VISITING PIANIST

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21273, 29 August 1932, Page 10

VISITING PIANIST

M. PAUL VINOGRADOFF MASTERLY PERFORMANCE GIVEN A rare musical treat was enjoyed by a small audience which attended the second and final concert by M. Paul Vinogradoff, the eminent Russian pianist, in the Town Hall concert chamber on Saturday evening. The artist's masterful' playing of a series of pianoforte classics, his sympathetic interpretation and marvellous technique, captiyated his audience. It is to bo regretted that such an undoubted master was. not given a more cordial reception by Auckland lovers of good music, the majority of whom lost an opportunity of hearing a. pianist of first rank. Tho opening number, the Bach-Busoni chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, was handled brilliantly, and served to illustrate M. Vinogradov's superb technique. This was followed by Beethoven's Sonata in A Flat, a work infrequently heard in comparison with several of Beethoven's other sonatas, but interesting in view of the contrasting styles in each of the five movements. Three of Chopin's greatest works, tho Fantasia in F Minor, the Nocturne in F Sharp, and the.. Sonata in B Flat Minor, followed, and with these M. Vinogradoff scored perhaps his greatest success of the evening. The sonata, typical of Chopin's eccentric, but magnificent style, was superb, the player rising to great heights with the majestic solemnity of the funeral march. An entirely different was struck in the concluding items, which included fivo studies by Scriabin, the Poem in F Sharp by the same composer, and Liszt's Mephisto Waltz. The Scriabin studies, cosmic in their conception, were outstanding. Encoro items were M. Vinogradoff's own arrangement of Chopin's Valse, Op. 64, a particularly effective work, and the tinkling La Campanella (Paganini-Liszt), which was a final example of brilliant attainment in tecliniqup.