THOUGHTS ABOUT MUSIC

Evening Star, Issue 20987, 29 December 1931, Page 3

THOUGHTS ABOUT MUSIC

[By L.D.A.]

“ Music gives tone to the universe, wings to the wind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything.”—Plato.

After a long interval Paderewski has recently -appeared in London, and, according to newspaper reports, ho has been lamenting the demolition of the old St. James Hall, Piccadilly, wherein he made his debut before British audiences, and which was the scene of so many of his subsequent triumphs. The substance of his remarks in this connection seems to bear out the opinion hazarded by me with reference to the same subject. A while ago I pointed out the curious paucity of convenient concert halls in London. For the purpose of instrumental recitals there is at present no auditorium comparable with the vanished St. James Hall-now but a name to the present generation and but a memory to others. Queen’s Hall approaches it most nearly in point of seating capacity, but is somewhat too large for piano recitals;, also its acoustic properties arc by no means perfect. On the other hand, such halls as the Wigmoro, the Grotrian, and so on, are too small for artists of international rank, and although there are performers—Paderewski is one of them—who could, and do on occasion, fill the 10,000 seats of the Albert Hall, concerts in that vast building can never be artistically satisfactory on account of the persistent and ineradicable echo. * * ■» * It is a singular reflection that London, with its enormous musical population and interests, either cannot or will not see the necessity of constructing an up-to-date concert hall that will just hit the happy medium and fill all requirements. One paramount difficulty would be, of course, the acquisition of a central site—by central 1 mean sufficiently adjacent to the reputed area of the intelligentsia, and in this respect above all the defunct St. James Hall was admittedly unique. No more admirable situation for a building of this sort than the middle of Piccadilly could be iriiagined; but there was something else about that particular hall which could never attach to any modern struc-ture,-no matter how convenient and perfect from every other point of view —its imperishable artistic associations—and most probably this was the main reason of Paderewski’s lament. The demolition of this theatre of cherished tradition could be excusable only on the ground of urgent necessity, and in the light of recent information on this point I fear I did the perpetrators an injustice. It now appears that the old building was deemed unsafe owing to continual boring underneath, a peculiarity of London architecture on valuable property space being the propensity for underground delving in contrast with New York’s habit of soaring aloft.

Beneath the main concert hall was a smaller chamber, for many years sacred to the Moore and Burgess Minstrels of ecstatic juvenile memory. Below that again were a restaurant and several large kitchens, which in their turn were undermined by one of the subterranean railways that are a feature of London transport. And when we learn further that all these enterprises were embedded in an unstable strata of earth (an ancient quicksand, to be precise, which in early times formed the foreshore of some forgotten stream) wo can scarcely be surprised at the anxiety felt by the municipal authorities for the safety of the whole building. But, making every allowance for the necessity of reconstruction, I can never forgive the cupidity—l nearly wrote stupidity—that permitted the erection of a hostel on this historic site. Why could not another concert hall of similar dimensions have been included in the plans? 1 fear it was only another example of that British indifference to the sanctity of tradition which, in recent times has become all ton common. , Could we really expect a community which allowed Battle Abbey to be converted into a girls’ school to recognise the inviolability of a mere concert auditorium?

However, financial considerations must inevitably enter into and dominate all spheres oP structural activity; and there can be little doubt, as between a concert hall and a modern palatial hotel, regarding the comparative value of investment. The original St. James Hall is said to have cost over £120,000 at a time when not only was building much cheaper, but when money had double the value of to-day. So it is probable that an up-to-date hall on the same site at the present time would entail an expenditure of at least half a million; even in 1905, when St. James Hall was demolished, the cost might have proved prohibitive. But it is certain that from the disappearance of this famous landmark England lost musical prestige. Perhaps when, if ever, the Old Country regains marine, comfnereial, and financial supremacy, musical considerations may again come into own.

Another item of interest to musicians in connection with the great Polish pianist’s reappearance in London was the fact of his playing some items that had not figured on his programmes since his first London season, forty years ago. Amongst these was the Chopin B minor sonata, a work rarely performed by any pianist owing presumably to its technical difficulty. Although not conforming strictly to the classical model, Chopin’s two sonatas — there is a third which is negligible—-are works of intense melodic beauty, power, and charm. Most concert-goers are familiar with the so-called ‘ h uncral March Sonata,’ but, to mt mind, it is much inferior musically to the B minor, in which there is a slow movement that I think stands alone in sheer loveliness. I am patiently waiting for one of the great pianists to give us a gramophone record of this sonata, also of the same composer’s ‘ Allegro do Concert, deemed by many good judges to be Chopin’s finest work. « « • • The sonata has been recorded, of course, bnt not convincingly ; perhaps it is not too much to asert that only a Horowitz, or a Lhovinno, could do full justice to both of the above-mentioned compositions. And, talking of Horowitz, I believe it were equally not wide of the mark to call him the world’s greatest pianist to-day—at least, from the aspect of technique, the rest remains to be seen, or heard. Nothing so astonishing has been recorded as tins artist’s three of four contributions to the gramophone repertory. In Europe, Horowitz is to-day acclaimed as the legitimate successor of Liszt; even Bachmaninoff is reported to have said that “ until ho hoard Horowitz he did not know what perfect technique was. » • • • Horowitz seems to have mastered the secret of that apparent impossibility the power of playing very rapid passages

with an absolutely staccato touch. The result is simply electrifying, as any hearer can learn for himself. Nor have I heard such octave playing since the palmy days of Moriz llosonthal. There are some truly wonderful pianists before the public to-day—Josef Lhevinne, Walter Gieseking, Arthur Rubinstein, and many others, including the great Rachmaninoff himself; but it seems quite clear that in the matter of executive brilliance Vladimir Horowitz stands on a pinnacle alone, remote and unassailable; the no plus ultra of keyboard magicians, a veritable Colossus among lesser giants. And his age is but twenty-three!