. . . . . . . .
Harold Bauer set out to conquer the world, and has done nothing more than arouse the interest of one or two countries. Yet he is a great pianist. But I am told that his personality stands between him and the real thing in the way of success. I have sat next to critics at his recitals who have squirmed in their stalls as he played.
“What is the matter?” I have asked.
“I don’t quite know. But don’t you feel it yourself?”
“Feel what?”
“Something. I don’t quite know what. Something indefinable. His playing is too greasy. Did you ever hear Brahms played like that before?”
“No. I wish I had. I think his Brahms wonderfully fine.”
Certainly, his temperament is not magnetic like the [182] ]personality of Paderewski, of Kubelik, of Yvette Guilbert, and the public is a connoisseur of temperaments. I think I have elsewhere observed in this book that the public collects temperaments just as a few people collect china or autographs. Perhaps Bauer is not exotic or orchidaceous enough. He is too “straight,” too downright.
“What are they like, these Manchester people?” Bauer asked me one afternoon before he was to play in England’s musical metropolis.
“Well, they’re ‘difficult,’ I think. They know something about music here. You are not in London now, you know. You have reached the centre of things.”