M. de Pachmann's Recitals
(London, Saturday 24 May 1902)
Hardly more
than a brief record is required of M. de Pachmann's last
pianoforte recital of the season in St. James's-hall on
Saturday; for the pianist essayed nothing new, and
played only familiar works with the remarkable facility,
fluency, and delicacy which are characteristic of him.
Weber's sonata in A flat is shorn at his hands of its usual
tendency to dulness, and Bach's Italian concerto was given,
as he has often given it, with a sense of romance that is
absence from most pianists' Bach. Schubert, Mendelssohn,
Schumann, and Chopin, were administered in
small doses with ready deftness and with complete
enjoyment to pianist and audience. It is all very
well for M. de Pachmann to request his audience to be
serious as he did on Saturday. The scenes of which he
was the hero render seriousness a difficult matter.
Still, there is so much seriousness—not to say
solemnity—in concert-rooms nowadays, that preliminary
frivol does little harm; and after all, there is no reason
why a great pianist should not enjoy the music he plays
as well as the audience to whom he plays it.