EMINENT PIANIST

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 173, 23 June 1926, Page 11

EMINENT PIANIST

.WILHELM BACKHAUS, ON WAY TO ..AUSTRALIA. Herr Wilhelm Backhaus, eminent German pianist, whose name and fame are coupled with those of Padereswski, was accompanied by his wife when he passed through Auckland this week to fulfil concert engagements in Australia. In September, October and November of last year, Backhaus completed a successful tour of England and then went on to America. He also played in Havana. This is his first visit to Australia, and he is looking forward to it eagerly, ‘having been promised a good 1 time by friends he has in the Commonwealth. He expects to be there for two or three months, and will start his tour in Sydney, with ten recitals, in July. Backhaus first visited England when ho was sixteen years of age, and has been playing at Home intermittently for the last. twenty-five years, giving recitals each winter throughout the country and in America. He is a great friend of the New Zealand singer; Rosina Buckman, and was on tour with her in England. Ho thinks that some day ho might come out hero with her. Ho also had many tours with Madame Melba. On arrival at Auckland he was wearing, a tie pin she gave him as a token of her friendship. • Speaking of hife American experiences, the master said that tho most noticeable thing in the States was the manner in which the rich citizens wore taught.that it was their duty to spend thousands of dollars for tho furtherance of music by assisting orchestras, endowing schools of music, and so on. In America to-day, he said, there was a musical beginning to something great that might be achieved in ten or twenty years unless iazz killed the classics. He did not think that was possible, but he said that jazz was a force to bo contended with. In New Zealand, as in Australia, the pianist’s programmes will bo made up largely of selections from Beethoven, Chopin and Schumann. He is booked for Vienna in January next, and also has invitations to go to Russia, which is beginning >to recover sufficiently enough from the revolution to induce artists to go there. To show the progress made he said that Moscow already had a very big orchestra without a conductor.