Part 26 (1/2)

Many artists have immortalised ”that profile of ivory.” They are, Ingres who was a friend of Liszt, and of whom he always had a tender recollection; in his best days it was Kaulbach and Lenbach. William Kaulbach's portrait is celebrated for the grand look; the chivalrous and fine-gentleman character of the artist is expressed in it in a masterly way. Not less remarkable is a marble bust by the famous Bartolini, souvenir of the master's visit to Florence in 1838. The painter Leyraud shows us Liszt at the time when he took orders. He depicts him as a thin, thoughtful man, leaning against a piano, his arms crossed, and looking at the world from the height of his wisdom. David d'Angers has made a very fine medallion of him. ”We have several portraits by Kriehuber, one, among others--Liszt in a travelling cloak--drawn hurriedly while Liszt, surrounded by friends seeing him off, was shaking hands all round. Tilgner sculptured a bust of him two years ago at Vienna; and Baron Joukovsky painted his portrait. Our great Munkacsy, who beautified the last moments of the master's life, painted him seated at the piano. Boehm, the celebrated Hungarian sculptor, has just made his bust in London. Then we have at Budapest, at the entrance to the opera house, a splendid statue, chiselled by our young artist Strobl. It wants finish, but on the other hand admirably renders Liszt's features and expression. And lastly, we have one by Wolkof, on the stove of a friend of Liszt's,” adds Janka Wohl. There are so many more that they defy cla.s.sification. The Munkacsy is not attractive, but the sketch made by Ingres at Rome in 1839 is a very happy interpretation of the still youthful virtuoso. The Kriehuber lithograph is a famous study of perennial interest. Then there are the portraits by the American Healey and the Italian Stella, excellent though not master-works. In the Lenbach portrait the eyes look like incandescent grapes.

IX

MODERN PIANOFORTE VIRTUOSI

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 Tschakowsky 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 ma.s.sive, 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 Bulow, 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 Bulow.

The brother-in-law, a la main gauche, of that Brother of Dragons, Richard Wagner, Von Bulow 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 Bulow, the mighty scholar, opened new views for us by his Beethoven and Bach playing. The a.n.a.lyst 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 Tschakowsky'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 Bulow'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 Bulow. 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 nave manner of an Emmanuel Bach or a Scarlatti. Modern pianoforte-playing spells Liszt.

After Von Bulow 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 t.i.tles 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 cla.s.sics 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 Grunfeld, of Vienna, caracoled across the keys in an amiably das.h.i.+ng 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, G.o.dowsky, 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 partic.i.p.ated 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 n.o.ble, 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 att.i.tude, 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 cla.s.sics 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 mult.i.tude. The scene modulates into madness. People are transported.