life affect sensible adults who have long since passed
the stage at which they might put any credence in omens. At a concert
given by a famous player, the audience has been well schooled in
anticipation. The artist always appears under a halo his reputation has
made for him. This very reputation makes his conquest far easier than
that of the novice who has to prove his ability before he can win the
sympathy of the audience. He is far more likely to find the audience _en
rapport_ than indifferent. Sometime, at the play in a theater, watch how
the audience will unconsciously mirror the facial expressions of the
forceful actor. In some similar manner, the virtuoso on the concert
platform sensitizes the minds and emotions of the sympathetic audience.
If the effect is deep and lasting, the artist is said to possess that
Kohinoor of virtuosodom--magnetism.
Some widely read critics have made the very natural error of confounding
magnetism with personality. These words have quite different
connotations--personality comprehending the more subtle force of
magnetism. An artist's individual worth is very closely allied with his
personality--that is, his whole extrinsic attitude toward the thought
and action of the world about him. How important personality is may be
judged by the widely advertised efforts of the manufacturers of
piano-playing machines to convince the public that their products, often
astonishingly fine, do actually reproduce the individual effects which
come from the playing of the living artist. Piano-playing machines have
their place, and it is an important one. However, wonderful as they may
be, they can never be anything but machines. They bring unquestioned joy
to thousands, and they act as missionaries for both music and the
music-teacher by taking the art into countless homes where it might
otherwise never have penetrated, thus creating the foundation for a
strong desire for a thorough study of music. The piano-playing machine
may easily boast of a mechanism as wonderful as that of a Liszt, a
d'Albert or a Bachaus, but it can no more claim personality than the
typewriter upon which this article is being written can claim to
reproduce the individuality which characterizes the handwriting of
myriads of different persons. Personality, then, is the virtuoso's one
great unassailable stronghold. It is personality that makes us want to
hear a half dozen different renderings of a single Beethoven sonata by a
half dozen different pianists. Each has the charm and flavor of the
interpreter.
But personality in its relation to art has been so exquisitely defined
by the inimitable British essayist, A. C. Benson, that we can do no
better than to quote his words:
"I have lately come to perceive that the one thing which gives value to
any piece of art, whether it be book, or picture, or music, is that
subtle and evasive thing which is called personality. No amount of
labor, of zest, even of accomplishment, can make up for the absence of
this quality. It must be an almost instinctive thing, I believe. Of
course, the mere presence of personality in a work of art is not
sufficient, because the personality revealed may be lacking in charm;
and charm, again, is an instinctive thing. No artist can set out to
capture charm; he will toil all the night and take nothing; but what
every artist can and must aim at is to have a perfectly sincere point of
view. He must take his chance as to whether his point of view is an
attractive one; but sincerity is the one indispensable thing. It is
useless to take opinions on trust, to retail them, to adopt them; they
must be formed, created, felt. The work of a sincere artist is almost
certain to have some value; the work of an insincere artist is of its
very nature worthless."
Mr. Benson's "charm" is what the virtuoso feels as magnetism. It puts
something into the artist's playing that he cannot define. For a moment
the vital spark flares into a bewildering flame, and all his world is
peopled with moths hovering around the "divine fire."
THE GREATEST THING OF ALL
If we have dwelt too long upon magnetism, those who know its importance
in the artist's life will readily perceive the reason. But do not let us
be led away into thinking that magnetism can take the place of hard
work. Even the tiny prodigy has a career of work behind him, and the
master pianist has often climbed to his position over _Matterhorns_ and
_Mt. Blancs_ of industry. Days of practice, months of study, years of
struggle are part of the biography of almost every one who has attained
real greatness. What a pity to destroy time-old illusions! Some prefer
to think of their artist heroes dreaming their lives away in the hectic
cafés of Pesth or buried in the melancholy, absinthe and paresis of some
morbid cabaret of Paris. As a matter of fact, the best known pianists
live a totally different life--a life of grind, grind, grind--incessant
study, endless practice and ceaseless search for means to raise their
artistic standing. In some quiet country villa, miles away from the
center of unlicensed Bacchanalian revels, the virtuoso may be found
working hard upon next season's repertoire.
After all, the greatest thing in the artist's life is W-O-R-K.
II
ARE PIANISTS BORN OR MADE?
Some years ago the Director of the Leipsic Conservatorium gave the
writer a complete record of the number of graduates of the conservatory
from the founding to the late nineties. Of the thousands of students who
had passed through the institution only a few had gained wide
prominence. Hardly one student in one hundred had won his way into the
most voluminous of the musical biographical dictionaries. The proportion
of distinguished graduates to those who fail to gain renown is very high
at Leipsic compared with many other institutions. What becomes of the
thousands of students all working frantically with the hope of becoming
famous pianists? Surely, so much earnest effort can not be wasted even
though all can not win the race? Those who often convince themselves
that they have failed go on to perform a more useful service to society
than the laurel-crowned virtuoso. Unheralded and unapplauded, they
become the teachers, the true missionaries of _Frau Musik_ to the
people.
What is it then, which promotes a few "fortunate" ones from the armies
of students all over America and Europe and makes of them great
virtuosos? What must one do to become a virtuoso? How long must one
study before one may make a _début_? What does a great virtuoso receive
for his performances? How long does the virtuoso practice each day? What
exercises does he use? All these and many more similar questions crop up
regularly in the offices of music critics and in the studios of
teachers. Unfortunately, a definite answer can be given to none,
although a great deal may be learned by reviewing some of the
experiences of one who became great.
Some virtuosos actually seem to be born with the heavenly gift. Many
indeed are sons and daughters of parents who see their own demolished
dreams realized in the triumphs of their children. When little Nathan
creeps to the piano and quite without the help of his elders picks out
the song he has heard his mother sing,--all the neighbors in Odessa know
it the next day. "A wonder child perhaps!" Oh happy augury of fame and
fortune! Little Nathan shall have the best of instruction. His mother
will teach him at first, of course. She will shape his little fingers to
the keyboard. She will sing sweet folk melodies in his ear,--songs of
labor, struggle, exile. She will count laboriously day after day until
he "plays in time." All the while the little mother sees far beyond the
Ghetto,--out into the great world,--grand auditoriums, breathless
crowds, countless lights, nobles granting trinkets, bravos from a
thousand throats, Nathan surrounded by endless wreaths of laurel,--Oh,
it is all too much,--"Nathan! Nathan! you are playing far too fast. One,
two, three, four,--one, two, three, four,--there, that is the tempo
Clementi would have had it. Fine! Some day, Nathan, you will be a great
pianist and--" etc., etc.
Nathan next goes to the great teacher. He is already eight years old and
fairly leaping out of his mother's arms. Two years with the teacher and
Nathan is probably ready for a _début_ as a wonder child. The critics
are kind. If his parents are very poor Nathan may go from town to town
for awhile being exhibited like a trained poodle or a tiny acrobat. The
further he gets from home the more severe his critics become, and Nathan
and his mother hurry back to the old teachers, who tell them that Nathan
must still practice long and hard as well as do something to build up
his general education. The world in these days looks askance at the
musician who aside from his keyboard accomplishments is a numskull. More
sacrifice for Nathan's mother and father,--but what are poverty and
deprivation with such a goal in sight? Nathan studies for some years in
the schools and in the high schools as well as at the conservatory. In
the music school he will doubtless spend six years in all,--two years in
the post-graduate or master classes, following the regular four-year
course. When sufficiently capable he will take a few pupils at a kopeck
or so per lesson to help out with the family expenses.
Nathan graduates from the conservatory with high honors. Will the public
now receive him as a great pianist? A concert is planned and Nathan
plays. Day and night for years his whole family have been looking
forward to that concert. Let us concede that the concert is a triumph.
Does he find fame and fortune waiting for him next morning? No
indeed,--there are a thousand Nathans all equally accomplished. Again he
must work and again he must concertize. Perhaps after years of strife a
manager may approach him some day with a contract. Lucky Nathan,--have
you not a thousand brothers who may never see a contract? Then,--"Can it
be possible Nathan,--is it really America,--America the virtuoso's
Golconda!" Nathan makes a glorious _tournée_. Perhaps the little mother
goes with him. More likely she stays at home in Odessa waiting with
glistening eyes for each incoming mail. Pupils come to Nathan and he
charges for each lesson a sum equaling his father's former weekly wage.
Away with the Ghetto! Away with poverty! Away with oblivion! Nathan is a
real virtuoso,--a veritable _Meister_!
THE AMERICAN VIRTUOSO OF TO-DAY
How does the American aspirant compete with Nathan? Are there not as
fine teachers here in America as in Europe? Is it really necessary to go
to Europe to "finish" one's musical education? Can one not become a
virtuoso in America?--more questions with which editors and teachers are
constantly plied. Can one who for years has waged a battle for the
American teacher and American musical education answer this question
without bias? Can we who trace the roots of our lineage back to barren
Plymouth or stolid New Netherland judge the question fairly and
honestly?
One case suffices to show the road which the American virtuoso is likely
to travel. She is still a young woman, in her twenties. Among her
teachers was one who ranks among the very best in America. Her general
education was excellent,--in fact far superior to that of the average
young lady of good family in continental Europe. While in her early
teens she became the leading feature at conservatory concerts. Her
teacher won many a profitable pupil through her brilliant playing. She
studies, as do so many American pupils, without making a regular
business of it. Compared with the six year all day, week in and week out
course which Nathan pursued in Odessa our little compatriot was at a
decided disadvantage. But who ever heard of a music student making a
regular business of learning the profession as would a doctor or a
lawyer? Have not students contented themselves with two lessons a week
since time immemorial? Need we go further to discover one of the flaws
in our own educational system,--a flaw that is not due to the teacher or
to the methods of instruction, but rather to our time-old custom. Two
lessons a week are adequate for the student who does not aspire to
become a professional, but altogether insufficient for the student who
must accomplish a vast amount of work in a comparatively small number of
years. She requires constant advice, regular daily instruction and
careful attention under experienced instructors. Teachers are not to be
blamed if she does not receive this kind of attention, as there are
abundant opportunities now in America to receive systematic training
under teachers as thorough, as able and as inspiring as may be found in
Europe. The excuse that the expense is greater in America falls when we
learn the very high prices charged by leading teachers in Germany,
Austria and France.
To go back to our particular case, the young lady is informed at the end
of a course of two or three lessons a week during two or three years,
that she is a full-fledged virtuoso and may now enter the concert field
to compete with Carreño, Bloomfield-Zeisler or Goodson. Her playing is
obviously superior to that of her contemporary students. Someone insists
upon a short course of study abroad,--not because it is necessary, but
because it might add to her reputation and make her first flights in the
American concert field more spectacular. Accordingly she goes to Europe,
only to find that she is literally surrounded by budding virtuosos,--an
army of Nathans, any one of whom might easily eclipse her. Against her
personal charm, her new-world vigor, her Yankee smartness, Nathan places
his years of systematic training, his soul saturated in the music and
art of past centuries of European endeavor and perhaps his youth of
poverty which makes success imperative. The young lady's European
teacher frankly tells her that while her playing is delightful for the
salon or parlor she will never do for the great concert hall. She must
learn to play with more power, more virility, more character.
Accordingly he sets her at work along special muscle-building,
tone-cultivating, speed-making lines of technic in order to make up for
the lack of the training which the young lady might easily have had at
home had her parents been schooled to systematic daily study as a
necessity. Her first technical exercises with the new teacher are so
simple that the young woman is on the verge of despair until she
realizes that her playing is really taking on a new and more mature
character. She has been lifting fifty pound weights occasionally. Her
teacher is training her to lift one hundred pound weights every day. She
has been sketching in pastels,--her teacher is now teaching her how to
make Velasquez-like strokes in oils. Her gain is not a mere matter of
loudness. She could play quite as loud before she went to Europe. There
is something mature in this new style of playing, something that
resembles the playing of the other virtuosos she has heard. Who is the
great European master who is working such great wonders for her? None
other than a celebrated teacher who taught for years in America,--a
master no better than dozens of others in America right now. Can the
teachers in America be blamed if the parents and the pupils fail to make
as serious and continued an effort here? Atmosphere,--bosh! Work, long,
hard and unrelenting,--that is the salvation of the student who would
become a virtuoso. With our increasing wealth and advancing culture
American parents are beginning to discover that given the same work and
the same amount of instruction musical education in America differs very
slightly from musical education abroad.
But we are deserting our young virtuoso most ungallantly. In Berlin she
hears so many concerts and recitals, so many different styles of
playing, that she begins to think for herself and her sense of artistic
discrimination--interpretation, if you will--becomes more and more
acute. Provided with funds for attending concerts, she does regularly,
whereas in America she neglected opportunities equally good. She never
realized before that there could be so much to a Brahms _Intermezzo_ or
a Chopin _Ballade_. At the end of her first year her American
common-sense tells her that a plunge into the concert field is still
dangerous. Accordingly she remains two, or possibly three, more years
and at the end if she has worked hard she is convinced that with proper
management she may stand some chance of winning that fickle treasure,
public favor.
"But," persists the reader, "it would have been possible for her to have
accomplished the same work at home in America." Most certainly, if she
had had any one of the hundred or more virtuoso teachers now resident in
the United States all of whom are capable of bringing a highly talented
pupil to virtuoso heights,--and if in their teaching they had exerted
sufficient will-power to demand from the pupil and the pupil's parents
the same conditions which would govern the work of the same pupil
studying in Europe. Through long tradition and by means of endless
experiences the conditions have been established in Europe. The student
who aspires to become a professional is given a distinctively
professional course. In America the need for such a training is but
scantily appreciated. Only a very few of us are able to appraise the
real importance of music in the advancement of human civilization, nor
is this unusual, since most of us have but to go back but a very few
generations to encounter our blessed Puritan and Quaker ancestors to
whom all music, barring the lugubrious Psalm singing, was the
inspiration of the devil. The teachers, as has been said before, are
fully ready and more than anxious to give the kind of training required.
Very frequently parents are themselves to blame for the slender
_dilettante_ style of playing which their well-instructed children
present. They measure the needs of the concert hall by the dimensions of
the parlor. The teacher of the would-be professional pupil aspires to
produce a quantity of tone that will fill an auditorium seating at least
one thousand people. The pupil at home is enjoined not to "bang" or
"pound." The result is a feeble, characterless tone which rarely fills
an auditorium as it should. The actor can not forever rehearse in
whispers if he is to fill a huge theater, and the concert pianist must
have a strong, sure, resilient touch in order to bring about climaxes
and make the range of his dynamic power all-comprehensive. Indeed, the
separation from home ties, or shall we call them home interferences, is
often more responsible for the results achieved abroad than superior
instruction.
Unfortunately, the number of virtuosos who have been taught exclusively
in America is really very small. It is not a question of ability upon
the part of the teacher or talent upon the part of the pupil. It is
entirely a matter of the attitudes of the teacher, the pupil and the
pupil's home advisers. Success demands strong-willed discipline and the
most lofty standards imaginable. Teachers who have taught for years in
America have returned to Europe, doubled and quadrupled their fees, and,
under old-world surroundings and with more rigid standards of artistic
work, have produced results they declare would have been impossible in
America. The author contends that these results would have been readily
forthcoming if we in America assumed the same earnest, persistent
attitude toward the work itself. If these words do no more than reach
the eyes of some of those who are advising students wrongly in this
matter they will not have been written in vain. The European concert
triumphs of Mrs. H. H. A. Beach, whose training was received wholly in
the United States, is an indication of what may be achieved in America
if the right course is pursued. Conditions are changing rapidly in our
country, particularly in the wonderful West and Middle-West. It seems
likely that many pianists without foreign instruction of any kind will
have as great success in our concert field as have many of our best
opera singers who have never had a lesson "on the other side."
Our little pianist has again been playing truant from our manuscript.
Let us see what happens to her when she finished her work with the
famous teacher abroad. Surely the making of a virtuoso is an expensive
matter. Let us take the estimate of the young pianist's father, who
practically mortgaged his financial existence to give his daughter the
right musical training.
Lessons with first teacher at $1.00 a lesson.
Eighty lessons a year for four years $240.00
Lessons with second American teacher for two
years at $2.00 a lesson 320.00
Lessons with third American teacher at $4.00 a
lesson for one year and six months 480.00
Music, books, etc. 160.00
Piano 750.00
Maintenance for eight years at $200.00 a year
(minimum estimate) 1600.00
Four years in Europe, travel, board, instruction,
advertising, etc. 6000.00
________
TOTAL $9550.00
But the expense has only begun, if you please. The harvest is still a
long way off. According to the fine traditions established by the late
P. T. Barnum, there must be a European furore to precede the American
advent of the musical star. The journalistic astronomers must point
their telescopes long and steadily at the European firmament and
proclaim their discovery in the columns of their papers. Again, furores
are expensive. One must hire an auditorium, hire an orchestra, and,
according to some very frank and disgusted young virtuosos who have
failed to succeed, hire a critic or so like the amusing Trotter in
_Fanny's First Play_. What with three and four concerts a night why
should not the critics have a _pourboire_ for extra critical attention?
Fortunately the best papers hold their criticisms above price. Bought
criticisms are very rare, and if the young pianist or any representative
approaches certain critics with any such suggestion, she may count upon
faring very badly in cold type on the following day.
If Miss Virtuoso makes a success, her press notices are sent to her
American concert managers, who purchase space in some American musical
newspapers and reprint these notices. Publicity of this kind is
legitimate, as the American public knows that in most cases these press
notices are reprinted solely as advertising. It is simply the commercial
process of "acquainting the trade" and if done right may prove one of
the most fortunate investments for the young artist. Do not imagine,
however, that the pianist's American manager speculates in the
problematical success of the coming virtuoso. On the contrary, his fee
for putting the artist on his "list" and promoting her interests may
range from five hundred dollars to two thousand dollars in advance.
After that the manager usually requires a commission on all engagements
"booked." Graft? Spoils? Plunder? Not a bit of it. If the manager is a
good one--that is, if he is an upright business man well schooled in his
work--the investment should prove a good one. Exploiting a new artist
is a matter demanding brains, energy, ingenuity and experience. A
manufacturing firm attempting to put some new product upon an already
crowded market would spend not $2000.00 a year in advertising, but
$100,000.00. The manager must maintain an organization, he must travel,
he must advertise and he too must live. If he succeeds in marketing the
services of the young virtuoso at one or two hundred dollars a concert,
the returns soon begin to overtake the incessant expenses. However, only
the most persistent and talented artists survive to reap these rewards.
The late Henry Wolfsohn, one of the greatest managers America has ever
produced, told the writer frequently that the task of introducing a new
artist was one of the most thankless and uncertain undertakings
imaginable.