Part 5 (2/2)

”A whiff that would dissipate the musical malaria of this,” I cried, for I saw I had hter at this, and as young laughter warms the cockles of an old man's heart, I invited the pair indoors, and over soled slops--we discussed the Fine Arts It is not the custom nowadays to capitalize the arts, and toirreverent generation To return to my mutton--to my sheep: they told me they were pianists from New York or thereabouts, who had conceived the notion of spending the su?” I slyly asked Again they roared ”Why, old boy, you must be behind the times We use a duht a three-octave one along” That setto learn to speak, and yet yousirs, that this quaint, old-fashi+oned music, with its faint odor of the _rococo_, is of ymnasiums Of what use, pray, is your superabundant technics if you can't , you say?

Fiddlesticks! The _Well-tempered Clavichord_ for one hour a day is of more value to a pianist technically and musically than an army of mechanical devices

”I never see a latter-day pianist on his travels but I arease-paints, wigs, arms, and costuer-boards and exercising machines, what is the pianist of today? He fears to stop a moment because his rival across the street will be able to play the double-thirds study of Chopin in quicker _tees on velocity This season there will be a race between Rosenthal and Sauer, to see who can vo, laudable ambition, is it not? In my time a piano artist read, meditated, communed much with nature, slept well, ate and drank well, saw much of society, and all his life was reflected in his play There was sensibility--above all, sensibility--the one quality absent from the performances of your new pianists I don'tpassion--the passion that tears the wires to tatters, but a poetic sensibility that infused every bar with humanity To this was added a healthy tone that lifted the ”

I continued in this strain until the dinner-bell rang, and I had to invite uests to remain Indeed, I was not sorry, for all old row peevish

Besides, I was anxious to put e, with a sounding-board like a fine-tempered fiddle The instruhbred horse, and, as ers and not my heels, the piano does not really betray its years

We dined not sumptuously but liberally, and with our pipes and coffee went to the ood cheer, were eager for a demonstration at the keyboard So was I I let them play first This is what I heard: The dark-skinned youth, who looked like the priestly and uninteresting Siloti, sat down and began idly preluding He had good fingers, but they were spoiled by a hammer-like touch and the constant use of forearm, upper-arm, and shoulder pressure He called my attention to his tone Tone! He le, and I trean the _B-minor Ballade_ of Liszt Now, this particular piece always exasperates me If there isfantasies, at least they are frankly sensational and admittedly for display But the Liszt _Ballade_ is so e is about to occur, but it never co nowhere and the usual portentous roll in the bass

The coed in by Thalberg My pianist splashed and spluttered, played chord-work straight from the shoulder, and when he had finished he cried out, ”There is a dramatic close for you!”

”I call it mere brutal noise,” I replied, and he winked at his friend, ent to the piano without my invitation Now, I did not care for the looks of this one, and I wondered if he, too, would display his biceps and his triceps with such force But he was a different brand of the ritty tone, and at a terrible speed, a foolish and fantastic derangement of Chopin's _D-flat Valse_

This he followed, at a break-neck _tempo_, with Brahms' dislocation of Weber's _C major Rondo_, sometimes called ”the perpetual movement” It was all very wonderful, but was it music?

”Gentlemen,” I said, as I arose, pipe in hand, ”you have both studied, and studied hard,” and they settled thenation; ”but have you studied well? I think not I notice that you lay the weight of your work on the side of technics

Speed and a brutal _quasi_-orchestral tone seeraceful valse of Chopin vanished?

Encased, as you gave it, within hard, unyielding walls of double thirds, it lost all its spirit, all its evanescent hues It is a butterfly caged And do you call thatof the Weber _Rondo_? Why, it sounds like a clock that strikes thirteen in the sht! And you, sir, with your thunderous and grandiloquent Liszt _Ballade_, do you call that pianoforteof orchestral effects? Out upon it! It is hollow music--music without a soul It is easier, much easier, to play than a Mozart sonata, despite all its tu about, despite all its notes

You require no touch-discrimination for such a piece You have none In your anxiety to co tone you relinquish all attes--at the _nuance_, in a word Burly, brutal, and overloaded in your style, you orous, vital tone Why? Because elasticity is absent, and will always be absent, where the fingers are not allowed to iest wrist, the htest upper arer-stroke It is what lightens up and gives variety of color to a perforlect touch--touch, the revelation of the soul”

”Yes, but your grand is worn out and won't stand any forcing of the tone,” answered the Liszt _Ballade_, rather impudently

”Why the dickens do you want to force the tone?” said I, in tart accents ”It is just there we disagree,” I yelled, for I was getting mad ”In your mad quest of tone you destroy the most characteristic quality of the pianoforte--I mean its lack of tone If it could sustain tone, it would no longer be a pianoforte It an or an orchestra, but not a pianoforte I aht, elastic, spiritual touch, and I let the tonal mass take care of itself In an orchestra a full chord _fortissi because it may be scored in the most pris chord and, pray, where is the variety in color? With a good ear you recognize the intervals of pitch, but the color is the same--hard, cold, and monotonous, because you have choked the tone with your idiotic, hammer-like attack Sonorous, at least, you claim? I defy you to prove it Where was the sonority in theblows you dealt in the Liszt _Ballade_? There was, I ade when you used the da track with your orchestral-tone theory You transfor that is neither an orchestra nor a pianoforte Stick to the old way; it's the best Use plenty of finger pressure, elastic pressure, play Bach, throw dus, and, if you use the arm pressure at all, confine it to the forearm That will et over the fact that the dip is shallow, so why attempt the impossible?

For the amount of your muscle expenditure you would need a key dip of about six inches Noatch me I shall, without your perust, play a nocturne by John Field Perhaps you never heard of him? He was an Irish pianist and, like ave the world ideas that were prolishman, but a Pole, who appropriated an Irishman's invention This nocturne is called a forerunner to the Chopin nocturnes They are really imitations of Field's, without the blithe, deeetness of the Irishman's First, let me put out the lamps There is a moon that is suspended like a silver bowl over the Wissahickon It is the hour for ic an playing the _B-flat Nocturne_ of Field I played it with much delicacy and a delicious touch I am very vain of uests, enthralled by the ht and my music, were still as mice I was enraptured and played to the end I waited for the inevitable compliment It came not Instead, there were stealthy snores The pair had slept throughImbeciles! I awoke them and soon packed them off to their canvas hoet no more dinners or wisdouing with this stiff-necked generation of pianists But I e

Good-evening!

XVI

TCHAIKOVSKY