Scan 27
Musical Courier 1903-02-04: Vol 46 Iss 1193, 1903
40 lines. Read by computer on 22 September 2026. Printed page 28. See the scan on archive.org.
1ROGER-MICLOS' TRIUMPH.
3LAST night, Tuesday, Mme. Marie Roger-Miclos, pianist extraordinary from Paris, made her first American public appearance, with orchestra, before a fashionable and representative musical audience in the ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Mme. Roger-Miclos has been in this country for several weeks, and her appearances in social Washington, where she was entertained by President and Mrs. Roosevelt and many of the foreign ambassadors, were chronicled by the New York papers as an instantaneous and striking success. Naturally enough these reports had served to excite the expectation of our local musical world to the highest possible pitch.
5It was known here that Mme. Roger-Miclos was born in Toulouse, that she studied there at the Conservatoire, and carried off the prize when she was only ten years old. "A pianist of individuality," said Rubinstein, who heard her at this time. Offers for an American tour were refused by the prodigy's sensible parents, who took her to Paris and placed her in a class at the Conservatoire. There the little Marie spent several happy years of her artistic existence. A friend tells that the child was in the habit of drawing a long breath whenever she entered what to her seemed like a sacred edifice.
7"Think of it," Marie said to her friend, "I am allowed to study where the greatest French composers and pianists received their education." Little did the girl know then that her own name would one day be enrolled among the famous pianists of France. It was an omen of things to come, however, when Marie Roger-Miclos won the first prize two years after she had entered the institution.
9The Paris Conservatoire has indeed produced an astonishing number of the world's great pianists. Dourlen was the father of the French school of piano playing. And Dourlen's artistic lineage is one of musical blue blood. Dourlen was a pupil of Catel, Catel of Sacchini, Sacchini of Durante, and Durante of Alessandro Scarlatti! Dourlen produced Le Couppey, Herz and Marmontel, and of these three master pianists, the pupil descendants are Chaminade, Marie Jaell, Jacques Blumenthal, Henri Rosellen, Paladilhe, Pierné, Planté, Diemer, Risler, Dubois, Lavalee, Ketten, Lack, J. Wieniawski, Pugno, Ketterer, Bizet, Duvernoy, Guiraud, Berthe Marx and others too numerous for mention in this partial list. Mme. Roger-Miclos can look with pride upon the brilliant roll of her distinguished fellow pupils.
11Our pianist's first significant concerts were at the Conservatoire, and at the Concerts Colonne and Concerts Lamoureux. The success was such as to bring lucrative offers from foreign managers, and appearances quickly followed in London, at the Promenade Concerts, in Berlin, Dresden, Leipsic, Vienna, Brussels, Prague, Antwerp, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and The Hague. Everywhere Mme. Roger-Miclos won the approval of the public and the praise of the press. When after her tours she returned to Paris she was made a member of the French Académie, and she is today one of its directors of public instruction. Among the warm personal friends and ardent admirers of Mme. Roger-Miclos there have been such eminent musicians as Tschaikowsky, Dreyschok, Franck, Godard, Lalo and Lamoureux, and of living celebrities there are Massenet, Saint-Saëns, Grieg, Paderewski, Pierné, Joachim and Albani. In Leipsic Roger-Miclos was dubbed the equal of Sophie Menter and Carreño. The Monde Musical, of Paris, went farther and called her "The Empress of the Piano." Wherever she went her individuality carried the day. Rubinstein had spoken with prophetic instinct.
13This then is the artistic past of Marie Roger-Miclos, who faced her first American concert audience last night. Our digression was necessary in order to illuminate certain potent elements that were brought out in the playing of this essentially French product in pianism.
15As she stepped on the stage and the hum of conversation ceased, one thought seemed to be common in the minds of the large audience that gazed at Marie Roger-Miclos. A woman more regally beautiful, with features, poise, figure and dress more ideal in Grecian perfection of outline had never been seen on the concert stage of New York. She looked a figure from an Alma-Tadema canvas. She might have posed as an ideal Cleopatra. Bejeweled and robed in ineffable textures and embroideries, she might have suggested to some painter the seductive figure of Volila. With her feet shod in adder skin Mme. Roger-Miclos could fittingly impersonate Amestris weaving her spells of joy and pain "from Shushan toward Ecbatane"; or Sheba's Queen flinging her radiance on the glow of Solomon's festal court. Marie Roger-Miclos might be anything and everything that the imagination could dictate. Hers is the style of beauty that fires the poet and the painter. Statuesque, broad of shoulder, deep of chest, with liquid eyes, coils of marvelous raven hair wound tight about her shapely head, full, arched lips, and a strong, finely chiseled chin, Marie Roger-Miclos is a woman who would have won fame for her beauty had the gods not enriched her besides with the dower of music.
17The first piano number on the program of last night was Beethoven's C minor Concerto.
19The orchestral introduction over, Mme. Roger-Miclos runs the three rapid scales in C minor that mark the opening of her solo. The scales are smooth, crisp and rhythmical. One important point seems to be immediately established—the player is not nervous. These apparently simple C minor scales have often spelt disaster for a frightened pianist at the very outset of his performance. Resolutely and sincerely Mme. Roger-Miclos announces the martial theme, and with softer tone and more elastic lines the lyrical second subject. She is an artist given to perfection of detail. The turns are fincally correct as to rhythm and accent. The tones eloquent in the bass are made prominent but not loud. The scales are perfect. The French have long ago mastered the secret of prestissimo scale-playing and no French pianist has every played scales more crystalline or more fleet than Roger-Miclos. The concerto proceeds and the player retains her calm, confidence and polish. She is performing Beethoven's sunny C minor Concerto and there is no need for emotional display. Throughout the short orchestral interlude leading to the cadenza Mme. Roger-Miclos keeps her glance fixed on the keyboard. If she is aware that hundreds of opera glasses are studying her features, her demeanor does not betray it. Her poise is perfect. Then comes the cadenza, of very modern manufacture. Here we receive the first hint of latent energy and power, of temperament restrained. There are modern arpeggios, resounding left hand octaves, thirds and interlocked passages, all more suggestive of Liszt than of Beethoven. The cadenza is lacking in character and reverence, but it is played with sweep and power. A few more measures and the first movement is finished. The applause is strong, but within bounds. The audience is reserving its opinion. Mme. Roger-Miclos is compelled to bow several times.
21The tender Largo of the concerto is exquisitely done, revealing tone of exceptional and varied color. It is evident that the pianist has a marvelous pianissimo. It is like that of Emil Sauer—delicate yet distinct. And like Sauer, too, Mme. Roger-Miclos uses her pianissimo frequently, varying its quality with such skillful art that it never palls. In the Largo she has a chance to exhibit her clean cut trill, a cardinal technical virtue.
23The rondo is perfect in form, conception, outline, and performance. Happy and rollicking in spirit, Mme. Roger-Miclos is thoroughly en rapport with Beethoven's merry mood. The pace is fast—almost too fast for the orchestra—but there is no violence to rhythm and no disregard of the niceties of phrasing. The famous chromatic scales are played with dazzling purity, and the keynote of this movement, as of the other two, is reserve, artistic reserve. The head dominates the heart. And this is precisely how we Anglo-Saxons like our Beethoven. There is no mistaking the significance of the applause this time. It was an ovation. Wreaths and floral horseshoes and monster bouquets are heaped on the stage, and the audience does not rest until the artist has bowed her acknowledgments half a dozen times or more. * * *
25There followed three little orchestral tidbits, very much out of place on a serious program, and then Mme. Roger-Miclos came forth to do battle with the Saint-Saëns Concerto in G minor.
27As could be well imagined the French pianist was here in her particular element. She had played the Concerto for Saint-Saëns and her interpretation had received the master's sanction. In every measure of the work there were lively imagination, and spirit, and elan. The plastic introduction, in the manner of Bach, was given with broad and telling delivery. The sensuous B flat melody was phrased and colored with the taste and tonal resource of a vocalist. This is a fixed habit with madame. She has apparently been either a student of singing or a very keen and very musical observer. It is an example that some pianists might well follow. Too many of them phrase according to the exigencies of fingering and tempo. There were superb climaxes, carefully prepared and magnificently developed. Nothing was left to the inspiration of the moment. Mme. Roger-Miclos makes no such mistakes, for she is too good a musician. She moves with the music always and is first the interpreter and then the virtuoso.
29The scherzo was a shimmering study in carezzando, a silhouette, all web and woof. The lines were of hair, the colors were a mere suggestion. Fairy fingers could hardly have drawn an etching more deft and delicate.
31The finale, usually moderated into a fair allegro, was taken at the prescribed presto tempo. The technical hurdles were cleared with flying leaps. Big, bold and resolute was the short episode in weird chord harmonies. All bravour and brilliancy was the coda, forced to the utmost limit in speed and vehemence. A clever rearrangement of the last few measures gave a final opportunity for impressive wrist technic, and then came thunderous applause and the usual after concert communion between artist and audience. Mme. Roger-Miclos at once made it clear that she would play no encores, and thereupon the demonstrators allowed her to retire.
33It was more than a success; it was—much abused word—a veritable triumph.
35NOTICES FROM TODAY'S PAPERS.
37Following are the notices of Mme. Roger-Miclos debut, as published in the New York dailies this morning:
39An audience enormous in numbers and festal in attire gathered last night in the large ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in order to hear Mme. Roger-Miclos, a Parisian pianist. This hall is not the best place in the world in which to give a concert of the refined kind, and naturally enough the débutante was at a slight disadvantage on that account. She introduced herself with Beethoven's Concerto in C minor, and as far as could be judged from the back of the hall the performance sounded
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