I once wrote a story in which a pianist figured as a mesmeriser. He sat at his instrument in a crowded, silent hall and worked his magic upon the multitude. The scene modulates into madness. People are transported. And in all the rumour and storm, the master sits at the keyboard but does not play. I assure you I have been at Paderewski recitals where my judgments were in abeyance, where my individuality was merged in that of the mob, where I sat and wondered if I really heard; or was Paderewski only going through the motions and not actually touching the keys? His is a static as well as a dramatic art. The tone wells up from the instrument, is not struck. It floats languorously in the air, it seems to pause, transfixed in the air. The Sarmatian melancholy of Paderewski, his deep sensibility, his noble nature, are translated into the music. Then with a smashing chord he sets us, the prisoners of his tonal circle, free. Is this the art of a hypnotiser? No one has so mastered the trick, if trick it be.
But he is not all moonshine. The truth is, Paderewski has a tone not as large as mellow. His fortissimo chords have hitherto lacked the foundational power and splendour of d'Albert's, Busoni's, and Rosenthal's. His transition from piano to forte is his best range, not the extremes at either end of the dynamic scale. A healthy, sunny tone it is at its best, very warm in colour. In certain things of Chopin he is unapproachable. He plays the F-minor concerto and the E-flat minor scherzo—from the second Sonata—beautifully, and if he is not so convincing in the Beethoven sonatas, his interpretation of the E-flat Emperor concerto is surprisingly free from morbidezza; it is direct, manly, and musical. His technic has gained since his advent in New York. This he proved by the way he juggled with the Brahms-Paganini variations; though they are still the property of Moritz Rosenthal. He is more interesting than most pianists because he is more musical; he has more personal charm; there is the feeling when you hear him that he is a complete man, a harmonious artist, and this feeling is very compelling.
The tricky elf that rocked the cradle of Vladimir de Pachmann—a Russian virtuoso, born in Odessa (1848), of a Jewish father and a Turkish mother (he once said to me, "My father is a Cantor, my mother a Turkey")—must have enjoyed—not without a certain malicious peep at the future—the idea of how much worriment and sorrow it would cause the plump little black-haired baby when he grew up and played the pianoforte like the imp of genius he is. It is nearly seventeen years since he paid his first visit to us. His success, as in London, was achieved after one recital. Such an exquisite touch, subtlety of phrasing, and a technic that failed only in broad, dynamic effects, had never before been noted. Yet De Pachmann is in reality the product of an old-fashioned school. He belongs to the Hummel-Cramer group, which developed a pure finger technic and a charming euphony, but neglected the dramatic side of delivery. Tone for tone's sake; absolute finesse in every figure; scales that are as hot pearls on velvet; a perfect trill; a cantilena like the voice; these, and repose of style, are the shibboleth of a tradition that was best embodied in Thalberg—plus more tonal power in Thalberg's case. Subjectivity enters largely in this combination, for De Pachmann is "modern," neurotic. His presentation of some Chopin is positively morbid. He is, despite his marked restrictions of physique and mentality, a Chopin player par excellence. His fingers strike the keys like tiny sweet mallets. His scale passages are liquid, his octave playing marvellous, but en miniature—like everything he attempts. To hear him in a Chopin polonaise is to realise his limitations. But in the larghetto of the F-minor concerto, in the nocturnes and preludes—not of course the big one in D minor—études, valses, ah! there is then but one De Pachmann. He can be poetic and capricious and elfish in the mazurkas; indeed, it has been conceded that he is the master-interpreter of these soul-dances. The volume of tone that he draws from his instrument is not large, but it is of a distinguished quality and very musical. He has paws of velvet, and no matter what the difficulty, he overcomes it without an effort. I once called him the pianissimist because of his special gift for filing tones to a whisper. His pianissimo begins where other pianists end theirs. Enchanting is the effect when he murmurs in such studies as the F minor of Chopin and the Concert study of Liszt of the same tonality; or in mounting unisons as he breathlessly weaves the wind through the last movement of Chopin's B-flat minor sonata. Less edifying are De Pachmann's mannerisms. They are only tolerated because of his exotic, lovely, and disquieting music.
Of a different and a gigantic mould is the playing of Moritz Rosenthal. He is a native of Lemberg, in Galician Poland, a city that has held among other artists, Marcella Sembrich and Carl Mikuli, a pupil of Chopin and editor of an edition of his works. When a mere child, twelve years or so, Moritz walked from Lemberg to Vienna to study with Joseffy. Even at that age he had the iron will of a superman. He played for Joseffy the E-minor concerto of Chopin, the same work with which the youthful Joseffy years before had won the heart of Tausig. Setting aside Tausig—and this is only hearsay—the world of "pianism" has never matched Rosenthal for speed, power, endurance; nor is this all. He is both musical and intellectual. He is a doctor of philosophy, a bachelor of arts. He has read everything, is a linguist, has travelled the globe over, and in conversation his unerring memory and brilliant wit set him as a man apart. To top all these gifts, he plays his instrument magnificently, overwhelmingly. He is the Napoleon, the conqueror among virtuosi. His tone is very sonorous, his touch singing, and he commands the entire range of nuance from the rippling fioritura of the Chopin barcarolle to the cannon-like thunderings of the A-flat polonaise. His octaves and chords baffle all critical experience and appraisement. As others play presto in single notes, so he dashes off double notes, thirds, sixths, and octaves. His Don Juan fantaisie, part Liszt, part Mozart, is entirely Rosenthalian in performance. He has composed at his polyphonic forge a Humoreske. Its interweaving of voices, their independence, the caprice and audacity of it all are astounding. Tausig had such a technic; yet surely Tausig had not the brazen, thunderous climaxes of this broad-shouldered young man! He is the epitome of the orchestra and in a tonal duel with the orchestra he has never been worsted. His interpretations of the classics, of the romantics, are of a superior order. He played the last sonatas of Beethoven or the Schumann Carneval with equal discrimination. His touch is crystal-like in its clearness, therefore his tone lacks the sensuousness of Paderewski and De Pachmann. But it is a mistake to set him down as a mere unemotional mechanician. He is in reality a Superman among pianists.
Eugen d'Albert has played in America several times, the first time in company with Sarasate, the Spanish violin virtuoso. Liszt called d'Albert, of whom he was very fond, the "second Tausig." The Weimar master declared that the little Eugen looked like, played like, his former favourite, Karl Tausig. In his youth d'Albert was as impetuous as a thunderbolt; now he is more reflective than fiery, and he is often careless in his technical work. Another pianist who has followed the lure of composition; but a great virtuoso, a great interpreter of the classics. His music suggests a close study of Brahms, and in his piano concertos he is both Brahmsian and Lisztian.
The first time I heard Saint-Saëns was in Paris the year 1878. He played at the Trocadero palace—it was the Exposition year—his clever variations on a Beethoven theme for two pianos, Madame Montigny-Remaury being his colleague. In 1896 I attended the fiftieth anniversary of his first public appearance. The affair took place at a piano hall in Paris. And several years ago I heard the veteran, full of years and honours, in New York. He had changed but little. The same supple style, siccant touch, and technical mastery were present. Not so polished as Planté, so fiery—or so noisy—as Pugno, Saint-Saëns is a greater musician than either at the keyboard. His playing is Gallic—which means it is never sultry, emotional, and seldom poetic. The French pianists make for clearness, delicacy, symmetry; France never produced a Rubinstein, nor does she cordially admire such volcanic artists.
Ossip Gabrilowitsch has been for me always a sympathetic pianist. He has improved measurably since his previous visits here. The poet and the student still preponderate in his work; he is more reflective than dramatic, though the fiery Slav in him often peeps out, and if he does not "drive the horses of Rubinstein," as Oscar Bie once wrote, he is a virtuoso of high rank. The Bie phrase could be better applied to Mark Hambourg, who sometimes is like a full-blooded runaway horse with the bit between its teeth. Hambourg has Slavic blood in his veins and it courses hotly. He is an attractive player, a younger Tausig—before Tausig taught himself the value of repose and restraint. Recklessly Hambourg attacks the instrument in a sort of Rubinsteinian fury. Of late he has, it is said, learned the lesson of self-control. His polyphony is clearer, his tone, always big, is more sonorous and individual. It was the veteran Dr. William Mason who predicted Hambourg's future. Exuberance and excess of power may be diverted into musical channels—and these Mark Hambourg has. It is not so easy to reverse the process and build up a temperament where little naturally exists.
Josef Hofmann, from a wonder child who influenced two continents, has developed into an artist who has attained perfection—a somewhat cool perfection, it may be admitted. But what a well-balanced touch, what a broad, euphonious tone, what care in building climaxes or shading his tone to mellifluous whisper! Musically he is impregnable. His readings are free from extravagances, his bearing dignified, and if we miss the dramatic element in his play we are consoled by the easy sweep, the intellectual grasp, and the positively pleasure-giving quality of his touch. Eclectic in style, Hofmann is the "young-old" master of the pianoforte. And he is Polish in everything but Chopin. But well-bred! Perhaps Rubinstein was right when he said, so is the report—at Dresden, "Jozio will never have to change his shirt at a recital as I did."
Harold Bauer is a great favourite in America as well as in Paris. He has a quiet magnetism, a mastery of technical resources, backed by sound musicianship. He was a violinist before he became a pianist; this fact may account for his rich tone-quality—Bauer could even make an old-fashioned "square" pianoforte discourse eloquently. He, too, is an eclectic; all schools appeal to him and his range is from Bach to Cæsar Franck, both of whom he interprets with reverence and authority. Bauer played Liszt's Dance of Death in this country, creating thereby a reputation for brilliant "pianism." The new men, Lhévinne, Ganz, Scriabine, Stojowski, are forging ahead, especially the first two, who are virtuoso artists. The young Swiss, Ganz, is a very attractive artist, apart from his technical attainments; he is musical, and that is two-thirds of the battle. Two men who once resided in America, Ferrucio Busoni and Leopold Godowsky, went abroad and conquered Europe. Busoni is called the master-interpreter of Bach and Liszt; the master-miniaturist is the title bestowed upon the miracle-working Godowsky, whose velvety touch and sensitive style have been better appreciated in Europe than America.
The fair unfair sex has not lacked in representative piano artists. Apart from the million girls busily engaged in manipulating pedals, slaying music and sleep at one fell moment, there is a band of keyboard devotees that has earned fame and fortune, and an honourable place in the Walhalla of pianoforte playing. The modern female pianist does not greatly vary from her male rival except in muscular power, and even in that Sofie Menter and Teresa Carreño have vied with their ruder brethren. Pianists in petticoats go back as far as Nanette Streicher and come down to Paula Szalit, a girl who, it is said, improvises fugues. Marie Pleyel, Madame de Szymanowska—Goethe's friend at Marienbad, in 1822—Clara Schumann, Arabella Goddard, Sofie Menter, Annette Essipoff—once Paderewski's adviser, and a former wife of Leschetitzky; Marie Krebs, Ingeborg Bronsart, Aline Hundt, Fannie Davies, Madeliene Schiller, Julia Rivé-King, Helen Hopekirk, Nathalie Janotha, Adele Margulies, the Douste Sisters, Amy Fay, Dory Petersen, Cecilia Gaul, Madame Paur, Madame Lhévinne, Antoinette Szumowska, Adele Aus der Ohe, Cécile Chaminade, Madame Montigny-Remaury, Madame Roger-Miclos, Marie Torhilon-Buell, Augusta Cottlow, Mrs. Arthur Friedheim, Laura Danzinger Rosebault, Olga Samaroff, Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler—these are a few well-known names before the public during the past and in the present.