MUSICAL GENIUS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21521, 19 June 1933, Page 11

MUSICAL GENIUS

"POVERTY ESSENTIAL" ,

HUNGER AND A SMALL ROOM

OPINIONS OF VISITOR

"To play great music you must start when you are poor; a rich student will never be successful," Such was the opinion expressed by Mr. Edmund Kurtz, the 24-year-old musician, a member of the famous Spivakovsky trio, on his arrival yesterday from Rotorua. The three young men, Jascha and Tossy Spivakovsky and Kurtz, all of whom rank as geniuses in the musical world, were tired after what they called their "autocar" journey, yet as soon as dinner was over, they retired to separate rooms, turned to piano, violin and cello, and practised diligently for two hours before going to bed.

The elder of the two Spivakovsky brothers, Jascha, is making his second visit to New Zealand, which he first toured 11 years ago as a solo pianist. Tossy, the violinist, has not been heard in Auckland yet except on the gramophone, but he has made about 50 records and is still only 25 years of age.

Mr. Kurtz is the cello player. He started to learn English for the first time three months ago and is now surprisingly efficient. He learned music from Klengel in Leipzig and Alexanine in Paris and is famous for the new cello technique which is .claimed to make the instrument as musically adaptable and versatile as the violin.

"There is only one way to learn music and that is to shut yourself in a little room and go hungry," he said. Paris is full of impoverished young students, drawn from every corner of the globe, and that is where great players and composers are being made. Berlin, too, has its musical world, but it is difficult because so many of the students there have money. That means cafes and cinema when they should be practising."

He added that once when he was studying he went to a sleepy Alpine village, rented a tiny room at the top of a hotel and practised hard for 10 hours a day. "It is the only way," he said. He joined the Spivakovskys two years ago and the day before their first important concert at the Hague they rehearsed continuously together for 14 hours—from 9 a.m. until 1 a.m., not counting two hours for meals. They did the same thing before their first big concert ip Berlin.

Mr. Tossy Spivakovsky was leader of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Furtwangler when he was 18 years of age. He has met every great orchestral conductor in the world and can speak authoritatively on every branch of musical study.