FAMOUS VIOLINIST COMING

Evening Star, Issue 21216, 24 September 1932, Page 6

FAMOUS VIOLINIST COMING

SZiGETi RANKED AS KREISLER'S PEER Lovers of the best in music have a treat in stoi’o for them. An artist of the elect—young enough to have all the fires of enthusiasm and vigour, old enough to have acquired a mellow outlook—is to appear here. He is Josef Szigeti, the Hungarian violinist, who plays in Dunedin on October 12, 13, and „ , Ho was born in 1893 in Budapest; studied from the age of six with his great countrvman Hubay, and later with Joachim; first appearance, when

13 years old, at the Royal Academy of his native city; subsequent appearances at Berlin and Dresden; in 1917 he made his first bow in Queen’s Hall, London; he remained in England for nearly seven years, appearing continually in London and touring the provinces with Busoni, Backhaus, and Melba; Paris came in his Caesarean march; America had, of course, to follow, and since his first visit there in 1925 he has returned every year, playing to sold-out houses; finally he has just completed a tour of the Orient and Australia.

I Lave before me critiques of his playing from all the chief centres. No wild unbridled stuff this, no perfervid “ hot-gospelling.” It comes from such figures as Ernest Newman, Feruceio Bonavia, Eric Blom, and Constant Lambert in London, from all the great Continental Meccas of music, from the accredited American critics, and even from Tokio. The sum and substance of it all is that _ he, and he alone of living violinists, is to be reckoned with Kreisler and Casals. All agree about his amazing versatility. It would appear that he is equally at home with Bach and Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms, Bloch and Szymanowski. It is this remarkable trait of his, and his whole-hearted vindication of all that is best of the “ moderns ” (by which isn't meant the “ moderns ” of a generation), that should make him doubly acceptable. As instances of the esteem of his fellow-musicians, three modern, concerti (by Busoni, Hamilton Harty, and Casella), as well as other important works in the larger forms of Ernest Bloch, Bela Bartok, Darius Milhaud, Jeno Hubay, and the late Eugene Ysaye, were composed for and dedicated to him. He has appeared in concert with every orchestra in the United States, which alone speaks volumes—playing there and throughout Europe under such a bevy of first-rank conductors as to take the breath away. Of his many recordings for the gramophone two seem to stand out from all of their kind; Compton Mackenzie says of his reading of Bach’s ‘ G Minor Sonata,’ “it is a miracle of lovely sound. I feel inclined to call this the best violin record I have ever heard while Carl Flesch, in his work ‘ The Art of Violin Playing,’ cites Szigeti’s Brahra’s ‘ Violin Concerto ’ as a criterion for coming generations. Comment is superfluous. Tributes from grateful scribes of all lands, the old and the now, speak glowingly of the philosophy of his playing, its mastery and insight, its lyricism (one indeed dubbing him a musical Keats). Tone, technique, and bowing captivate them all alike. The ‘ Monthly Musical Record,’ London, goes so far as to say that he “ simply cannot scratch or scrape.” He bears his honours (including those of Officer of the Legion of Honour, France, and Officer’s Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit) with equanimity. Quite the reverse of the showman, the quiet dignity and almost remoteness of his platform manner is ideal; it is all in favour of the music, which, after all, is what the music-lover wants.

If, as he has hitherto done, he adheres to his policy of including in his programmes not merely the great classics and the best that the last century has to offer, but also the output of men now in their heyday of active creation, under what obligations shall we not be to him I

Szigeti brings with him his permanent accompanist, the 20-year-old Prince Nikita Magaloff, of whose work the critics speak in terms of high praise.