PIANIST IGNAZ FRIEDMAN

Evening Star, Issue 24056, 1 December 1941, Page 5

PIANIST IGNAZ FRIEDMAN

ONE CONCERT IN DUNEDIN Ignaz Friedman, the Polish pianist, is at present making a farewell tour of the Dominion, and will give a recital for patriotic purposes in the Town Hall Concert Chamber on Tuesday, December 9. In the course of his last Australian recital tour an eminent critic wrote; “ It .would be safe to say that his Chopin performances have seldom been equalled anywhere during recent decades. Every effect of -wizardry to be found in Chopin’s music flows from Friedman’s fingers as though hy direct inspiration from the composer.” In the light of this graceful and enthusiastic tribute, Mr Friedman’s own views on Chopin are of considerable interest. Speaking of Chopin in an interview broadcast hy the National Broadcasting Service, just about a year ago, Mr Friedman said: “About 30 years ago I edited all the works of Chopin. For a long time the German musical critic was regarded as the decisive one. Because of this plenty of mistakes were caused in valuing anything which was not German music. For instance, very few people outside England have heard about the English composer, Purcell, who, in my opinion, is as great as Bach or Beethoven. The German critic is responsible for this deplorable fate. Owing to the same German critic, a great number of people conceived the wrong idea that Chopin w-as a ‘ drawing room ’ composer. As I pointed out in the foreword to the edition of his works, Chopin was a prophet, who anticipated things for the future, which only started to be realised about half a century after his death. In other • words, we find in Chopin gems of Wagner, the latest -1

Russian school, and Debussy. Chopin has in his palette as ma,ny dramatic and epic elements as sentimental and romantic ones, and is aH unsurpassable example of what Petronius used to call ‘ Arbiter elegantiarum.’ ”