Since my return from the outskirts of Camden, N. J., where I go fishing for planked shad in September, I have been busying myself with the rearrangement of my musical library, truly a delectable occupation for an old man. As I passed through my hands the various and beloved volumes, worn by usage and the passage of the years, I pondered after the fashion of one who has more sentiment than judgment; I said to myself:
"Come, old fellow, here they are, these friends of the past forty years. Here are the yellow and bepenciled BachPreludes and Fugues, the precious 'forty-eight'; here are the Beethoven Sonatas, every bar of which is familiar; here are—yes, the Mozart, Schubert, and Schumann Sonatas [you notice that I am beginning to bracket the batches]; here are Mendelssohn's works, highly glazed as to technical surface, pretty as to sentiment, Bach seen through the lorgnette of a refined, thin, narrow nature. And here are the Chopin compositions." The murder is out—I have jumped from Bach and Beethoven to Chopin without a twinge ofmy critical conscience. Why? I hardly know why, except that I was thinking of that mythical desert island and the usual idiotic question: What composers would you select if you were to be marooned on a South Sea Island?—you know the style of question and, alas! the style of answer. You may also guess the composers of my selection. And the least of the three in the last group above named is not Chopin—Chopin, who, as a piano composer pure and simple, still ranks his predecessors, his contemporaries, his successors.
I am sure that the brilliant Mr. Finck, the erudite Mr. Krehbiel, the witty Mr. Henderson, the judicial Mr. Aldrich, the phenomenal Philip Hale, have told us and will tell us all about Chopin's life, his poetry, his technical prowess, his capacity as a pedagogue, his reforms, his striking use of dance forms. Let me contribute my humble and dusty mite; let me speak of a Chopin, of the Chopin, of a Chopin—pardon my tedious manner of address—who has most appealed to me since my taste has been clarified by long experience. I know that it is customary to swoon over Chopin's languorous muse, to counterfeit critical raptures when his name is mentioned. For this reason I dislike exegetical comments on his music. Lives of Chopin fromLiszt to Niecks, Huneker, Hadow, and the rest are either too much given over to dry-as-dust or to rhapsody. I am a teacher of the pianoforte, that good old keyboard which I know will outlive all its mechanical imitators. I have assured you of this fact about fifteen years ago, and I expect to hammer away at it for the next fifteen years if my health and your amiability endure. The Chopin music is written for the piano—a truism!—so why in writing of it are not critics practical? It is the practical Chopin I am interested in nowadays, not the poetic—for the latter quality will always take care of itself.
Primarily among the practical considerations of the Chopin music is the patent fact that only a certain section of his music is studied in private and played in public. And a very limited section it is, as those who teach or frequent piano recitals are able to testify. Why should theD-flat Valse,E-flatandG minor Nocturnes, theA-flat Ballade, theG minor Ballade, theB-flat minor Scherzo, theFuneral March, the twoG-flat Etudes, or, let us add, theC minor, theF minorandC-sharp minor studies, theG majorandD-flat preludes, theA-flat Polonaise—or, worse still, theA majorandC-sharp minor Polonaises—theB minor,B-flat major Mazurkas, theA-flatandC-sharp minor Impromptus, and last,though not least, theBerceuse—why, I insist, should this group be selected to the exclusion of the rest? for, all told, there is still as good Chopin in the list as ever came out of it.
I know we hear and read much about the "Heroic Chopin", and the "New Chopin"—forsooth!—and "Chopin the Conqueror"; also how to make up a Chopin program—which latter inevitably recalls to my mind the oldcrux: how to be happy though hungry. [Some forms of this conundrum lug in matrimony, a useless intrusion.] How to present a program of Chopin'sneglectedmasterpieces might furnish matter for afternoon lectures now devoted to such negligible musicaldébrisas Parsifal's neckties and the chewing gum of the flower maidens.
As a matter of fact, the critics are not to blame. I have read the expostulations of Mr. Finck about the untilled fields of Chopin. Yet his favorite Paderewski plays season in and season out a selection from the scheme I have just given, with possibly a few additions. The most versatile—and—also delightful—Chopinist is Pachmann. From his very first afternoon recital at old Chickering Hall, New York, in 1890, he gave a taste of the unfamiliar Chopin. Joseffy, thrice wonderful wizard, who has attained to the height of a true philosophic Parnassus—heonly plays for himself, O wise Son of Light!—also gives at long intervals fleeting visions of the unknown Chopin. To Pachmann belongs the honor of persistently bringing forward to our notice such gems as theAllegro de Concert, many new mazurkas, theF minor,F major—A minor Ballades, theF-sharpandG-flat Impromptus, theB minor Sonata, certain of theValses,Fantasies,Krakowiaks,Preludes,StudiesandPolonaises—to mention a few. And his pioneer work may be easily followed by a dozen other lists, all new to concert-goers, all equally interesting. Chopin still remains a sealed book to the world, notwithstanding the ink spilled over his name every other minute of the clock's busy traffic with Eternity.
A fair moiety of this present chapter could be usurped by a detailed account of the beauties of the Unheard Chopin—you see I am emulating the critics with my phrase-making. But I am not the man to accomplish such a formidable task. I am too old, too disillusioned. The sap of a generous enthusiasm no longer stirs in my veins. Let the young fellows look to the matter—it is their affair. However, as I am an inveterate busybody I cannot refrain from an attempt to enlist your sympathies for some of my favorite Chopin.
Do you know theE major Scherzo, Op. 54, with its skimming, swallowlike flight, its delicate figuration, its evanescent hintings at a serious something in the major trio? Have you ever heard Pachmannpurlthrough this exquisitely conceived, contrived and balanced composition, truly a classic?Whauris your Willy Mendelssohn thenoo? Or are you acquainted with theG-sharp minor Prelude? Do you play theE-flat Scherzofrom theB minor Sonata? Have you never shed a furtive tear—excuse my old-fashioned romanticism—over the bars of theB major Larghettoin the same work? [The last movement is pure passage writing, yet clever as only Chopin knew how to be clever without being offensively gaudy.]
How about the firstScherzo in B minor? You play it, but do you understand its ferocious irony? [Oh, author ofChopin: the Man and his Music, what sins of rhetoric must be placed at your door!] And what of theE-flat minor Scherzo? Is it merely an excuse for blacksmith art and is the followingfinaleonly a study in unisons? There is theC-sharp minor Prelude. In it Brahms is anticipated by a quarter of a century. ThePolonaise in F-sharp minorwas damned years ago by Liszt, who found that it contained pathologic states. What of it? It isChopin's masterpiece in this form and for that reason is seldom played in public. Why? My children, do you not know by this time that the garden variety of pianoforte virtuoso will play difficult music if the difficulties be technical not emotional, or emotional and not spiritual?
The F-sharp minor Polonaiseis alwaysdrummedon the keyboard because some silly story got into print about Chopin's aunt asking the composer for a picture of his soul battling with the soul of his pet foe, the Russians. Militant the work is not, as swinging as are its resilient rhythms: granted that the gloomy repetitions betray a morbid dwelling upon some secret, exasperating sorrow; but as the human soul never experiences the same moodtwicein a lifetime, so Chopin never means his passages, identical as they may be, to be repeated in the same mood-key. Liszt, Tausig, and Rubinstein taught us the supreme art of color variation in the repetition of a theme. Paderewski knows the trick; so do Joseffy and Pachmann—the latter'spianissimibegin where other men's cease. So the accusation of tonal or thematic monotony should not be brought against thisPolonaise. Rather let us blame our imperfect sympathies and slender stock of the art ofnuance.
But here I am pinning myself down to onecomposition, when I wish to touch lightly on so many! TheF minor Polonaise, theE-flat minor Polonaise, called theSiberian—why I don't know;Icould never detect in its mobile measures the clanking of convict chains or the dreary landscape of Siberia—might be played by way of variety; and then there is theC minor Polonaise, which begins in tones of epic grandeur [go it, old man, you will be applying for a position on the ManayunkHerbalistsoon as a critic!] TheNocturnes—are they all familiar to you? TheF-sharp minorwas a positive novelty a few years ago when Joseffy exhumed it, while theC-sharp minor, with its strong climaxes, its middle sections so evocative of Beethoven'sSonatain the same key—have you mastered its content?The Preludesare a perfect field for the "prospector"; though Essipoff and Arthur Friedheim played them in a single program. Nor must we overlook the so-called hackneyed valses, the tinkling charm of the one inG-flat, the elegiac quality of the one inB minor. TheBarcarolleis only for heroes. So I do not set it down in malice against the student or the everyday virtuosos that he—or she—does not attempt it. TheF minor Fantaisie, I am sorry to say, is beginning to be tarnished like theA-flat Ballade, by impious hands. It is not for weaklings;nor are the other Fantaisies. Why not let us hear theBoleroandTarantella, not Chopin at his happiest, withal Chopin. Emil Sauer made a success of other brilliant birdlike music before an America public. As for theBallades, I can no longer endure any butOp. 38andOp. 52. Rosenthal played the beautifulD-flat StudyinLes Trois nouvelles Etudeswith signal results. It is a valse in disguise. And its neighbors inA-flatandF minorare Chopin in his most winning moods. Who, except Pachmann, essays theG-flat major Impromptu—wrongfully catalogued asDes Durin the Klindworth edition? To be sure, it resumes many traits of the two precedingImpromptus, yet is it none the less fascinating music. And theMazurkas—I refuse positively to discuss at the present writing such a fertile theme. I am fatigued already, and I feel that my antique vaporings have fatigued you. Next month I shall stick to my leathery last, like the musical shoemaker that I am—I shall consider to some length the use of left-hand passage work in the Hummel sonatas. Or shall I speak of Chopin again, of the Chopin mazurkas! My sour bones become sweeter when I think of Chopin—ah, there I go again! Am I, too, among the rhapsodists?
I had fully intended at the conclusion of my last chapter to close the curtain on Chopin and his music, for I agree with the remark Deppe once made to Amy Fay about the advisability of putting Chopin on the shelf for half a century and studying Mozart in the interim. Bless the dear Germans and their thoroughness! The type of teacher to which Deppe belonged always proceeded as if a pupil, like a cat, had nine lives. Fifty years of Chopin on the shelf! There's an idea for you. At the conclusion of this half century's immurement what would the world say to the Polish composer's music? That is to say, in 1955 the unknown inhabitants of the musical portion of this earth would have sprung upon them absolutely new music. The excitement would be colossal, colossal, too, would be the advertising. And then? And then I fancy a chorus of profoundly disappointed lovers of the tone art. Remember that the world moves in fifty years. Perhaps there would be no longer our pianoforte, our keyboard. How childish, how simple wouldsound the timid little Chopin of the far-away nineteenth century.
In the turbulent times to come music will have lost its personal flavor. Instead of interpretative artists there will be gigantic machinery capable of maniacal displays of virtuosity; merely dropping a small coin in a slot will sound the most abstruse scores of Richard Strauss—then the popular and bewhistled music maker. And yet it is difficult for us, so wedded are we to that tragic delusion of earthly glory and artistic immortality, to conjure up a day when the music of Chopin shall be stale and unprofitable to the hearing. For me the idea is inconceivable. Some of his music has lost interest for us, particularly the early works modeled after Hummel. Ehlert speaks of the twilight that is beginning to steal over certain of the nocturnes, valses, and fantasias. Now Hummel is quite perfect in his way. To imitate him, as Chopin certainly did, was excellent practice for the younger man, but not conducive to originality. Chopin soon found this out, and dropped both Hummel and Field out of his scheme. Nor shall I insist on the earlier impositions being the weaker;Op. 10contains all Chopin in its twelve studies. The truth is, that this Chopin, to whom has been assigned two or three or four periods and stylesand manners of development, sprang from the Minerva head of music a full-fledged genius. He grew. He lived. But the exquisite art was there from the first. That it had a "long foreground" I need not tell you.
What compositions, then, would our mythic citizens of 1955 prefer?—can't you see them crowding around the concert grand piano listening to the old-fashioned strains as we listen today when some musical antiquarian gives a recital of Scarlatti, Couperin, Rameau on a clavecin! Still, as Mozart and Bach are endurable now, there is no warrant for any supposition that Chopin would not be tolerated a half century hence. Fancy those sprightly, spiritual, and very national dances, the mazurkas, not making an impression! Or at least two of the ballades! Or three of the nocturnes! Not to mention the polonaises, preludes, scherzos, and etudes. Simply from curiosity the other night—I get so tired playing checkers—I went through all my various editions of Chopin—about ten—looking for trouble. I found it when I came across five mazurkas in the key of C-sharp minor. I have arrived at the conclusion that this was a favorite tonality of the Pole. Let us see.
Two studies inOp. 10and25, respectively; theFantaisie-Impromptu,Op. 66; fiveMazurkas,above mentioned; oneNocturne, Op. 27, No. 1; onePolonaise, Op. 26, No. 1; onePrelude, Op. 45; oneScherzo, Op. 39; and a short second section, acantabilein theE major Scherzo, Op. 54; oneValse, Op. 64, No. 2—are there any more in C-sharp minor? If there are I cannot recall them. But this is a good showing for one key, and a minor one. Little wonder Chopin was pronounced elegiac in his tendencies—C-sharp minor is a mournful key and one that soon develops a cloying, morbid quality if too much insisted upon.
The mazurkas are worthy specimens of their creator's gift for varying not only a simple dance form, but also in juggling with a simple melodic idea so masterfully that the hearer forgets he is hearing a three-part composition on a keyboard. Chopin was a magician. The first of theMazurkas in C-sharp minorbears the earlyOp. 6, No. 2. By no means representative, it is nevertheless interesting and characteristic. That brief introduction with its pedal bass sounds the rhythmic life of the piece. I like it; I like the dance proper; I like the major—you see the peasant girls on the green footing away—and the ending is full of a sad charm.Op. 30, No. 4, the next in order, is bigger in conception, bigger in workmanship. It is not so cheerful, perhaps, as its predecessorin the same key; the heavy basses twanging in tenths like a contrabasso are intentionally monotone in effect. There is defiance and despair in the mood. And look at the line before the last—those consecutive fifths and sevenths were not placed there as a whim; they mean something. Here is a mazurka that will be heard later than 1955! By the way, while you are loitering through this Op. 30 do not neglect No. 3, the stunning specimen in D-flat. It is my favorite mazurka.
Now let us hurry on toOp. 41, No. 1. It well repays careful study. Note the grip our composer has on the theme, it bobs up in the middle voices; it comes thundering at the close in octave and chordalunisons, it rumbles in the bass and is persistently asserted by the soprano voice. Its scale is unusual, the atmosphere not altogether cheerful. Chopin could be depressingly pessimistic at times.Op. 50, No. 3, shows how closely the composer studied his Bach. It is by all odds the most elaborately worked out of the series, difficult to play, difficult to grasp in its rather disconnected procession of moods. To me it has a clear ring of exasperation, as if Chopin had lost interest, but perversely determined to finish his idea. As played by Pachmann, we get it in all its peevish, sardonic humors,especially if the audience, or the weather, or the piano seat does not suit the fat little blackbird from Odessa.Op. 63, No. 3, ends this list of mazurkas in C-sharp minor. In it Chopin has limbered up, his mood is freer, melancholy as it is. Louis Ehlert wrote of this: "A more perfect canon in the octave could not have been written by one who had grown gray in the learned arts." Those last few bars prove that Chopin—they once called him amateurish in his harmonies!—could do what he pleased in the contrapuntal line.
Shall I continue? Shall I insist on the obvious; hammer in my truisms! It may be possible that out here on the Wissahickon—where the summer hiccoughs grow—that I do not get all the news of the musical world. Yet I vainly scan piano recital programs for such numbers as those C-sharp minor mazurkas, for theF minor Ballade, for that beautiful and extremely originalBallade Op. 38which begins in F and ends in A minor. Isn't there a legend to the effect that Schumann heard Chopin play hisBalladein private and that there was no stormy middle measures? I've forgotten the source, possibly one of the greater Chopinist's—orChopine-ists, as they had it in Paris. What a stumbling-block that A minor explosion was to audiences andstudents and to pianists themselves. "Too wild, too wild!" I remember hearing the old guard exclaim when Rubinstein, after miraculously prolonging the three A's with those singing fingers of his, not forgetting the pedals, smashed down the keyboard, gobbling up the sixteenth notes, not in phrases, but pages. How grandly he rolled out those bass scales, the chords in the treble transformed into aCantus Firmus. Then, his Calmuck features all afire, he would begin to smile gently and lo!—the tiny, little tune, as if children had unconsciously composed it at play! The last page was carnage. Port Arthur was stormed and captured in every bar. What a pianist, what an artist, what aman!
I suppose it is because my imagination weakens with my years—remember that I read in the daily papers the news of Chopin's death! I do long for a definite program to be appended to theF-major Ballade. Why not offer a small prize for the best program and let me be judge? I have also reached the time of life when theA-flat Balladeaffects my nerves, just as Liszt was affected when a pupil brought for criticism theG minor Ballade. Preserve me from theThird Ballade! It is winning, gracious, delicate, capricious, melodic, poetic, and what not, but it has gone to meet theD-flat ValseandE-flat Nocturne—asthe obituaries say. The fourth, theF minor Ballade—ah, you touch me in a weak spot. Sticking for over a half century to Bach so closely, I imagine that the economy of thematic material and the ingeniously spun fabric of thisBalladehave made it my pet. I do not dwell upon the loveliness of the first theme in F minor, or of that melodious approach to it in the major. I am speaking now of the composition as a whole. Its themes are varied with consummate ease, and you wonder at the corners you so easily turn, bringing into view newer horizons; fresh and striking landscapes. When you are once afloat on those D-flat scales, four pages from the end nothing can stop your progress. Every bar slides nearer and nearer to the climax, which is seemingly chaos for the moment. After that the air clears and the whole work soars skyward on mighty pinions. I quite agree with those who place in the same category theF minor Fantaisiewith thisBallade. And it is not much played. Nor can the mechanical instruments reproduce its nuances, its bewildering pathos and passion. I see the musical mob of 1955 deeply interested when the Paderewski of those days puts it on his program as a gigantic novelty!
You see, here I have been blazing away at thesame old target again, though we had agreed to drop Chopin last month. I can't help it. I felt choked off in my previous article and now thedamhas overflowed, though I hope not the reader's! While I think of it, some one wrote me asking if Chopin's firstSonata in C minor, Op. 4, was worth the study. Decidedly, though it is as dry as a Kalkbrenner Sonata for Sixteen Pianos and forty-five hands. The form clogged the light of the composer. Two things are worthy of notice in many pages choked with notes: there is a menuet, the only essay I recall of Chopin's in this graceful, artificial form; and the Larghetto is in 5/4 time—also a novel rhythm, and not very grateful. How Chopin reveled when he reached theB-flat minorandB minor Sonatasand threw formal physic to the dogs! I had intended devoting a portion of this chapter to the difference of old-time and modern methods in piano teaching. Alas! my unruly pen ran away with me!
How to listen to a teacher! How to profit by his precepts! Better still—How to practice after he has left the house! There are three titles for essays, pedagogic and otherwise, which might be supplemented by a fourth: How to pay promptly the music master's bills. But I do not propose indulging in any such generalities this beautiful day in late winter. First, let me rid the minds of my readers of a delusion. I am no longer a piano teacher, nor do I give lessons by mail. I am a very old fellow, fond of chatting, fond of reminiscences; with the latter I bore my listeners, I am sure. Nevertheless, I am not old in spirit, and I feel the liveliest curiosity in matters pianistic, matters musical. Hence, this month I will make a hasty comparison between new and old fashions in teaching the pianoforte. If you have patience with me you may hear something of importance; otherwise, if there is skating down your way don't miss it—fresh air is always healthier than esthetic gabbling.
Do they teach the piano better in the twentiethcentury than in the nineteenth? Yes, absolutely yes. When a young man survived the "old fogy" methods of the fifties, sixties and seventies of the past century, he was, it cannot be gainsaid, an excellent artist. But he was, as a rule, the survival of the fittest. For one of him successful there were one thousand failures. Strong hands, untiring patience and a deeply musical temperament were needed to withstand the absurd soulless drilling of the fingers. Unduly prolonged, the immense amount of dry studies, the antique disregard of fore-arm and upper-arm and the comparatively restricted repertory—well, it was a stout body and a robust musical temperament that rose superior to such cramping pedagogy. And then, too, the ideals of the pianist were quite different. It is only in recent years that tone has become an important factor in the scheme—thanks to Chopin, Thalberg and Liszt. In the early sixties we believed in velocity and clearness and brilliancy. Kalkbrenner, Herz, Dreyschock, Döhler, Thalberg—those were the lively boys who patrolled the keyboard like the north wind—brisk but chilly. I must add that the most luscious and melting tone I ever heard on the piano was produced by Thalberg and after him Henselt. Today Paderewski is the best exponent of their school; ofcourse, modified by modern ideas and a Slavic temperament.
But now technic no longer counts. Be ye as fleet as Rosenthal and as pure as Pachmann—in a tonal sense—ye will not escape comparison with the mechanical pianist. It was their astounding accuracy that extorted from Eugen d'Albert a confession made to a friend of mine just before he sailed to this country last month:
"A great pianist should no longer bother himself about his technic. Any machine can beat him at the game. What he must excel in is—interpretation and tone."
Rosenthal, angry that a mere contrivance manipulated by a salesman could beat his speed, has taken the slopes of Parnassus by storm. He can play the LisztDon Juanparaphrasefasterthan any machine in existence. (I refer to the drinking song, naturally.) But how few of us have attained such transcendental technic? None except Rosenthal, for I really believe if Karl Tausig would return to earth he would be dazzled by Rosenthal's performances—say, for example, of the Brahms-PaganiniStudiesand, Liszt, in his palmy days, never had such a technic as Tausig's; while the latter was far more musical and intellectual than Rosenthal. Other days, other ways!
So tone, not technic alone, is our shibboleth. How many teachers realize this? How many still commit the sin of transforming their pupils into machines, developing muscle at the expense of music! To be sure, some of the old teachers considered the second F minor sonata of Beethoven the highest peak of execution and confined themselves to teaching Mozart and Field, Cramer and Mendelssohn, with an occasional fantasia by Thalberg—the latter to please the proud papa after dessert. Schumann was not understood; Chopin was misunderstood; and Liszt wasanathema. Yet we often heard a sweet, singing tone, even if the mechanism was not above the normal. I am sure those who had the pleasure of listening to William Mason will recall the exquisite purity of his tone, the limpidity of his scales, the neat finish of his phrasing. Old style, I hear you say! Yes, old and ever new, because approaching more nearly perfection than the splashing, floundering, fly-by-night, hysterical, smash-the-ivories school of these latter days. Music, not noise—that's what we are after in piano playing, thehigherpiano playing. All the rest is pianola-istic!
Singularly enough, with the shifting of technical standards, more simplicity reigns in methods of teaching at this very moment. The reasonis that so much more is expected in variety of technic; therefore, no unnecessary time can be spared. If a modern pianist has not atfifteenmastered all the tricks of finger, wrist, fore-arm and upper-arm he should study bookkeeping or the noble art of football. Immense are the demands made upon the memory. Whole volumes of fugues, sonatas of Chopin, Liszt, Schumann and the new men are memorized, as a matter of course. Better wrong notes, in the estimation of the more superficial musical public, than playing with the music on the piano desk. And then to top all these terrible things, you must have the physique of a sailor, the nerves of a woman, the impudence of a prize-fighter, and the humility of an innocent child. Is it any wonder that, paradoxical as it may sound, there are fewer great pianists today in public than there were fifty years ago, yet ten times as many pianists!
The big saving, then, in the pianistic curriculum is the dropping of studies, finger and otherwise. To give him his due, Von Bülow—as a pianist strangely inimical to my taste—was among the first to boil down the number of etudes. He did this in his famous preface to the CramerStudies. Nevertheless, his list is too long by half. Who plays Moscheles? Who cares for more than four or six of the Clementi, for a half dozen of theCramer? I remember the consternation among certain teachers when Deppe and Raif, with his dumb thumb and blind fingers, abolishedallthe classic piano studies. Teachers like Constantine von Sternberg do the same at this very hour, finding in the various technical figures of compositions all the technic necessary. This method is infinitely more trying to the teacher than the old-fashioned, easy-going ways. "Play me No. 22 for next time!" was the order, and in a soporific manner the pupil waded through all the studies of all theTechnikers. Now the teacher must invent a new study for every new piece—with Bach on the side. Always Bach! Please remember that. B-a-c-h—Bach. Your daily bread, my children.
We no longer play Mozart in public—except Joseffy. I was struck recently by something Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler said in this matter of Mozart. Yes, Mozart is more difficult than Chopin, though not so difficult as Bach. Mozart is so naked and unafraid! You must touch the right key or forever afterward be condemned by your own blundering. Let me add here that I heard Fannie Bloomfield play the little sonata, wrongfully calledfacile, when she was a tiny, ox-eyed girl of six or seven. It was in Chicago in the seventies. Instead of asking for candyafterwards she begged me to read her some poetry of Shelley or something by Schopenhauer! Veritably a fabulous child!
Let me add three points to the foregoing statements: First, Joseffy has always been rather skeptical of toofewpiano studies. His argument is thatenduranceis also a prime factor of technic, and you cannot compass endurance without you endure prolonged finger drills. But as he has since composed—literally composed—the most extraordinary time-saving book of technical studies (School of Advanced Piano Playing), I suspect the great virtuoso has dropped from his list all the Heller, Hiller, Czerny, Haberbier, Cramer, Clementi and Moscheles. Certainly his Exercises—as he meekly christens them—aremultum in parvo. They are my daily recreation.
The next point I would have you remember is this: The morning hours are golden. Never waste them, the first thing, never waste your sleep-freshened brain on mechanical finger exercise. Take up Bach, if you must unlimber your fingers and your wits. But even Bach should be kept for afternoon and evening. I shall never forget Moriz Rosenthal's amused visage when I, in the innocence of my eighteenth century soul, put this question to him: "When is the best time tostudy etudes?" "If you must study them at all, do so after your day's work is done. By your day's work I mean the mastery of the sonata or piece you are working at. When your brain is clear you can compass technical difficulties much better in the morning than the evening. Don't throw away those hours. Any time will do for gymnastics." Now there is something for stubborn teachers to put in their pipes and smoke.
My last injunction is purely a mechanical one. All the pianists I have heard with a beautiful tone—Thalberg, Henselt, Liszt, Tausig, Heller—yes, Stephen of the pretty studies—Rubinstein, Joseffy, Paderewski, Pachmann and Essipoff, satlowbefore the keyboard. When you sit high and the wrists dip downward your tone will be dry, brittle, hard. Doubtless a few pianists with abnormal muscles have escaped this, for there was a time when octaves were played with stiff wrists and rapidtempo. Both things are an abomination, and the exception here does not prove the rule. Pianists like Rosenthal, Busoni, Friedheim, d'Albert, Von Bülow,all the Great Germans(Germans are not born, but are made piano players), Carreño, Aus der Ohe, Krebs, Mehlig are or were artists with a hard tone. As for the much-vaunted Leschetizky method I can only say that I have heard but twoof his pupils whose tone wasnothard and too brilliant. Paderewski was one of these. Paderewski confessed to me that he learned how to play billiards from Leschetizky, not piano; though, of course, he will deny this, as he is very loyal. The truth is that he learned more from Essipoff than from her then husband, the much-married Theodor Leschetizky.
Pachmann, once at a Dôhnányi recital in New York, called out in his accustomed frank fashion: "He sits too high." It was true. Dôhnányi's touch is as hard as steel. He satoverthe keyboard and playeddownon the keys, thus striking them heavily, instead of pressing and moulding the tone. Pachmann's playing is a notable example of plastic beauty. He seems to dip his hands into musical liquid instead of touching inanimate ivory, and bone, wood, and wire. Remember this when you begin your day's work: Sit so that your hand is on a level with, never below, the keyboard; and don't waste your morning freshness on dull finger gymnastics! Have I talked you hoarse?
Such a month of dissipation! You must know that at my time of life I run down a bit every spring, and our family physician prescribed a course of scale exercises on the Boardwalk at Atlantic City, and after that—New York, for Lenten recreation! Now, New York is not quiet, nor is it ever Lenten. A crowded town, huddled on an island far too small for its inconceivably uncivilized population, its inhabitants can never know the value of leisure or freedom from noise. Because he is always in a hurry a New York man fancies that he is intellectual. The consequences artistically are dire. New York boasts—yes, literallyboasts—the biggest, noisiest, and poorest orchestra in the country. I refer to the Philharmonic Society, with its wretched wood-wind, its mediocre brass, and its aggregation of rasping strings. All the vaudeville and lightning-change conductors have not put this band on a level with the Boston, the Philadelphia, or the Chicago organizations. Nor does the opera please me much better. Noise,at the expense of music; quantity, instead of quality; all thetempidistorted andfortesexaggerated, so as to make effect. Effect, effect, effect! That is the ideal of New York conductors. This coarsening, cheapening, and magnification of details are resultants of the restless, uncomfortable, and soulless life of the much overrated Manhattan.
Naturally, I am a Philadelphian, and my strictures will be set down to old fogyism. But show me a noise-loving city and I will show you an inartistic one. Schopenhauer was right in this matter; insensibility to noise argues a less refined organism. And New York may spend a million of money on music every season, and still it is not a musical city. The opera is the least sign; opera is a social function—sometimes a circus, never a temple of art. The final, the infallible test is the maintenance of an orchestra. New York has no permanent orchestra; though there is an attempt to make of the New York Symphony Society a worthy rival to the Philadelphia and Boston orchestras. So much for my enjoyment in the larger forms of music—symphony, oratorio and opera.
But my visit was not without compensations. I attended piano concerts by Eugen d'Albert, Ignace Jan Paderewski, and Rafael Joseffy.Pachmann I had heard earlier in the season in my own home city. So in one season I listened to four out of six of the world's greatest pianists. And it was very stimulating to both ears and memory. It also affords me an opportunity to preach for you a little sermon on Touch (Tone and Technic were the respective themes of my last two letters), which I have had in my mind for some time. Do not be alarmed. I say "sermon," but I mean nothing more than a comparison of modern methods of touch, as exemplified by the performances of the above four men, with the style of touch employed by the pianists of my generation: Thalberg, Liszt, Gottschalk, Tausig, Rubinstein, Von Bülow, Henselt, and a few others.
Pachmann is the same little wonder-worker that I knew when he studied many years ago in Vienna with Dachs. This same Dachs turned out some finished pupils, though his reputation, curiously enough, never equalled that of the over-puffed Leschetizky, or Epstein, or Anton Door, all teachers in the Austrian capital. I recall Anthony Stankowitch, now in Chicago, and Benno Schoenberger, now in London, as Dachs' pupils. Schoenberger has a touch of gold and a style almost as jeweled as Pachmann's—but more virile. It must not be forgotten thatPachmann has fine nerves—with such an exquisite touch, his organization must be of supernal delicacy—but little muscular vigor. Consider his narrow shoulders and slender arms—height of figure has nothing to do with muscular incompatibility; d'Albert is almost a dwarf, yet a colossus of strength. So let us call Pachmann, a survival of an older school, a charming school. Touch was the shibboleth of that school, not tone; and technic was often achieved at the expense of more spiritual qualities. The three mostbeautifultouches of the piano of the nineteenth century were those of Chopin, Thalberg, and Henselt. Apart from any consideration of other gifts, these three men—a Pole, a Hebrew, and a German—possessed touches that sang and melted in your ears, ravished your ears. Finer in a vocal sense was Thalberg's touch than Liszt's; finer Henselt's than Thalberg's, because more euphonious, and nobler in tonal texture; and more poetic than either of these two was Chopin's ethereal touch. To-day Joseffy is the nearest approach we have to Chopin, Paderewski to Henselt, Pachmann to Thalberg—save in the matter of a robustfortissimo, which the tiny Russian virtuoso does not boast.
After Chopin, Thalberg, and Henselt, the orchestral school had its sway—it still has. Liszt,Tausig, Rubinstein set the pace for all latter-day piano playing. And while it may sound presumptuous, I am inclined to think that their successors are not far behind them in the matter of tonal volume. If Liszt or Tausig, or, for that matter, Rubinstein, produced more clangor from their instruments than Eugen d'Albert, then my aural memory is at fault. My recollection of Liszt is a vivid one: to me he was iron; Tausig, steel; Rubinstein, gold. This metallic classification is not intended to praise gold at the expense of steel, or iron to the detriment of gold. It is merely my way of describing the adamantine qualities of Liszt and Tausig—two magnetic mountains of the kind told of inSinbad, the Sailor, to which was attracted whatever came within their radius. And Rubinstein—what a man, what an artist, what aheart!As Joseffy once put it, Rubinstein's was not a pianist's touch, but the mellow tone of a French horn!
Rosenthal's art probably matches Tausig's in technic and tone. Paderewski, who has broadened and developed amazingly during ten years, has many of Henselt's traits—and I am sure he never heard the elder pianist. But he belongs to that group: tonal euphony, supple technic, a caressing manner, and a perfect control of self. Remember, I am speaking of theHenselt who played for a few friends, not the frightened, semi-limp pianist who emerged at long intervals before the public. Paderewski is thrice as poetic as Henselt—who in the matter of emotional depth seldom attempted any more than the delineation of the suave and elegant, though he often played Weber with glorious fire and brilliancy.
At this moment it is hard to say where Paderewski will end. I beg to differ from Mr. Edward Baxter Perry, who once declared that the Polish virtuoso played at his previous season no different from his earlier visits. The Paderewski of 1902 and 1905 is very unlike the Paderewski of 1891. His style more nearly approximates Rubinstein'splusthe refinement of the Henselt school. He has sacrificed certain qualities. That was inevitable. All great art is achieved at the expense—either by suppression or enlargement—of something precious. Paderewski pounds more; nor is he always letter perfect; but do not forget that pounding from Paderewski is not the same as pounding from Tom, Dick, and Harry. And, like Rubinstein, his spilled notes are more valuable than other pianist's scrupulously played ones. In reality, after carefully watching the career of this remarkable man, I have reached the conclusion that he ispassing through a transition period in his "pianism." Tired of his old, subdued, poetic manner; tired of being called asalonpianist by—yes, Oskar Bie said so in his book on the pianoforte; and in the same chapter wrote of the fire and fury of Gabrilowitsch ("he drives the horses of Rubinstein," said Bie; he must have meant "ponies!")—critics, Paderewski began to study the grand manner. He may achieve it, for his endurance is phenomenal. Any pianist who could do what I heard him do in New York—give eight encores after an exhausting program—may well lay claim to the possession of the grand manner. His tone is still forced; you hear thechugof the suffering wires; but who cares for details—when the general performance is on so exalted a plane? And his touch is absolutely luscious in cantabile.
With d'Albert our interest is, nowadays, cerebral. When he was a youth he upset Weimar with his volcanic performances. Rumor said that he came naturally by his superb gifts (the Tausig legend is still believed in Germany). Now his indifference to his medium of expression does not prevent him from lavishing upon the interpretation of masterpieces the most intellectual brain since Von Bülow's—andentre nous, ten times the musical equipment. D'Albert plays Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms asno one else on this globe—and he matches Paderewski in his merciless abuse of the keyboard. Either a new instrument, capable of sustaining the ferocious attacks upon it, must be fabricated, or else there must be a return to older styles.
And that fixed star in the pianistic firmament, one who refuses to descend to earth and please the groundlings—Rafael Joseffy—is for me the most satisfying of all the pianists. Never any excess of emotional display; never silly sentimentalizings, but a lofty, detached style, impeccable technic, tone as beautiful as starlight—yes, Joseffy is the enchanter who wins me with his disdainful spells. I heard him play the Chopin E minor and the Liszt A major concertos; also a brace of encores. Perfection! The Liszt was not so brilliant as Reisenauer; but—again within its frame—perfection! The Chopin was as Chopin would have had it given in 1840. And there were refinements of tone-color undreamed of even by Chopin. Paderewski is Paderewski—and Joseffy is perfection. Paderewski is the most eclectic of the four pianists I have taken for my text; Joseffy the most subtly poetic; D'Albert the most profound and intellectually significant, and Pachmann—well, Vladimir is theenfant terribleof the quartet, a whimsical, fantasticcharmer, an apparition with rare talents, and an interpreter of the Lesser Chopin (always thegreatChopin) without a peer. Let us be happy that we are vouchsafed the pleasure of hearing four such artists.