Scan 4
Musical Courier 1907-11-20: Vol 55 Iss 21, 1907
16 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 5. See the scan on archive.org.
1REFLECTIONS
3ON PIANISTIC AND OTHER POINTS.
5There is a refreshing feeling actually visible all over the house when a pianist such as Rudolph Ganz is playing, and this is due to the masculinity, the virility of the style. Ganz proves that a pianist can control tone without pounding or brutalizing, and he furthermore proves that the quality of tone produced by elastic sinew is much more musical—is really the musical tone—than the forced, merely muscular tone issuing from bruised hammers. When he played the Grieg concerto last Sunday at the Symphony Concert at Carnegie Hall he not only demonstrated tonal science and the subtle art of piano touch, but he told us a straight, direct story from the land of the Vikings, and he told it with sentiment instead of the usual sentimentality that has helped to create a certain prejudice against the Grieg Piano Concerto. Ganz placed it back on its pedestal. The ultimate object, the artistic aim of piano playing, is not a demonstration of technical elaboration or movement or judicious muscular control, but the authority through these means of musical expression. Rudolph Ganz belongs to the express company of pianists; he is a musical expressionist and at the same time an impressionist, which he must be to play Grieg successfully. Did you notice the blending of tones in the first measures of the cadenza? That was northern impressionism on and through the piano, and how few artists ever reach that ideal ability by means of which only piano playing can be sincerely tolerated!
7He did a lot of things on Sunday with his grand piano. He made it a Klang poem, and then he rattled off the passage work with all possible dynamic shading, cutting out the phrases as clearly and as clean as a brilliant, and we could appreciate Grieg more than ever as a follower of the Schumann principle of putting substance into form, for Ganz delivered both. The whole character of the concerto was laid bare. There was no arpeggio slumping, but each chord stood out as a synchronous item. As Hans Breitman said, "Der vas bianio blaying."
9Mr. Damrosch is furnishing an educational scheme with his new series of concerts, and this should be recognized. On Sunday we had Villiers Stanford's very elegant and scholarly "Irish" symphony, and the presence here of Mr. Edward German, whose "Tom Jones" is being produced, enabled Mr. Damrosch to invite the composer to conduct his own native colored "Welsh" Rhapsody. Should anything Welsh, except a rarebit, be called a rhapsody? Those Eisteddfod musicians, like their precursors, the Druids, are not given to exotic expression such as the rhapsody recalls. Yet Mr. German's composition is well planned and modeled on the rhapsody theory, if such exists. He wanted freedom and he kept outside of the strict form, and he built on modern lines a very acceptable work. It is greatly to his credit.
11The "Peer Gynt" suite, No. 1, closed the concert. Mr. Damrosch gave a sane and lucid direction to this work, which made the Safonoff interpretation appear in its proper light—as a hallucination. If the Moscow conductor does not abolish his frenetic gyrations he might soon be named Is Silly Safonoff in place of Wasilly. What is this theory of conducting an orchestra with hands and fists and arms and jiu-jitsu maneuvers based on, anyway? I can only consider it as an evidence of genuine trueblue sensationalism introduced here for mere vulgar effect, and with a total disregard for the average intelligence of the New York concert goer. It must have a bad effect upon the artistic standing of the Philharmonic Society, which should appoint a committee to intercept Safonoff and demand a return to the usual amenities of the concert system. As it is progressing now, our Russian temporizer is centering the attention of the audience upon his physical usurpation and the indulging in a freakish method that very nearly approaches the operations of a mountebank. Mr. Safonoff no doubt considers all this as part of a musical principle, as a means to secure interpretation. Others think the contrary. He is entitled to his view and so are others to their view, and thus the wide divergences of opinion are again illustrated. But the Philharmonic Society must eventually become the sufferer.
13Two Pianists Interviewed.
15Herewith the differences of the nature and character of two pianists at present in this land of the brave and home of the chumps will be displayed. Two interviews will tell the story.
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