Paderewski.
October 29, 1902.
The recital given yesterday evening at the Free Trade Hall seems to have been the last of Mr. Paderewski's art that we are likely to hear for some time. He is not expected to visit Manchester again during the next few years, and the occasion therefore seems fitting for a more general discussion of his playing than is usual in a simple notice of a recital. No doubt Mr. Paderewski is, on the whole, the most distinguished executive musician now before the public. The Paderewski "craze" in England and America is not a mere matter of fashion and folly, but is shared by experts and brethren of the craft, many of whom are irresistibly fascinated by Mr. Paderewski's playing, even while they disapprove of much that he does. Why will he insist on using a pianoforte with so hard a tone? Why is the skelp of his hand on the keys so frequently audible from the most distant point of the hall, as a sound quite separate from the musical notes? Why does he never play Bach? Why does he always play Liszt's second Rhapsodie? Such are a few among the searchings of heart to which Mr. Paderewski's public performances give rise, and to none of them—probably—is there a complete and satisfactory answer. The shallow-toned instrument admits of greater clearness in the bass, and has a more scintillating kind of brilliancy in the upper octaves, and Mr. Paderewski, who likes all passage-work a little staccato, naturally favours it. The rage of his "con gran bravura" lends greater charm to his grazioso style, by the principle of contrast—a point on which he often lays emphasis by rapid alternations of the two styles. Iteration of show pieces, such as the second Rhapsodie, is excusable in a pianist who is incessantly touring the two worlds and playing to all sorts and conditions of men by land and by sea. As to the Bach question we know nothing. He may even have played Bach in other parts of the world. Mr. Paderewski's distinguishing quality is a certain extraordinary energy—not merely a one-sided physical, or even a two-sided physical and intellectual, energy; it is of the fingers and wrists, of the mind, the imagination, the heart, and the soul, and it makes Mr. Paderewski the most interesting of players, even though to the extreme kind of specialist, absorbed in problems of tone-production, he is not the most absolute master of his instrument at the present day. His art has a certain princely quality. It is indescribably galant and chevaleresque. He knows all the secrets of all the most subtle dancing rhythms. He is a reincarnation of Chopin, with almost the added virility of a Rubinstein. No wonder such a man fascinates, bewilders, and enchants the public! Greatly surpassed by Busoni in the interpretation of Beethoven, by Pachmann in the touch that persistently draws forth roundness, sweetness, and fulness of tone, and by Godowsky in the mastery of intricate line and the power of sucking out the very last drop of melody from every part of a composition, Paderewski still remains the most brilliant, fascinating, and successfully audacious of present-day musical performers, and in preferring him the general public is probably right, though the keen student of the pianoforte in particular may learn more from Godowsky, and the earnest lover of the musical classics in general, more from Busoni.
The programme of yesterday's recital was on the usual lines, except in regard to the Paganini Variations by Brahms, of which a selection from the two volumes were played with astounding dash and incisiveness. The unfamiliar Fantasia by Schumann was made perhaps a little more interesting than any other player could have made it. Beethoven's C sharp minor Sonata was given in a manner typical of Mr. Paderewski's Beethoven renderings, except that there happens to be nothing in the first and second movements that is alien to his Slavonic temperament. The finale, belonging to that element in Beethoven which appeals to a more broadly based human nature, sounded flimsy. The Chopin and Liszt pieces were all splendidly done. The long-continued demonstrations of enthusiasm in the latter part of the recital led to three additional pieces, namely, a Nocturne of the performer's own composition, the inevitable Rhapsodie aforementioned, and Chopin's A flat Waltz, with a mixture of double and triple time.