M. de Pachmann's Recital
(London, Saturday 18 June 1898)
The third
recital of M. de Pachmann's series was given on Saturday
afternoon in St. James's-hall before a large
audience, a goodly proportion of which, to judge by
their behaviour, regarded the concert merely as a
source of amusement. The inevitable result of his many
mannerisms has already come about, and it is to be
feared that all his hearers, except a small minority,
miss the many fine points in his performances in their
anxiety to enjoy to the full the facial contortions which
seem inseparable from them. At the same time, the
player seems partly conscious of the existence of these
terrible drawbacks to his real success, for he has mitigated
them to some extent since his first recital this
year; but there are still far too many of them,
considering the genuinely artistic nature of much that he
does. The programme on this occasion was made up
of works of Chopin, in many of which M. de Pachmann
is still almost without a rival. The funeral march
sonata was given first, and was followed by the
F minor fantasia, played rather tamely; five preludes,
one of which was repeated in consequence of the
player having made a slight slip at first; two studies,
and specimens of the ballades, mazurkas, and valses; and
the polonaise in A flat closed the recital, and afterwards
the audience insisted on two encores, when the
mazurka in B flat was given with quite exquisite rhythm
and gradation of tone, and was followed by the valse
in A flat, into which were interpolated a good many
ornaments, most of them entirely superfluous.