For any blind listeners who may have been in St. James's-hall yesterday afternoon, or for those who had the self-restraint to keep their eyes averted from the performer, the recital given by M. Vladimir de Pachmann must have been an occasion of enjoyment, almost unalloyed, for as far as the ear was concerned his interpretative powers have seldom been better illustrated, and if he did not exhaust the emotional possibilities of Beethoven's sonata in C, op. 53, he gave a far more sympathetic reading of it than usual, and the effect of the whole was so good that it was easy to forgive the momentary failures of memory, of which there were several. Schubert's impromptu in A flat used to be taken in a far more sentimental style, but the companion work in F minor, in 3–8 time, was exquisitely played, and Mendelssohn's rondo capriccioso and A major barcarolle were given with the utmost delicacy and charm. Weber's "polacca brillante", made more vulgar by an introduction of Liszt's, completed the group of pieces, and the recital of course ended with a number of works by Chopin, in all of which the player was heard to advantage, notwithstanding certain slight textual liberties which he permits himself. Unfortunately the player has established his position so firmly with the British public as a professional "funny man" that the majority of those who go to hear him are enabled to overlook the fact that he might have been in the highest rank of pianists if he had succeeded earlier in life in getting rid of those idiosyncracies of deportment and facial expression which, though they were no doubt unconscious in their origin, yet cannot fail to produce the effect of extreme affectation. It is only in connection with powers as fine as M. de Pachmann's that his tricks are to be regretted; with an inferior performer there would be nothing to prevent musical people from joining in the laughter of those around them. A Bechstein piano of remarkably even tone was used with excellent effect.