Artistic pianoforte playing is no longer rare. The once jealously guarded
secrets of the masters have become the property of conservatories.
Self-playing instruments perform technical miracles, and are valuable
inasmuch as they interest a number of persons who would otherwise
avoid music as an ineluctable mystery. Furthermore, the unerring ease
with which these machines despatch the most appalling difficulties
has turned the current toward what is significant in a musical
performance: touch, phrasing, interpretation. While a child's hand may
set spinning the Don Juan Fantasie of Liszt, no mechanical appliance
yet contrived can play a Chopin ballade or the Schumann concerto as
they should be played.
I mention purposely these cunning inventions because I do not think that
they have harmed the public interest in pianoforte recitals; rather have
they stimulated it. Never before has the standard of execution and
interpretation been so high. The giant wave of virtuosity that broke
over Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century has not yet receded.
A new artist on the keyboard is eagerly heard and discussed. If he be a
Paderewski or a Joseffy, he is the centre of a huge admiration. The
days of Liszt were renewed when Paderewski made his tours in America.
Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that not until now has good
playing been so little of a rarity.
But a hundred years ago matters were different. It was in 1839 that
Franz Liszt gave the first genuine pianoforte recital, and, possessing a
striking profile, he boldly presented it to his audiences; before that
pianists either faced or sat with their backs to the public. No matter
what avenue of music the student travels, he will be sure to encounter
the figure of Liszt. Yet neither Liszt nor Chopin was without artistic
ancestors. That they stemmed from the great central tree of European
music; that they at first were swept down the main current, later
controlled it, are facts that to-day are the commonplaces of the
schools; though a few decades ago those who could see no salvation
outside of German music-making, be it never so conventional, failed to
recognise the real significance of either Liszt or Chopin. Both men gave
Europe new forms, a new harmonic system, and in Liszt's case his
originality was so marked that from Wagner to Tschaikowsky and the
Russians, from Cornelius to Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg and the
still newer men, all helped themselves at his royal banquet; some, like
Wagner, a great genius, taking away all they needed, others glad to
catch the very crumbs that fell. But the innovators in form have not
always proved supreme creators. In the case of Wagner the plumed and
serried phrases of Liszt recall the role played by Marlowe in regard to
Shakespeare.
Liszt's very power, muscular, compelling, set pianoforte manufacturers
to experimenting. A new instrument was literally made for him, an
instrument that could thunder like an orchestra, sing like a voice, or
whisper like a harp. Liszt could proudly boast, "le piano--c'est moi!"
With it he needed no orchestra, no singers, no scenery. It was his
stage, and upon its wires he told the stories of the operas, sang the
beautiful, and then novel, lieder of Schubert and Schumann, revealed the
mastery of Beethoven, the poetry of Chopin, and Bach's magical
mathematics. He, too, set Europe ablaze; even Paganini was forgotten,
and the gentlemanly Thalberg with his gentlemanly playing suddenly
became insipid to true music lovers. Liszt was called a charlatan, and
doubtless partially deserved the appellation, in the sense that
he very often played for effect's sake, for the sake of dazzling the
groundlings. His tone was massive, his touch coloured by a thousand
shades of feeling, his technic impeccable, his fire and fury
bewildering.
And if Liszt affected his contemporaries, he also trained his
successors, Tausig, Von Buelow, and Rubinstein--the latter was never an
actual pupil, though he profited by Liszt's advice and regarded him as a
model. Karl Tausig, the greatest virtuoso after Liszt and his equal at
many points, died prematurely. Never had the world heard such
controlled, plastic, and objective interpretations. His iron will had
drilled his Slavic temperament so that his playing was, as Joseffy says,
"a series of perfectly painted pictures." His technic, according to
those who heard him, was perfection. He was the one pianist sans peur et
sans reproche. All schools were at his call. Chopin was revived when he
played; and he was the first to hail the rising star of Brahms--not
critically, as did Schumann, but practically, by putting his name on his
eclectic programmes. Mr. Albert Ross Parsons, the well-known New York
pianist, critic, and pedagogue, once told the present writer that
Tausig's playing evoked the image of some magnificent mountain. "And
Joseffy?" was asked--for Joseffy was Tausig's favourite pupil. "The
lovely mist that enveloped the mountain at dusk," was Mr. Parsons's
happy answer. Since then Joseffy has condensed this mist into something
more solid, while remaining quite as beautiful.
Rubinstein I heard play his series of historical recitals, seven in all;
better still, I heard him perform the feat twice. I regret that it was
not thrice. If ever there was a heaven-storming genius, it was Anton
Rubinstein. Nicolas Rubinstein was a wonderful artist; but the fire that
flickered and flamed in the playing of Anton was not in evidence in the
work of his brother. You felt in listening to Anton that the piece he
happened to be playing was heard by you for the first time--the creative
element in his nature was so strong. It seemed no longer reproductive
art. The same thing has been said of Liszt. Often arbitrary in his very
subjective readings, Rubinstein never failed to interest. He had an
overpowering sort of magnetism that crossed the stage and enveloped his
audience with a gripping power. His touch, to again quote Joseffy, was
like that of a French horn. It sang with a mellow thunder. An
impressionist in the best sense of that misunderstood expression, he was
the reverse of his rival and colleague, Hans von Buelow.
The brother-in-law, a la main gauche, of that Brother of Dragons,
Richard Wagner, Von Buelow was hardly appreciated during his first visit
to America in 1876-77. Rubinstein had preceded him by three seasons and
we were loath to believe that the rather dry, angular touch and
clear-cut phrasing of the little, irritable Hans were revelations from
on high. Nevertheless, Von Buelow, the mighty scholar, opened new views
for us by his Beethoven and Bach playing. The analyst in him ruled. Not
a colourist, but a master of black and white, he exposed the minutest
meanings of the composer that he presented. He was the first to
introduce Tschaikowsky's brilliant and clangorous B-flat minor concerto.
Of his Chopin performances, I retain only the memory of the D-flat
Nocturne. That was exquisite, and all the more surprising coming from a
man of Von Buelow's pedantic nature. His last visit to this country,
several decades ago, was better appreciated, but I found his playing
almost insupportable. He had withered in tone and style, a mummy of his
former alert self.
The latter-day generation of virtuosi owe as much to Liszt as did the
famous trinity, Tausig, Rubinstein, Von Buelow. Many of them studied with
the old wizard at Rome, Budapest, and Weimar; some with his pupils; all
have absorbed his traditions. It would be as impossible to keep Liszt
out of your playing--out of your fingers, forearms, biceps, and
triceps,--as it would be to return to the naive manner of an Emmanuel
Bach or a Scarlatti. Modern pianoforte-playing spells Liszt.
After Von Buelow a much more naturally gifted pianist visited the United
States, Rafael Joseffy. It was in 1879 that old Chickering Hall
witnessed his triumph, a triumph many times repeated later in Steinway
Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera House, and throughout
America. At first Joseffy was called the Patti of the Pianoforte, one of
those facile, alliterative, meaningless titles he never merited. He had
the coloratura, if you will, of a Patti, but he had something
besides--brains and a poetic temperament. Poetic is a vague term that
usually covers a weakness in technic. There are different sorts of
poetry. There is the rich poetry of Paderewski, the antic grace and
delicious poetry of De Pachmann. The Joseffian poetry is something else.
Its quality is more subtle, more recondite than the poetry of the Polish
or the Russian pianist. Such miraculous finish, such crystalline tone
had never before been heard until Joseffy appeared. At first his playing
was the purest pantheism--a transfigured materialism, tone, and technic
raised to heights undreamed of. Years later a new Joseffy was born.
Stern self-discipline, as was the case with Tausig, had won a victory
over his temperament as well as his fingers. More restrained, less lush,
his play is now ruled by the keenest of intellects, while the old
silvery and sensuous charm has not vanished. Some refused to accept the
change. They did not realise that for an artist to remain stationary is
decadence. They longed for graceful trifling, for rose-coloured
patterns, for swallow-like flights across the keyboard, by a pair of the
most beautiful piano hands since Tausig's. In a word, these people did
not care for Brahms and they did care very much for the Chopin Valse in
double notes. But the automatic piano has outpointed every virtuoso
except Rosenthal in the matter of mere technic. So we enjoy our Brahms
from Joseffy, and when he plays Liszt or Chopin, which he does in an
ideal style, far removed from the tumultuous thumpings of the average
virtuoso, we turn out in numbers to enjoy and applaud him. His music has
that indefinable quality which vibrates from a Stradivarius violin. His
touch is like no other in the world, and his readings of the classics
are marked by reverence and authority. In certain Chopin numbers, such
as the Berceuse, the F-minor ballade, the barcarolle, and the E-minor
concerto, he has no peer. Equally lucid and lovely are his performances
of the B-flat major Brahms concerto and the A-major concerto of Liszt.
Joseffy is unique.
There was an interregnum in the pianoforte arena for a few years.
Joseffy was reported as having been discovered in the wilds above
Tarrytown playing two-voiced inventions of Bach, and writing a new piano
school. Arthur Friedheim appeared and dazzled us with the B-minor Sonata
of Liszt. It was a wonder-breeding, thrilling performance. Alfred
Gruenfeld, of Vienna, caracoled across the keys in an amiably dashing
style. Rummel played earnestly. Ansorge also played earnestly. Edmund
Neupert delivered Grieg's Concerto as no one before or since has done.
Pugno came from Paris, Rosenthal thundered; Sauer, Stavenhagen, Siloti,
Slivinski, Mark Hambourg, Burmeister, Hyllested, Faelten, Sherwood,
Godowsky, Gabrilowitsch, Vogrich, Von Sternberg, Jarvis, Richard
Hoffmann, Boscovitz--to go back some years; Alexander Lambert, August
Spanuth, Klahre, Lamond, Dohnanyi, Busoni, Baerman, Saint-Saens,
Stojowski, Lhevinne, Rudolph Ganz, MacDowell, Otto Hegner, Josef
Hofmann, Reisenauer--none of these artists ever aroused such excitement
as Paderewski, though a more captivating and brilliant Liszt player than
Alfred Reisenauer has been seldom heard.
It was about 1891 that I attended a rehearsal at Carnegie Hall in
which participated Ignace Jan Paderewski. The C-minor concerto of
Saint-Saens, an effective though musically empty work, was played. There
is nothing in the composition that will test a good pianist; but
Paderewski made much of the music. His tone was noble, his technic
adequate, his single-finger touch singing. Above all, there was a
romantic temperament exposed; not morbid but robust. His strange
appearance, the golden aureoled head, the shy attitude, were rather
puzzling to public and critic at his debut. Not too much enthusiasm was
exhibited during the concert or next morning in the newspapers. But the
second performance settled the question. A great artist was revealed.
His diffidence melted in the heat of frantic applause. He played the
Schumann concerto, the F-minor concerto of Chopin, many other concertos,
all of Chopin's music, much of Schumann, Beethoven, and Liszt. His
recitals, first given in the concert hall of Madison Square Garden, so
expanded in attendance that he moved to Carnegie Hall. There, with only
his piano, Paderewski repeated the Liszt miracle. And year after year.
Never in America has a public proved so insatiable in its desire to hear
a virtuoso. It is the same from New Orleans to Seattle. Everywhere
crowded halls, immense enthusiasms. Now to set all this down to an
exotic personality, to occult magnetism, to sensationalism, would be
unfair to Paderewski and to the critical discrimination of his
audiences. Many have gone to gaze upon him, but they remained to
listen. His solid attainments as a musician, his clear, elevated style,
his voluptuous, caressing touch, his sometimes exaggerated sentiment,
his brilliancy, endurance, and dreamy poetry--these qualities are real,
not imaginary.
No more luscious touch has been heard since Rubinstein's. Paderewski
often lets his singing fingers linger on a phrase; but as few pianists
alive, he can spin his tone, and so his yielding to the temptation is a
natural one. He is intellectual and his readings of the classics are
sane. Of poetic temperament, he is at his best in Chopin, not Beethoven.
Eclectic is the best word to apply to his interpretations. He plays
programmes from Bach to Liszt with commendable fidelity and versatility.
He has the power of rousing his audience from a state of calm
indifference to wildest frenzy. How does he accomplish this? He has not
the technic of Rosenthal, nor that pianist's brilliancy and power; he is
not as subtle as Joseffy, nor yet as plastic in his play; the morbid
witchery of De Pachmann is not his; yet no one since Rubinstein--in
America at least--can create such climaxes of enthusiasm. Deny this or
that quality to Paderewski; go and with your own ears and eyes hear and
witness what we all have heard and witnessed.
I once wrote a story in which a pianist figured as a mesmeriser. He sat
at his instrument in a crowded, silent hall and worked his magic upon
the multitude. The scene modulates into madness. People are transported.
And in all the rumour and storm, the master sits at the keyboard but
does _not_ play. I assure you I have been at Paderewski recitals where
my judgments were in abeyance, where my individuality was merged in that
of the mob, where I sat and wondered if I really _heard_; or was
Paderewski only going through the motions and not actually touching the
keys? His is a static as well as a dramatic art. The tone wells up from
the instrument, is not struck. It floats languorously in the air, it
seems to pause, transfixed in the air. The Sarmatian melancholy of
Paderewski, his deep sensibility, his noble nature, are translated into
the music. Then with a smashing chord he sets us, the prisoners of his
tonal circle, free. Is this the art of a hypnotiser? No one has so
mastered the trick, if trick it be.
But he is not all moonshine. The truth is, Paderewski has a tone not as
large as mellow. His fortissimo chords have hitherto lacked the
foundational power and splendour of d'Albert's, Busoni's, and
Rosenthal's. His transition from piano to forte is his best range, not
the extremes at either end of the dynamic scale. A healthy, sunny tone
it is at its best, very warm in colour. In certain things of Chopin he
is unapproachable. He plays the F-minor concerto and the E-flat minor
scherzo--from the second Sonata--beautifully, and if he is not so
convincing in the Beethoven sonatas, his interpretation of the E-flat
Emperor concerto is surprisingly free from morbidezza; it is direct,
manly, and musical. His technic has gained since his advent in New
York. This he proved by the way he juggled with the Brahms-Paganini
variations; though they are still the property of Moritz Rosenthal. He
is more interesting than most pianists because he is more musical; he
has more personal charm; there is the feeling when you hear him that he
is a complete man, a harmonious artist, and this feeling is very
compelling.
The tricky elf that rocked the cradle of Vladimir de Pachmann--a Russian
virtuoso, born in Odessa (1848), of a Jewish father and a Turkish mother
(he once said to me, "My father is a Cantor, my mother a Turkey")--must
have enjoyed--not without a certain malicious peep at the future--the
idea of how much worriment and sorrow it would cause the plump little
black-haired baby when he grew up and played the pianoforte like the imp
of genius he is. It is nearly seventeen years since he paid his first
visit to us. His success, as in London, was achieved after one recital.
Such an exquisite touch, subtlety of phrasing, and a technic that failed
only in broad, dynamic effects, had never before been noted. Yet De
Pachmann is in reality the product of an old-fashioned school. He
belongs to the Hummel-Cramer group, which developed a pure finger
technic and a charming euphony, but neglected the dramatic side of
delivery. Tone for tone's sake; absolute finesse in every figure; scales
that are as hot pearls on velvet; a perfect trill; a cantilena like the
voice; these, and repose of style, are the shibboleth of a tradition
that was best embodied in Thalberg--plus more tonal power in Thalberg's
case. Subjectivity enters largely in this combination, for De Pachmann
is "modern," neurotic. His presentation of some Chopin is positively
morbid. He is, despite his marked restrictions of physique and
mentality, a Chopin player par excellence. His fingers strike the keys
like tiny sweet mallets. His scale passages are liquid, his octave
playing marvellous, but en miniature--like everything he attempts. To
hear him in a Chopin polonaise is to realise his limitations. But in the
larghetto of the F-minor concerto, in the nocturnes and preludes--not of
course the big one in D minor--etudes, valses, ah! there is then but one
De Pachmann. He can be poetic and capricious and elfish in the mazurkas;
indeed, it has been conceded that he is the master-interpreter of these
soul-dances. The volume of tone that he draws from his instrument is not
large, but it is of a distinguished quality and very musical. He has
paws of velvet, and no matter what the difficulty, he overcomes it
without an effort. I once called him the _pianissimist_ because of his
special gift for filing tones to a whisper. His pianissimo begins where
other pianists end theirs. Enchanting is the effect when he murmurs in
such studies as the F minor of Chopin and the Concert study of Liszt of
the same tonality; or in mounting unisons as he breathlessly weaves the
wind through the last movement of Chopin's B-flat minor sonata. Less
edifying are De Pachmann's mannerisms. They are only tolerated because
of his exotic, lovely, and disquieting music.
Of a different and a gigantic mould is the playing of Moritz Rosenthal.
He is a native of Lemberg, in Galician Poland, a city that has held
among other artists, Marcella Sembrich and Carl Mikuli, a pupil of
Chopin and editor of an edition of his works. When a mere child, twelve
years or so, Moritz walked from Lemberg to Vienna to study with Joseffy.
Even at that age he had the iron will of a superman. He played for
Joseffy the E-minor concerto of Chopin, the same work with which the
youthful Joseffy years before had won the heart of Tausig. Setting aside
Tausig--and this is only hearsay--the world of "pianism" has never
matched Rosenthal for speed, power, endurance; nor is this all. He is
both musical and intellectual. He is a doctor of philosophy, a bachelor
of arts. He has read everything, is a linguist, has travelled the globe
over, and in conversation his unerring memory and brilliant wit set him
as a man apart. To top all these gifts, he plays his instrument
magnificently, overwhelmingly. He is the Napoleon, the conqueror among
virtuosi. His tone is very sonorous, his touch singing, and he commands
the entire range of nuance from the rippling fioritura of the Chopin
barcarolle to the cannon-like thunderings of the A-flat polonaise. His
octaves and chords baffle all critical experience and appraisement. As
others play presto in single notes, so he dashes off double notes,
thirds, sixths, and octaves. His Don Juan fantaisie, part Liszt, part
Mozart, is entirely Rosenthalian in performance. He has composed at his
polyphonic forge a Humoreske. Its interweaving of voices, their
independence, the caprice and audacity of it all are astounding. Tausig
had such a technic; yet surely Tausig had not the brazen, thunderous
climaxes of this broad-shouldered young man! He is the epitome of the
orchestra and in a tonal duel with the orchestra he has never been
worsted. His interpretations of the classics, of the romantics, are of a
superior order. He played the last sonatas of Beethoven or the Schumann
Carneval with equal discrimination. His touch is crystal-like in its
clearness, therefore his tone lacks the sensuousness of Paderewski and
De Pachmann. But it is a mistake to set him down as a mere unemotional
mechanician. He is in reality a Superman among pianists.
Eugen d'Albert has played in America several times, the first time in
company with Sarasate, the Spanish violin virtuoso. Liszt called
d'Albert, of whom he was very fond, the "second Tausig." The Weimar
master declared that the little Eugen looked like, played like, his
former favourite, Karl Tausig. In his youth d'Albert was as impetuous as
a thunderbolt; now he is more reflective than fiery, and he is often
careless in his technical work. Another pianist who has followed the
lure of composition; but a great virtuoso, a great interpreter of the
classics. His music suggests a close study of Brahms, and in his piano
concertos he is both Brahmsian and Lisztian.
The first time I heard Saint-Saens was in Paris the year 1878. He played
at the Trocadero palace--it was the Exposition year--his clever
variations on a Beethoven theme for two pianos, Madame Montigny-Remaury
being his colleague. In 1896 I attended the fiftieth anniversary of his
first public appearance. The affair took place at a piano hall in Paris.
And several years ago I heard the veteran, full of years and honours, in
New York. He had changed but little. The same supple style, siccant
touch, and technical mastery were present. Not so polished as Plante, so
fiery--or so noisy--as Pugno, Saint-Saens is a greater musician than
either at the keyboard. His playing is Gallic--which means it is never
sultry, emotional, and seldom poetic. The French pianists make for
clearness, delicacy, symmetry; France never produced a Rubinstein, nor
does she cordially admire such volcanic artists.
Ossip Gabrilowitsch has been for me always a sympathetic pianist. He has
improved measurably since his previous visits here. The poet and the
student still preponderate in his work; he is more reflective than
dramatic, though the fiery Slav in him often peeps out, and if he does
not "drive the horses of Rubinstein," as Oscar Bie once wrote, he is a
virtuoso of high rank. The Bie phrase could be better applied to Mark
Hambourg, who sometimes is like a full-blooded runaway horse with the
bit between its teeth. Hambourg has Slavic blood in his veins and it
courses hotly. He is an attractive player, a younger Tausig--before
Tausig taught himself the value of repose and restraint. Recklessly
Hambourg attacks the instrument in a sort of Rubinsteinian fury. Of late
he has, it is said, learned the lesson of self-control. His polyphony
is clearer, his tone, always big, is more sonorous and individual.
It was the veteran Dr. William Mason who predicted Hambourg's
future. Exuberance and excess of power may be diverted into musical
channels--and these Mark Hambourg has. It is not so easy to reverse the
process and build up a temperament where little naturally exists.
Josef Hofmann, from a wonder child who influenced two continents, has
developed into an artist who has attained perfection--a somewhat cool
perfection, it may be admitted. But what a well-balanced touch, what a
broad, euphonious tone, what care in building climaxes or shading his
tone to mellifluous whisper! Musically he is impregnable. His readings
are free from extravagances, his bearing dignified, and if we miss the
dramatic element in his play we are consoled by the easy sweep, the
intellectual grasp, and the positively pleasure-giving quality of his
touch. Eclectic in style, Hofmann is the "young-old" master of the
pianoforte. And he is Polish in everything but Chopin. But well-bred!
Perhaps Rubinstein was right when he said, so is the report--at Dresden,
"Jozio will never have to change his shirt at a recital as I did."
Harold Bauer is a great favourite in America as well as in Paris. He has
a quiet magnetism, a mastery of technical resources, backed by sound
musicianship. He was a violinist before he became a pianist; this fact
may account for his rich tone-quality--Bauer could even make an
old-fashioned "square" pianoforte discourse eloquently. He, too, is an
eclectic; all schools appeal to him and his range is from Bach to Caesar
Franck, both of whom he interprets with reverence and authority. Bauer
played Liszt's Dance of Death in this country, creating thereby a
reputation for brilliant "pianism." The new men, Lhevinne, Ganz,
Scriabine, Stojowski, are forging ahead, especially the first two, who
are virtuoso artists. The young Swiss, Ganz, is a very attractive
artist, apart from his technical attainments; he is musical, and that is
two-thirds of the battle. Two men who once resided in America, Ferrucio
Busoni and Leopold Godowsky, went abroad and conquered Europe. Busoni is
called the master-interpreter of Bach and Liszt; the master-miniaturist
is the title bestowed upon the miracle-working Godowsky, whose velvety
touch and sensitive style have been better appreciated in Europe than
America.
The fair unfair sex has not lacked in representative piano artists.
Apart from the million girls busily engaged in manipulating pedals,
slaying music and sleep at one fell moment, there is a band of keyboard
devotees that has earned fame and fortune, and an honourable place in
the Walhalla of pianoforte playing. The modern female pianist does not
greatly vary from her male rival except in muscular power, and even in
that Sofie Menter and Teresa Carreno have vied with their ruder
brethren. Pianists in petticoats go back as far as Nanette Streicher and
come down to Paula Szalit, a girl who, it is said, improvises fugues.
Marie Pleyel, Madame de Szymanowska--Goethe's friend at Marienbad, in
1822--Clara Schumann, Arabella Goddard, Sofie Menter, Annette
Essipoff--once Paderewski's adviser, and a former wife of Leschetitzky;
Marie Krebs, Ingeborg Bronsart, Aline Hundt, Fannie Davies, Madeliene
Schiller, Julia Rive-King, Helen Hopekirk, Nathalie Janotha, Adele
Margulies, the Douste Sisters, Amy Fay, Dory Petersen, Cecilia Gaul,
Madame Paur, Madame Lhevinne, Antoinette Szumowska, Adele Aus der Ohe,
Cecile Chaminade, Madame Montigny-Remaury, Madame Roger-Miclos, Marie
Torhilon-Buell, Augusta Cottlow, Mrs. Arthur Friedheim, Laura Danzinger
Rosebault, Olga Samaroff, Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler--these are a few
well-known names before the public during the past and in the present.
[Illustration:
Walter Bache Solati Reisenauer Carl V. Lachmund
Mrs. Scott-Siddons Harry Waller