by F. W. Gaisberg
Par 1
The modern process recordings of Vladimir de
Pachmann (we always called him simply "Pappy")
were all made when past his seventy-eighth year.
He gave up travelling and giving
recitals during the last five years of his life.
The routine of concert tours had become a
habit and the fact that he lived happily for
five years after his retirement is a great
tribute to the care and love of the Pallotelli
family, with whom he lived at the Villa Jojia,
Fabriano, near Rome. Pallotelli first came to
de Pachmann as a pupil, remained with him
in the capacity of manager and secretary and
finished by adopting him when one by one
the old gentleman's sons and relatives
disappeared and he was left alone.
Par 2
I remember when Landon Ronald first
brought him to the City Road Studio, as a
short, stubby man just sixty years of age but even
then a Pagliaccio who amused us with his total
lack of seriousness and strong desire to make
us laugh. He started on the long Paraphrase of
"Rigoletto," forgetting the stopping place and
losing himself in the performance. Of course he
wrung his hands and stamped his feet when he
had to re-play the piece and generally felt
sorry for himself.
Par 3
Usually pianists are sober people and
especially in the recording room they are
serious, heaving a sigh of relief at the end of
each performance. Not so de Pachmann. He
liked to extract every ounce of fun out of the
job and looked beaming at the end, waiting to be
patted on the back and called "Good Pappy."
Par 4
He was aIways a light player, after the
French school, and it is no wonder his pre-war
records were not astonishingly good. That old
process needed more power behind the
fingers. For the same reason his delicate touch
made beautiful records when recorded by the
electrical process introduced in 1925.
Par 5
After the war he was active principally in
America, where he had an important contract with
the Baldwin Piano Company to use only their
instruments. Through their intensive sales drives
and associating great names like de Pachmann with
their product, Baldwin pianos were sold in great
quantities and were known all over the States.
They manufactured just for him a shallow light
touch instrument, which they transported from
town to town, complete with piano tuner and
publicity man. They formed a merry gallery to
"Pappy" and his pranks. In the autumn of each
year they usually struck London, and Lionel
Powell would secure an apartment in Great
Portland Street for their three months sojourn.
Here the little man, assisted by Pallotelli, enjoyed
being host, eager to play
or give an impromptu lesson. He would show
how his short, thick, stubby hand
could barely span a tenth and how he fingered a
difficult passage and played those rippling scales.
In this respect Josef Hoffman and Moriz
Rosenthal resemble him, both having small hands
and playing on specially constructed pianos to
accommodate this handicap. Their forsaking the
standard studio piano causes worries to
the recording engineer, who has to carry out a
whole new series of experiments and
studies before satisfactory records are
achieved.
Par 6
Especially merry were the suppers that
followed each of de Pachmann's Queen's Hall
concerts. Lionel Powell the impressario and
Arkel the accountant would be present in high
spirits, which the invariably sold-out house
stimulated. Then "Pappy" would beam on us
while retaining his place as the centre of
attraction. Here the standing joke was the
empty place consecrated to a mythical
Madame Kaplatsky, to whom we were all
formally introduced, to whom toasts were
drunk and all disputes referred for "her"
decision. Whether or not she ever existed I
don't know, but we got a lot of fun out of the
hoax.
Par 7
Pallotelli was short, thick, voluble,
animated and energetic like his master and
made for him a good foil that kept the party
lively. He was the one who told me that de
Pachmann's first
wife was his pupil Maggie
Oakey ,
an Australian and very talented. There
were two sons both settled in France. After
divorce she married Labori the defender of
Dreyfus. De Pachmann's father was a Russian
(Odessa) and his mother a Turk born in
Odessa.
Par 8
I had often spotted Arkel in the platform
seats, close to the pianists Horowitz, Cortot,
Gieseking, Backhaus, de Pachmann. He was
one of their most faithful supporters and as he
nearly always occupied the same position
close to the left hand, a little in front, he must
have gone to a lot of trouble to secure well in
advance this favourite seat. After the recital he
never failed to go behind and join the group of
admirers who flock to that sort of informal
reception to greet the artiste. This is where I
first met him and learned from his eager
questions that he was simply an enthusiast
for the piano and pianists. Later I was to
discover he was himself no mean performer. I
lost track of him for many years but casually
met him again in the small XIV century cafe at
Winslow, when I was an evacuee from London
during the War. He regaled me with many tales
of his musical contacts. Dreamily he told me of
a business visit to Bradford in the early
twenties. A de Pachmann recital was
announced and going to the ticket office he
carefully selected his favourite seat near the
pianist, on the platform. To make sure that the
seat was correctly numbered he called at the
hall in the afternoon and entering the deserted
building he sought the platform and made
sure his seat was there. He then noticed that the
piano was in place — a beautiful Steinway grand.
Reverently he tried to lift the lid and, to his joy,
found it was unlocked. What a temptation, that
row of glistening white ivories; never in his life
had he played on a full-size grand. He played a
few arpeggios and chords. What a lovely sound,
what beauty of tone in that warm concert hall
whose vastness seemed to mellow the tones.
What a fortunate pianist to have at his disposal
so fine an instrument. No doubt it was placed
there by Barrow & Haslit, the big music dealers,
since in those days grands were not sent around
to towns but were procured by the concert
agents from the local dealer, and that is why it
had been placed on the platform and the lid not
locked. Not always were these local instruments
first class, more often they were a
disappointment to the visiting artiste.
Par 9
In a dream he left the hall, impatient for the
coming of the evening and the concert. Early he
took his seat in the crowded hall of expectant
people. The artiste was late, but after a silent
pause an altercation in the wings of the stage
became audiable .
A peevish, irritated voice with
a foreign accent was heard and a little dumpy
man backed out into the open, still haranguing
an unseen somebody in the wings, similar to
the entrance of the comedian Dan Leno in the
old Tivoli days. He stumbled and caught
himself in the rough boards of the platform.
"Yes, now I remember this rotten floor last year.
I told you to have it repaired — have it repaired
for me the great de Pachmann. You did not do
it. I am the great de Pachmann, why do you
treat the great de Pachmann in this way." All
this while still addressing the unseen and with
his back to the audience. Then, turning to the
public he threw them a surly nod and still
scowling he seated himself before the
instrument. A minute to compose himself and
he let his fingers caress the keys and then came
those few soft arpeggios and chords the de
Pachmann fans knew so well. It seemed to calm
him and Arkel heard him say "but the piano is
beautiful."
Par 10
The de Pachmann recital was to take place at
7.30, but the train arrived late at Bradford
station. Two excited little stout men rushed to
the entrance, preceded by a porter laden with
handbags. The passengers were de Pachmann
and his secretary Pallotelli, and the porter
dropped the bags and disappeared. As other
porters came along excitedly de Pachmann
would say to them "I am the great de
Pachmann, quick, get me a taxi or we will be
late for the concert!!" and they would rush
off in search of a conveyance. No taxi came and
still they waited, while from around the corner
swung a noisy steam-roller approaching in their
direction. Pallotelli said: "Pappy, here's your
taxi." De Pachmann angrily turned on him,
paused a while and then burst into laughter.
Par 11
He died at the Pallotelli's home five years
after his last English tour which took place
October, November and December, 1928.