Scan 6
Musical Courier 1906-08-22: Vol 53 Iss 1378, 1906
24 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1OBSERVATIONS
3piano also influenced Paderewski, for he was sure that Rosenthal would never risk his reputation or his power of interpretation on a piano not conformable with the aesthetic demands he makes. He could not do it. Artists of a certain calibre know that they would become infirm by attempting a performance on a piano that does not embrace their sympathies and their temperament—which may be the same thing.
5Touch is, after all, temperament. Unless the touch of a piano finds its response the player cannot do justice to himself on that particular piano although he may have found fifty other pianos of the same make acceptable. At times it is not the manufacture but the individual instrument; again it is entirely a question of make or brand. The question of touch is to a great degree also a question of individual piano touch and action regulation; but only to a degree because as a principle every firm has its own special touch which is a part of its system of construction and some firms cannot deviate from it. Others again are flexible in their theories and can accommodate their piano touch to the demands of an artist but there is always a risk involved because the tone becomes affected or modified or the carrying volume may degenerate or the general equilibrium between touch and tone, as originally outlined, may through the dislocation vastly affect the whole piano tone values. And these are the very essence of quality, these tone values in an artistic grand piano. They depend fundamentally on the scale, that is on the principle of relative values and their graduated distribution. These relative values are therefore deep down in the piano soul; they are to be seen—yes, seen at times but only furtively because they do not come to the surface. I mean of course, the draft of the scale. Not much can be seen and nearly every draft looks well—every accepted draft—. I may say it is nearly possible to make it an axiom by saying that the scale depends upon the principle of relative values.
7These values find their expression through the action and the subtleties of the action mechanism are brought into activity—hence the name action—through the nature and character of the blow and the blow is the other end of the touch. The touch principle must be under the same control as the scale and action principle; it must be one principle. All of this together—scale, relative values, action mechanics, blow and motor—which is touch, otherwise moving force, must be one idea. From brain to string through finger, key, lever, and hammer must be one idea in the artist player as it certainly must be in the artist maker.
9Therefore it is impossible for some makers of artistic pianos to change or regulate their touch to suit certain pianists, without vague suspicions that a great injustice to the piano must necessarily result from this. It is like all infringement upon the sacred rights of principle.
11Knabe—Saint-Saëns
13In the very midst of all this piano commotion in Europe—and it has been red hot this year—the house of Knabe quietly assimilated within its sphere the genius of Camille Saint-Saëns, one of those few great master minds that embrace not only all the mysteries of the piano play art, but that stand out in clear relief as an immortal among composers, dissociated from the usual comparisons made between interpreting piano virtuosi. It was a magnificent piece of art work in itself, this move of the Knabe house, for it will identify it this coming season, after all the glare and confusion of the rival conductors has also passed away, with a figure in the music of to-day that will add immense prestige to the name of the firm. Saint-Saëns is one of the few great composers of our contemporary period. Grieg, Goldmark, Richard Strauss—is there another of equal height?—are the names now mentioned with Saint-Saëns among the living, but I believe the world accords to the great Frenchman the highest honors, Strauss being too young to compete on the basis of renown. And in this connection let us remind the world of music that the Knabe house was also identified with bringing to America another immortal—Tschaikowsky—who would never have gone to our shores without the practical support given by the Knabe house.
15The culture of Saint-Saëns in the United States has not been neglected and his concertos, chamber music, piano works, operas, organ works and miscellanies constitute a literature not unknown to the hosts that follow the standard of the legitimate. His presence will therefore awake the keenest interest.
17Gab.
19OUR people are in the habit of abbreviating the names of their favorites and there are thousands of musical people who call Joseffy "Jo" while Paderewski is usually called "Paddy." For some years past I have heard musicians refer to Gabrilowitsch as "Gab." His engagement for America comes in good time and the announcement pleased a great contingent of people who remember his scholarly work with an appetite looking for more of it. Gabrilowitsch maintains his student atmosphere although he has long since passed out into the large world of mastership wielding a command of technical and interpretative skill that places him among the reigning authorities of the keyboard. His student nature is an expression of his poetic proclivities and does him the greatest honor, for it also signifies the eternal desire for advancement. He who loses that keen appetite for more knowledge and who "knows it all" has already passed down on the other side of Parnassus, even if he reached near the top, and is, what we call, a "has was." Gabrilowitsch will play—lucky fellow—the Mason & Hamlin grand piano, and when he does play it musical people will hear a tone quality that will show how the piano art is advancing.
21The inner operations of a great piano factory are a mystery to the world of music; to penetrate that mystery is nearly abortive unless one can appreciate the combination of sciences that are requisite to make an artistic instrument and the alliance between science and art that produces it. One Richard W. Gertz has thrown his artistic soul into the production of the Mason & Hamlin piano and I must make mention of his name, not only because he is a great man in tone making but because he is a great artist also.
23We cannot afford to permit the names of such men to remain in obscurity any longer, these ardent natures that throw their whole lives into the creation of an aesthetical reality such as a formidable grand artistic piano represents. Men like Gabrilowitsch who know the power of intelligence, the delicacy of feeling, the profundity of knowledge and the love of art that actuates such an artist as Gertz are the very men that appreciate the fact of the publicity of the fact.
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