Godowsky.
March 17, 1903.
It is a little difficult to do justice to the qualities of Mr. Godowsky's pianoforte playing without at the same time saying too much and making claims that are not justified by the facts. It must be remembered that there is no Liszt or Rubinstein at the present day. Those men were giants—mighty personalities who dominated the musical world, being essentially great as well as good players. The present generation has no such personality among solo performers. Talents that come to the top show a specialising tendency, and it is no longer possible to say that so-and-so is the greatest pianist of the age. One can only say that Mr. Busoni is the greatest musician who now plays pianoforte solos in public, and Mr. Paderewski is the most brilliant performer on the pianoforte, and Mr. Godowsky the most absolute expert in tone production on the same instrument. It is not to be denied that, taking Mr. Godowsky's art as a whole, and thus including musical conception, one finds it imposing. He never comes within a measurable distance of bad style: he always gives an essentially good rendering of anything that he undertakes to perform. But what one principally admires is not his mind, imagination, or temperament, but simply his hands—his warm, subtle, and preternaturally deft wrists and fingers. Having apparently been warned that the peculiar acoustic of the hall has a tendency to make any pianoforte sound as if the pedal were down nearly all the time, he yesterday avoided the bewilderingly elaborate style of which he has made a speciality. But, in addition to the flawless perfection of all the passage work, there was abundant opportunity in the series of pieces by Beethoven, Chopin, and Liszt to admire that marvellous control of tone which often enables him to reveal fresh melody in quite familiar compositions. The pieces that were least affected by the cross reverberations of the hall were the Etude in extended chords and the C sharp minor Scherzo by Chopin. On the other hand, no one who has not heard Mr. Godowsky under more favourable circumstances can imagine, from the experience of yesterday evening, the magical effect of his performance in the G sharp minor Etude in thirds for the right hand. In playing the exquisite F minor Concert Etude by Liszt he deliberately kept the tone down to a minimum, to avoid the buzz and confusion as far as possible. Liszt's transcription of the "Tannhäuser" Overture was used for the display piece that audiences expect at the end of a recital. It is characteristic of Mr. Godowsky that his favourite amusement is making rearrangements of Chopin's Etudes—the "Godowsky Bedevilments," Mr. Huneker calls them. These include the celebrated combination of the two G flat Etudes, where the left hand has to play the one in the first book while the right plays the legato and staccato improvisation from the second volume, and another in which three Etudes in A minor are brought together contrapuntally. Though they are all of course anathema to the purist, the ingenuity displayed in some of these things is so prodigious that no one interested in pianoforte playing can well be indifferent to them.