Impressions That Remained Memoirs

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

128

text excerpt

Chopin's Sonata (the one with the Funeral March) came next. We read, in that Leipzig notice, how great his [Rubinstein’s] playing of Chopin is. It was the best thing of all. Totally different to everything else. The Funeral March — I have known it (or thought so) from childhood. Well, I tell you, (I won't tell anybody else, except perhaps my wife) I cried at it like a child! There! I felt that tears must come — I tried to keep them back, but back they would not be kept — they rolled down my cheeks. I can't tell you exactly what made them come. He played it with the most utter simplicity — and yet with such a hidden sort of depth. I think it was more the gradual crescendo than anything else which went so to one's heart. It was such utter perfection of gradualness. The thing seemed to come on and on, and grow and swell, in its simple depth of sadness.

 And it went away in the same manner. The passage which was fff when it first spoke, was, at the end, though still ff with reference to the rest, still soft and distant now; the long mournful cortege had, you see, passed on, and was lost in the distance. Nobody could move to applaud it. After the last echoes of it ceased to be distinguishable, he burst into the finale.

 Three times called on after this Sonata. Then four Etudes of Chopin's. […] The pace at which he took some of them was, almost incredible. […]

 He finished with several charming things of his own. […] The last, a Valse Caprice, was marvelous.

excerpt from 'Impressions That Remained Memoirs' pp. 128 (272 words)

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