Scan 6
Musical Courier 1891-12-02: Vol 23 Iss 615, 1891
81 lines. Read by computer on 19 September 2026. Printed page 643. See the scan on archive.org.
1THE RAconteur.
3His Hair Is Not Piano.
4What's the useski,
5Paderewski,
6Of your phalangial skill,
7When you're playing
8Goes sashaying
9With your frontal hirsute frill?
10You're no so-so
11Virtuoso
12But a reg'lar, 'way up player;
13Still your phrasing
14'S not amazing
15As your perturbating hair.
16You can churn the
17Sweet nocturne,
18Of th' andante you've the hang:
19But your pounding
20Lacks the sounding
21Timbre of your towzled bang.
23"But, then, you talk as if you had heard Liszt many times, even as far back as 1835," said the tall, thin pianist, throwing away his cigarette.
24"No," said I, blushing, or making a little blush etude.
25"No, I must confess, I never heard Liszt."
26"Then," said he triumphantly, scratching the wart on his neck, "why do you compare Paderewski with Liszt?"
27"Because," said I meekly, but in the key of Freeze Moll, "because, sir, I have heard the Liszt pupils, and Paderewski does not play like them."
28The pianist took a Broadway car.
30If you expect to hear me preach any Paderewski panegyrics to-day you will be sadly mistaken. You will find all that in another column of the paper. But I don't object to talking a bit about the young man from Podolia, who is really "Mimsey as the Borogoves." Paderewski is an ambitious pianist, who, like a great brother artist, Rafael Joseffy (God bless his big brunette soul!), is given to practicing after midnight, a practice not to be defended, for it is literally burning the candles at both ends. The quiet and the time of night, the brain being preternaturally active, allow one to concentrate the mind as at no other time. This intensity enables a student to learn thoroughly and rapidly, but it's very wearing on the nerves. However, like all bad habits, I suppose it's hard to relinquish. The Polish artist has a grip that would be the ruin of those grip testing machines one sees around town, so powerfully constructed is it. He is a widower and is fond of good cigarettes and a game of billiards, but his life is the life of a cenobite. No two year old entered for the Futurity Stakes trains harder than he does for the great pianistic stakes. As chances now stand I would not be afraid to back him for place, or even first in the race.
32I was greatly amused by hearing a prominent zither virtuoso remark that the reason Paderewski played the "Heroic Polonaise" (I came near writing the Hebraic) of Chopin slower than is usually heard was because he wanted to make it easier. Possibly that is the reason he introduces that octave run toward the last, and also because he plays the famous octaves in the tempo he does in the E major section.
34The truth of the matter is that the polonaise is always played too fast; even d'Albert, the Jaeger flannel gnome, took it too fast for its chivalric dignity, and thus destroyed the picture Chopin intended it should be.
36About Paderewski's Beethoven playing I have absolutely nothing to say, except I know little about Beethoven traditions (I never met the old boy), and I am bewildered besides; for the cult of ugliness is so cultivated nowadays that absolute beauty is sneered at as being insipid, and abnormality of line and tone is the shibboleth of the critics. Laissez-faire Gallaghaire, as they say in Dublin; I know when a thing sounds, and Paderewski's playing always sounds. A pianist with whom you are all acquainted, after vainly endeavoring to analyze Paddy's playing [no irreverence meant, but you can just guess the other half], burst out with, "It's the most beautiful piano playing I ever listened to!" Just so. "Beautiful" is the word, for that wondrous voice of his—his touch—is beautiful when it simply touches the keys.
38Have you ever thought what fun it must be to be a great virtuoso—to play ten voiced slumber songs all by your lone self, and to own a nice, fat, juicy trill like Paderewski's?
40Oh! I forgot to tell you. The tall, thin pianist with the Liszt-like wart, after riding down to the end of the Broadway line and back again, sought me out and said in a huge voice: "Sirrah, I don't see that point yet. What do you mean by Paderewski and Liszt?"
41Said I in an easy, conversational tone, "I don't mean anything; I never do, only Paddy has converted me. I think that the Liszt rhapsodies are immense, that I take back all I ever said against Liszt's trashy compositions ('only fools are consistent,' said Emerson) and——"
42The meagre clawer of celluloid interrupted me.
43"Has any Liszt pupil ever played you false, that you speak so churlishly of them?" he gravely asked.
44"No," I murmured; "they never played for me at all."
45Then the scales dropped from the tall, thin pianist's eyes, and he saw the point.
46We adjourned, while a Shofar player in the next block played, with some warmth of expression, "Ils sont après moi."
48But, in all sincerity, I do get "riled" when I'm told I am too enthusiastic. What's the use of a temperament then, even as in Paderewski's case temperament covers a multitude of sins. Mention one of the piano artists I ever warmly praised without cause. Let me retrospect a bit. There was Joseffy (my first love, whose performances of the Chopin—Tausig, the Brahms and the Tschaikowsky concertos are a perfect triptych that will ever hang on the walls of my memory); Pachmann, the perfectionist; d'Albert, the little giant; Rosenthal, a great artist, and that brace of fiery temperaments, Fanny Bloomfield-Zeisler and Teresa Carreño. If anybody has aught to say against these names, let them now say their say or forever after hold their morceau.
50If you want fault finding, why I can do my share. I did not like the berceuse at Paderewski's hands; the child in the cradle was too large and altogether too healthy an infant; nor does he play the etudes with the sapiofinesse I have heard from others. His mannerisms are pronounced; he often arpeggiates chords; he generally takes the top note of an arpeggio with the left hand (I suppose his little finger is not strong on the right hand); his left hand work is not always clear. I didn't like the delivery of the opening theme of the Schumann concerto; I have heard the E flat Beethoven better played; he takes liberty with tempi, often plays too much rubato, is more poetic than scholastic, loves the spirit and not the letter of the law (which killetth)—in a few words, is a human being, pedals perfectly and is thirty-one years of age. He plays those gorgeous avalanches of tone, the Liszt rhapsodies, as I never heard them before (I don't care whether he suits the Lisztianer or not), and really makes of them what they are—Magyar rhapsodies. Matthew Arnold wrote of Theophile Gautier that he began in a church and ended in a tavern. So does Liszt's crazy, fiery, intoxicating music. And now a truce to piano playing and Paderewski. Go listen to him and be thankful you have ears.
52I met Jacques Friedberger the other day—"Jake," as I still irreverently call him—and he told me about his Western tour with De Vere, Campanini and Wilczek. When giving a concert in Cleveland Friedberger's turn came to play, and he stalked out on the platform (you know his stalks are rather stilted), and, bowing to the audience, turned to the piano and sat down—on the floor. No chair had been placed before the instrument. Now, most pianists would have told you as a capping climax, "And do you know, my dear sir, my performance that night was the best in my long career before a suffering public." Not so modest Mr. Friedberger, who added, "and I never played so rotten in my life," thereby telling the truth and giving me a welcome shock, for pianists are supreme egotists, as a rule. Friedberger is a talented boy all the same and his frankness is delightful; yet it lands him sometimes in queer places. It was at a Seidl concert, and he, on seeing handsome Laura Schirmer in a box, remarked enthusiastically to a friendly bystander: "Ain't she a daisy? That's Laura Schirmer. She is a beauty I tell you!"
53A tall, soldierly gentleman who stood next to Mr. Friedberger was highly edified at the admiration, genuinely sincere as it was, that his wife's beauty wrung from the ardent young pianist. When I told him next day that Col. Henry Mapleson was his neighbor his face was a study in double sixths.
55Pachmann, who has had great success in the West, has a novel interpretation of Schumann's "Vogel als Prophet." When he reaches the last bar he wafts gently in the air instead of playing it on the keyboard, remarking to the breathless audience, "Ze birtt has fleed avay."
57Technic has reached such perfection on the piano that the aspiring young pianist must be in despair. As for me, I simply am not in it. I am now studying with a view to becoming a foremost virtuoso on the hypodermic syringe. Think of performing bichloride of gold fantasies on a large and intelligent audience of jags. What truly fin de siècle pleasure.
59The funny man on "Truth" has been to see Mr. Abbey, with the following results:
60Mr. Henry E. Abbey has many interesting things to say about his selection of operatic works for the coming season. "The essential," he remarks, "is to choose such operas as will not distract the attention of the audience from the chatter in the boxes."
61"Was that why Wagner failed?" I asked.
62"Assuredly," said Mr. Abbey. "Enthusiastic Germans wanted to hear the music. People of fashion wanted to chat. Hence the hisses, protests and ultimate confusion."
63"Will Italian operas promote conversation?"
64"If properly selected," said the impresario. "Donizetti provides an excellent accompaniment for light, rattling, breezy gossip. Bellini's style suits a mild flirtation. Verdi, more passionate, means proposal, courtship, marriage. You will be surprised how many fashionable engagements will be announced after our Verdi nights."
65"But how about the fathers of the family, the old gentlemen who snore at the back of the box?"
66"I have given careful attention to their wants," remarked Mr. Abbey.
67"I am doing Gluck's 'Orpheus' expressly with an eye to them. I understand that there is nothing more soporific in music. However, if the old gentlemen complain that it does not send them to sleep as quickly as the 'Meistersinger,' I have a line of antique operas in reserve which will act as a positive opiate."
69The latest news from Europe—Saint-Saens has composed a "caprice valse" for piano and string orchestra, and, horrors, calls it the "Wedding Cake!" Here is a chance for some local pianist to take this cake.
71The Chicago "Figaro's" young man is inflammable. Witness the following about our countrywoman, Emma Eames, as the scribe saw her in Chicago at the opera:
72I have nothing to say of Miss Emma Eames as a singer. That is the province of my confère, the musical critic. I have no hesitation in declaring, however, that all that vast building, in which was gathered, as the society reporter tells us, the flower of Chicago's beauty, contained no fairer, sweeter face than hers. An earnest, oval face with a complexion of satin; a dainty mouth of such exquisite shape that one blindly wonders how any breathing mortal can play "Lohengrin" to her "Elsa" with her husband looking on and not go out and hang himself after the mock love making is over; pomegranate lips parting over dazzling teeth in a series of smiles so heavenly as to numb the beholder from his head to his heels, leaving him conscious of nothing but a vague impression that he is being borne away through the clouds in a silver chariot to a land of limitless music, roses and wine; soft, dark eyes that change their shade with every varying emotion; a smooth, girlish brow, with a delicious coil of dusky hair at its summit; a figure slight, but—pah! Whip me with scorpions, somebody, and wake me up! The veriest chappie who waits in the alley for a glimpse of the coryphées, methinks, would not be guilty of more insensate ravings than this. And yet—and yet there is something in a face like this singer girl's (for girl she is in her looks, whatever lie her birth certificate may tell to the contrary) that sweeps away the mist of the years as the sunrise dissipates the dew, and by the spell of its perfect purity and repose awakens in a soul long since dead to emotions of any sort the memory of days when it was not a bore to be enthusiastic. And when such a face is allied to such a voice—besmew me, sirs, but the combination is irresistible!
73The merry, merry "jag" doth still obtain in the Windy City, I do notice.
75If I don't stop I'll get the heart disease. I overheard a woman in the big rush at the Paderewski matinee last Saturday tell a friend that the big elevator that went up so slowly was "carrying Paderewski's technic and"—
76[Note by the slugging editor.—Dr. Anthropoid thinks that the "Raconteur" had better remain in a dark room for several days, avoid all piano recitals and the pronunciation of Polish proper names, as there seems to be some danger of cerebral lockjaw].
78Gilbert and Sullivan Again.—London, November 28.—Although the reconciliation between Sir Arthur Sullivan and Mr. Gilbert is happily complete, it is stated that the famous collaborators have decided to allow a considerable period to elapse before setting to work upon a new opera for the Savoy. One of their principal reasons for this is that they think it only fair to give a long start to the opera written by Messrs. Gilbert and Cellier, which will soon be brought out at the Lyric. Another is that Sir Arthur has first to write his promised cantata for the Leeds Festival of 1892, the subject of which has only just been decided upon. Finally, in the face of the crowds which overflow the Savoy every night, there seems no necessity for thinking about a successor to the "Nautch Girl" for many months to come.
79The attempt of D'Oyly Carte to establish genuine national opera at the Royal English Opera House has resulted in failure. His production of Sir Arthur Sullivan's "Ivanhoe," of which much was expected, involved him in a loss of over $100,000. The opera was produced in conjunction with "La Basoche" at first, but Mr. Carte was compelled to suddenly withdraw Sir Arthur's work and to break his engagements with the artists he had employed. The singers and others who were to appear in "Ivanhoe" were also heavy losers. They had waited in practical idleness for three months for a re-engagement by Mr. Carte which lasted only a fortnight.
80In theatrical circles the fiasco at the Royal English Opera House is attributed to the necessity of having a double cast of first rate artists, and the very heavy expense thus entailed, it requiring large sums of money to meet the large salaries now in vogue among the members of the operatic profession. Mr. Carte is now negotiating with the artists with the view to securing their services at reduced salaries. If he succeeds in this the theatre will probably reopen.—"Recorder."
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