Thirty Years of Musical Life in London, 1870-1900

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

296-7

text excerpt

The early summer of 1890 was to witness the  debut of the successor to Liszt and Rubinstein, of  the greatest of the fin de siecle group of great  pianists— Ignace Jan Paderewski. This event  created interest at the time among a very limited  circle. It was anticipated with curiosity only by  the critics and dilettanti who follow the trend of  musical events in Paris. For several months we  had been receiving vivid accounts of a young Polish pianist, “with a wonderful aureole of golden hair,” who executed miracles upon the keyboard,  who composed delicious minuets and played Chopin to absolute perfection. But London cares  little, as a rule, for what Paris thinks of new artists, and it displayed anything but a burning impatience to hear Leschetizky 's latest pupil. This  fact was sufficiently demonstrated by the meagre  audience which gathered at St. James 's Hall on the  9th of May for the first of the four recitals announced by the composer of “Paderewski 's Minuet”.  A more coldly critical assemblage perhaps  it would have been impossible to find. Not a  soupcon of magnetic current was in the atmosphere—not even the quickened pulse arising from  the anticipation of “sensational effects."   When M. Paderewski appeared upon the platform there was a mild round of applause accompanied by an undercurrent of whispering and suppressed murmurs that had evident reference to his  unwonted picturesqueness of aspect. The deep  golden tinge of his hair seemed to accentuate the  intense pallor of his countenance. One could  plainly see that he was nervous; but in those deep,  thoughtful eyes, in those firmly-set lips, in that  determined chin, one could read also the strong,  virile qualities of the self-contained, self-reliant  artist, already accustomed to conquer audiences  and to create magnetism in the most sterile space.  Exactly how he played that day— I mean, as compared with the Paderewski whose every mood was  by and by to become familiar— it is rather hard  for me to say. That he strove to be “sensational”  I do not believe now, though at the time it was  difficult to think otherwise. For surely his contrasts were startling in their violence, and the instrument fairly thundered under his execution of  a forte passage. At times there seemed to be no  restraint whatever. His magnificent technique  enabled him to give free rein to his impulse and  imagination, and laissez aller was then the word.  If you loved sensationalism in a pianist, here unquestionably was a virtuoso capable of providing  an unlimited quantity of it.  And such was the prevailing impression in the  minds of the aforesaid critics and dilettanti when  they left St. James's Hall that afternoon. 

excerpt from 'Thirty Years of Musical Life in London, 1870-1900' pp. 296-7 (454 words)

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1438444885260