SLAVONIC GENIUS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21520, 17 June 1933, Page 10 (Supplement)

SLAVONIC GENIUS

' WORLD-FAMOUS MUSICIANS AMAZING PREDOMINANCE What is it that gives the Slavonic peoples such outstanding ability in the realm of musical performance? A case in point is the Spivakovsky-Kurtz trio, who will be heard in Auckland next week, but they are only three of an army of Slavonic musicians who can claim to have the artistic world at their feet. One has only to hear them play to realise that for sheer dynamic concentrated energy and force these people, when the music calls for such effort, are truly remarkable. There is something in their make-up which is absolutely forei'gn to the more reserved Westerner. There have been some very fine German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Austrian virtuosi, but these have been few and far between, whereas the Russian and Polish flood of tho last quarter of a century has given tho artistic world something to think about in the demesne of music. There hare been such giants as Sarasate .(Spanish), . Paganini (Italian), Rcmenyi (Hungarian), liusoni (Ital-ian-Germanic), Lamond (Scottish), Schnabel (German), d'Albert (German),. Liszt (Hungarian), Joachim (German), Cortot (French), Thibaud .(French), Casals (Spanish), Franck (Belgian), and Tartini (Italian), to mention but a few, but even these names are scattered through tho last half century, and all could be matched, and sometimes more than matched, by the comparatively , young* school of Slavonic luminaries in music's firmament who aro at present before the public. There is a regiment of them in America every season, some resident (now that their own countries have ceased to be either lucrative or comfortable), and others who make the world their playground. Almost every big orchestra in the United Statea is controlled by a Slavonic conductor, but the consideration is for outstanding performers. Among those who have this ability to delight audiences continually by their artistry, and whose names will be familiar to many, are Mischa Elman, Jascha Heiftez, the veteran Paderewski, Ignaz Friedmann, Efrcm Zimbalist, Mark Hambourg, Benno Moiseiwitsch, Brailovskv, Toselia Sicdcl, Sbura Chergassky, the Cherniavskys, Vladimir de Pachmann (who delighted London for nearly 40 years), Mischa Levitsky, Melsa, Jascha Spivakovsky and his brother Tossy, Edmund Kurtz, Rachmnninov, Wieniawskv, and Tausig. e With a few exceptions the abovenamed are still hard-working executants, and are but a fragment of the regiment of Russian and Polish artists who are in the first flight of performing musicians of the present day. It is interesting to note that almost invariably the musicians mentioned aro Russian Jews. In Russia suffering has ever been the badge of their tribe; and, perhaps, out of the tribulations of centuries of oppression has been engendered this great gift of musical expression.