MADAME CARRENO.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2142, 26 July 1907, Page 1

MADAME CARRENO.

THE QUEEN OF PIANISTS HER FIRST RECITAL IN DUNEDIN.

A note from the veteran musician and manager, Herr Benno Scherek, encloses clippings relating to the opening recital in Dunedin on July

17th by tho world-famous piuuisto, Madame Carreno. The success attained with the Southern audience seems to have been instantaneous and complete. The Otago Daily Times says: “Madame Carreno gave her first

Dunedin recital at His Majesty’s Theatre last evening in the presence of a large audience, and achieved an immeasurable success. Report, lavish as it has been, has not endowed her witn a single gift too many. She is truly a magnificent artist, a musician of arresting powers, a memorable

personality. Unquestionably last evening’s recital at His Majesty’s Theatre will rank as one of tho ve.r highest of the musical events which

have taken place in this city. It may he that musicians of the very

highest attainments and genius occasionally suffer a certain penalty of greatness,-hilt there is that about the art of such a pianist as Jtadame Carreno that must inevitably appeal, not to a limited class of the musicallyeducated only, but to all in whom musical .appreciation has the faintest glimmerings. The musician who can roust a Dunedin audience to great enthusiasm has, as experience has shown, achieved something of a feat. Madame Carreno carried her audience irresistibly with her from the outset, and throughout a programme of delightful variety and excellence he'd her hearers spell-hound by the

magnetism of her playing, and the still intensity of the attention accorded her, the manner in which the audience hung upon the notes of the music, was a compliment even more speaking than its vociferous plaudits. It happens that lime. Carreno is a danist, but whatever instrument she •sitl chosen upon which to express hoi self she must still have been a great artist. . To hear her in such a )r(.gramme of music as she oontrijp.tcd last evening is no small part of a liberal education itself, and if it represents the unattainable and Ultima Thule to the average student of

music it is in the nature of the indispensable lesson. A pianist of suerlative powers, of astonishing virility and superb technique, Mine. Carreno is yet a wonderfully sympathetic player, and has an eloquence of touch

tl.as: is little short of a revelation. Her executive brilliancy alone and

lnr crisp, strong, unerring touch would not allow her to .play as she does upon the susceptibilities of her hearers, hut she combines, as the ■really great artist must, mechanical perfection with the insight that makes music live. Her treatment is

n.it merely of tlie punitive order. In a 1! the schools of music represented in her programme last evening Mine. Carreno seemed equally to excel. She began with the famous “Sonata appassionato ” of Beethoven, and probably no reading of this great work ever given previously in this city has be 1 . characterised with an equal insight or so uniformly elevated _ a conception. The restraint marking the interpretation was one of its noticeable features, yet the whole performance vibrated with feeling. It represented the attainment of tlio happy mean between insipidity and meaningless frenzy. The opening movement was worked up to its climax with immense power, while the andante was infinitely graceful and tender. The finale was one of those masterly interpretations that leave an ineffaceable impression. It roused the audience to great enthusiasm,

n 1 was superbly vigorous and impet-

uous in character. To hear Mine. Cgrreno a few minutes later cx-poi-nding the poetry of Chopin was to marvel at her versatility, for nothing could have boon more sympathetic and full of the pure witchery of melody than the ‘Prelude’ and the ‘Nocturne.’ ” Madame Carreno is to give a re-

cital at His Majesty’s on August 20, and it is evident from the above that local music-lovers have an exceptional treat in store.