Par 1 p.24 What a brilliant coterie of budding artists surrounded him: D'Albert, Urspruch, Geza Zichy, Friedheim, Joseffy, Rosenthal, Reisenauer, Grieg, Edward MacDowell, Burmeister, Stavenhagen, Sofie Menter, Toni Raab, Nikisch, Weingartner, Siloti, Laura Kahrer, Sauer, Adele Aus der Ohe, Moszkowski, Scharwenka, Pachmann, Saint-Saëns, Rubinstein — the latter not as pupil — Borodin, Van der Stucken, and other distinguished names in the annals of compositions and piano playing.

Par 2 p.60 Schumann did all he could by word and note, and today, thanks to Liszt and his followers, any other style of piano playing would seem old-fashioned. Occasionally an idealist like the p.61 unique de Pachmann astonishes us by his marvellous play, but he is a solitary survivor of a once powerful school and not the representative of an existing method. There is no gainsaying that it was a fascinating style, and modern giants of the keyboard might often pattern with advantage after the rococoisms of the idealists; but as a school pure and simple it is of the past. We moderns are as eclectic as the Bolognese. We have a craze for selection, for variety, for adaptation; hence a pianist of to-day must include many styles in his performance, but the keynote, the foundation, is realism, a sometimes harsh realism that drives to despair the apostles of the beautiful in music and often forces them to lingering retrospection. To all is not given the power to summon spirits from the vasty deep, and thus we have viewed many times the mortifying spectacles of a Liszt pupil staggering about under the mantle of his master, a world too heavy for his attenuated artistic frame. With all this the path was blazed by the Magyar and we may now explore with impunity its once trackless region.

Par 3 Modern piano playing differs from the playing of fifty years ago principally in the character of touch attack. . . .

Par 4 p.423 Poetic is a vague term that usually covers a weakness in technic. There are different sorts of poetry. There is the rich poetry of Paderewski, the antic grace and delicious poetry of de Pachmann. The Joseffyian poetry is something else. Its quality is more subtle, more recondite than the poetry of the Polish or the Russian pianist. Such miraculous finish, such crystalline tone p.424 had never before been heard until Joseffy appeared. . . .

Par 5 p.427 He [Paderewski] has not the technic of Rosenthal, nor that pianist's brilliancy and power; he is not as subtle as Joseffy, nor yet as plastic in his play; the morbid witchery of De Pachmann is not his; yet no one since Rubinstein—in America at least—can create such climaxes of enthusiasm. . . .

Par 6 p.429 The tricky elf that rocked the cradle of Vladimir de Pachmann—a Russian virtuoso, born in Odessa (1848), of a Jewish father and a Turkish mother (he once said to me, "My father is a Cantor, my mother a Turkey")—must have enjoyed—not without a certain malicious peep at the future—the idea of how much worriment and sorrow it would cause the plump little black-haired baby when he grew up and played the pianoforte like the imp of genius he is. It is nearly seventeen years since he paid his first visit to us [1890-1911?]. His success, as in London, was achieved after one recital. Such an exquisite touch, subtlety of phrasing, and a technic that failed only in broad, dynamic effects, had never before been noted. Yet De Pachmann is in reality the product of an old-fashioned school. He belongs to the Hummel-Cramer group, which developed a pure finger technic and a charming euphony, but neglected the dramatic side of delivery. Tone for tone's sake; absolute finesse in every figure; scales that are as hot pearls on velvet; a perfect trill; a cantilena like the voice; these, and repose p.430 of style, are the shibboleth of a tradition that was best embodied in Thalberg—plus more tonal power in Thalberg's case. Subjectivity enters largely in this combination, for De Pachmann is "modern," neurotic. His presentation of some Chopin is positively morbid. He is, despite his marked restrictions of physique and mentality, a Chopin player par excellence. His fingers strike the keys like tiny sweet mallets. His scale passages are liquid, his octave playing marvellous, but en miniature—like everything he attempts. To hear him in a Chopin polonaise is to realise his limitations. But in the larghetto of the F-minor concerto, in the nocturnes and preludes—not of course the big one in D minor—études, valses, ah! there is then but one De Pachmann. He can be poetic and capricious and elfish in the mazurkas; indeed, it has been conceded that he is the master-interpreter of these soul-dances. The volume of tone that he draws from his instrument is not large, but it is of a distinguished quality and very musical. He has paws of velvet, and no matter what the difficulty, he overcomes it without an effort. I once called him the pianissimist because of his special gift for filing tones to a whisper. His pianissimo begins where other pianists end theirs. Enchanting is the effect when he murmurs in such studies as the F minor of Chopin and the Concert study of Liszt of the same tonality; or in mounting unisons as he breathlessly weaves the wind through the last movement of p.431 Chopin's B-flat minor sonata. Less edifying are De Pachmann's mannerisms. They are only tolerated because of his exotic, lovely, and disquieting music.

Par 7 Of a different and a gigantic mould is the playing of Moritz Rosenthal. . . .

Par 8 p.432 . . . His [Rosenthal's] touch is crystal-like in its clearness, therefore his tone lacks the sensuousness of Paderewski and De Pachmann. . . .